COURTESY THE ARTISTS
The Ford Foundation has selected artists to support through its Art of Change fellowship program, which focuses on work by socially progressive artists. Recipients of the 25 fellowships receive $50,000 (or $75,000 for collectives) in unrestricted funds to create artwork to “help advance freedom, justice, and inclusion, and strengthen our democracy,” according to an announcement. The work will be exhibited at a showcase in late 2018.
Among the recipients of this year’s awards are the filmmaker Ava Duvernay, composer Mohammed Fairouz, and the multidisciplinary arts collective Postcommodity. In a statement, the Ford Foundation’s director, Elizabeth Alexander, characterized the fellows as “an extraordinarily diverse group of brilliant artists and innovators whose works embody social justice and enables them to come together and collaborate toward a more just and inclusive future.”
The full list of 25 fellows follows below.
- Luis Alfaro
- Mikhail Baryshnikov
- Camille A. Brown
- P. Carl
- Ping Chong
- Sandra Cisneros
- Edwidge Danticat
- Michelle Dorrance
- Gustavo Dudamel
- Ava DuVernay
- Mohammed Fairouz
- Nikky Finney
- Joy Harjo
- Samuel Hoi
- Robin Coste Lewis
- Deborah Luster
- Alicia Hall Moran and Jason Moran
- Dominique Morisseau
- Mira Nair
- Las Nietas de Nonó
- Postcommodity
- Lori Pourier
- Esperanza Spalding
- Carlton Turner
- Fred Wilson