Rocket Grants
R O C K E T
G R A N T S
VISION:
With support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Charlotte Street Foundation and the Spencer Museum of Art are partnering to fuel the dynamism of our region’s art ecology by providing direct support for innovative, experimental, artist-driven, and artist-centered projects. Rocket Grants will fund projects that exist outside of established institutions, occur outside of traditional forms of support, challenge traditional methods of production or presentation, add energy and diversity to the field of arts activity in our area, and provide opportunities for the creative growth of those involved. Elevating the presence of unconventional or under-recognized art forms is a strong priority for this grant program.
Rocket Grants will enable individuals and groups of artists to take new risks with their work, push the scope and scale of their activities, develop and pursue collaborative projects, and/or engage with the public and public realm in inventive and meaningful ways. In doing so, these Rocket Grants seek to create ripple effects, as artists, processes, and projects supported engage, inspire, and propel other artists; spark new ideas and ways of working; and contribute to a regional culture characterized by unconventional and expansive forms of interaction, exchange, provocation, and surprise.
ELIGIBILITY:
Artists, curators, collectives, collaboratives, partnerships, and artist-run spaces residing within an 80 mile radius of the Kansas City metropolitan area, including Lawrence, Kansas, are eligible to apply. If applying as a group, the artistic group can be long-standing or created specifically for this project. Please identify one participant to serve as the lead contact for the project. Non-profit organizations are NOT eligible.
DESCRIPTION:
These Rocket Grants will provide $40,000 in cash awards of up to $4000 each to area artists, curators, and writers, or groups thereof, to support the creation and presentation of new work/projects. Supported projects may include visual art, performance, film, video, new media, social practice and interdisciplinary projects. Performing artists are eligible to apply if their work includes a strong visual component/ involves meaningful collaboration with a visual artist or artists.
Projects must have a public life – i.e., they must engage and be made accessible to the public via process, presentation, production, or publication. Manifestations may include exhibitions, public art projects, public programs, events, performances, screenings, online projects, publications, residencies, programming of artist-run spaces, etc. Support for curatorial and publication projects will be for original projects involving significant collaboration with artist(s) from the geographic region and substantially contributing to this region’s contemporary art and cultural discourse. Projects that will reach or connect artists and/or communities from different parts of the region (i.e. Kansas City and Lawrence) are encouraged.
DOWNLOAD APPLICATION GUIDELINES HERE.
Then, DOWNLOAD THE COMPLETE 2010 ROCKET GRANTS APPLICATION FORM HERE.
The form is interactive and can be filled out on your computer by clicking in each field. [PLEASE NOTE: Adobe now requires you have the latest version of Acrobat in order to save interactive PDFs. If you experience any difficulty saving your file, we hope you will download a free version at: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatpro/tryout.html.] You can also use the tab key to move from one field to the next. Please be sure to SAVE the document on your desktop as “yourlastname_firstname_projecttitle”, and attach it to an email when you are ready to submit. Please DO NOT USE THE SUBMIT BUTTON ON THE FORM, otherwise it may not be received correctly. All digital submissions will be acknowledged with a reply to the address from which you send your form.
If you have any questions about this form or any other part of the application process, you are encouraged to attend one of the launch and question sessions that will be offered between January 21st and the middle of March. Full details about these sessions will be available on the front page of this website, or from julia@charlottestreet.org.
Oversight + Administration:
David Hughes, Director, Charlotte Street Foundation
Kate Hackman, Associate Director, Charlotte Street Foundation
Raechell Smith, Charlotte Street Foundation Board of Directors
Saralyn Reece Hardy, Director, Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas
Julia Cole, Rocket Grants Program Coordinator, julia@charlottestreet.org
