Blair B*tch Project Counted Amongst Boston Ujima Project’s 2022 Ashé Ashé Awardees
Ujima Announces 2022 Ashé Ashé Cultural Assembly Grant Winners
Last year, Boston Ujima Project held its first-ever Cultural Assembly, Ashé Ashé, alongside many partners including Black Economic Council of MA, Artisans Asylum, Mass MoCA’s Assets 4 Artists, The CreateWell Fund, Mayor’s Office of Art & Culture, Mayor’s Office of Resilience and Racial Equity, Massachusetts Area Planning Council and New England Foundation for the Arts.
Ujima’s Cultural Assembly began with a seed grant in partnership with the Boston Mayor’s Office of Arts & Culture; we built on this effort by inviting additional partners who contributed matching funds. NEFA and the Mayor’s Office of Arts & Culture see their participation in the Cultural Assembly as a learning opportunity to inform their own grantmaking processes.
For the first time, we gathered foundations, non-profits, governmental bodies, and arts institutions to collectively distribute $60K and to artists and organizers of color across Greater Boston. The grant recipients were chosen through a participatory process undertaken by Ujima’s Voting Members, who chose their top five preferences.
The $5,000 grants will fund the creation of innovative new projects by 12 individuals and collectives working across visual arts, film, literature, and socially engaged and multidisciplinary practices. We hope this offering creates more space for participatory and community-led granting practices in Massachusetts and across the field.
After a momentous $3.4 million investment in the arts community by the Mayor’s office, we’re proud to see support for Boston’s artists and cultural workers continue, and excited to be part of this step towards substantive resourcing for arts and culture. We look forward to coordinating with peer organizations to bolster arts funding citywide.
Please join us in congratulating our cohort of grantees, and check out their projects below.
