[Brooklyn, NY] — Through its grant-making and donation-based support, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) graciously provides support that increases opportunities, visibility and community growth for arts-affiliated organizations across America.
In the second major grant announcement of the 2016 fiscal year, the NEA generously is supporting the UnionDocs Collaborative Studio, a program for non-fiction media research and production, with an Art Works Grant. The Collaborative Studio (CoLAB) is a 10 month program for a select group of 12 media artists from the US and abroad to work together on a collective outcome. CoLAB offers a platform for exploring contemporary approaches to the documentary arts and outlines a process for developing an innovative collaborative project.
“Support from the NEA will allow us to continue to make space for new talented artists who are open to experimenting with the form of documentary and motivated to tell important stories in innovative ways,” said Christopher Allen, UnionDocs Founder and Executive Artistic Director. “We are very thankful to the NEA for supporting this work.”
The program consists of weekly production meetings, seminars, screenings and other public programs, along with regular masterclasses and critiques with visiting artists. A staple of the program is that all works are created under a shared theme. For 6 years we worked on Living Los Sures, having the Southside of Williamsburg be the shared theme. This year we started a new theme tentatively entitled JUST TO GET BY. The focus is on highlighting the creative solutions and difficult choices that individuals in NYC make everyday to survive the city, at a time when 50% of the population lives near or below the federal poverty level. To access such stories, images, and sounds, fellows are pursuing partnerships with local artists and craftspeople who have—so far—been unable to reach privileged networks of creation and distribution. Projects are not intended to be portraits, but rather a way to develop an authorship that can be shared with the subjects at the same time that fellows are encouraged to develop work across perceived boundaries of social class, age and race.
To join the Twitter conversation about this announcement, please use #NEASpring2016. For more information on projects included in the NEA grant announcement, go to arts.gov
ABOUT UNIONDOCS
UnionDocs (UnDo) is a Center for Documentary Art that generates and shares big ideas. We bring together a diverse community of experimental media-makers, dedicated journalists, critical thinkers, and local partners on a search for urgent expressions of the human experience, practical perspectives on the world today, and compelling visions for the future. We find powerful, thought-provoking works of non-fiction (film, video, sound, photography, oral history, printed word, and performance) and present over one hundred public events each year, attracting people from across and beyond New York City. In designing collaborative projects, we bring together 20th Century documentary practice and contemporary networked culture through the UnDo Collaborative Studio, a ten-month fellowship program that seeks to bring together individual talents, voices, and stories and create multi-dimensional documentaries. UnionDocs was founded in the Southside of Williamsburg, Brooklyn and has operated there for nearly a decade.
