Media Artist + Activist Residency (MAR) Program – United States

The residency aims to reveal and extend the ways that artists and artistic processes can work within cultural and social justice organizations to achieve social change. Media artists and organizations apply collaboratively with proposals for a project that embeds the artist in the work of the organization for one year. Five residencies will be awarded, with each residency providing a $15,000 grant to the artist, and a $10,000 grant to the organization.

Media artists will embed themselves inside the intentions, culture, and protocols of social justice organizations and the neighborhoods and communities they serve. Media artists will interweave their perspective, process, and strategies into the workings of the organization that may not have previously looked to artists as key assets for sparking innovation, improving problem-solving, and enhancing communication. Meanwhile, artists will acquire and hone skills, aptitudes, and ethical awareness that are key to working intimately with community organizations.

Leeway supports artists and cultural producers involved in art for social change that positively affects and engages communities and audiences. Creating social change must be integral to the ideas, beliefs, and goals that are woven throughout your art and your process of creating and sharing your art.

Media Arts for Social Change: What They Mean 

• Leeway supports artists and cultural producers involved in art for social change that positively affects and engages communities and audiences. Creating social change must be integral to the ideas, beliefs, and goals that are woven throughout your art and your process of creating and sharing your art.
• Leeway understands Media Arts as an expansive category including but not limited to:
  • film and video (narrative, documentary, experimental)
  • audio
  • podcast
  • installation/projection
  • animation
  • interactive design
  • digital art
  • games/gaming
  • web-based content
  • multimedia/multi-disciplinary work

Impact of Art with Vision 

• Art for social change is art with a vision and an intentional analysis. It is an artistic or creative cultural practice that may operate in traditional or nontraditional mediums, modes, or disciplines. Art with a vision impacts people in many ways. It can:
  • Raise consciousness
  • Alter how they think about themselves, the society, or the culture
  • Create a vision of a more just world
  • Be a tool or strategy for organizing and movement building
  • Preserve or reclaim traditional cultural practices using your artistic practice as a form of resistance or empowerment
  • Create space for expression and build a sense of community
  • Challenge racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ageism, ableism, or other oppressions
  • Question mainstream culture and beliefs
  • Shift or transform the perception of power and/or privilege and the dynamics associated with justice, equality, and/or accountability
  • Value healing justice practices focused on strengthening communities, not just individuals
  • Engage and utilize a reciprocal process — where there is teaching and learning simultaneously and consent for engagement is mutual, as is the benefit for yourself as an artist and the community you are engaging

Social Change Intent/Vision 

• They ask you to identify at least one but no more than three social change categories that best describe the intent or vision behind your project. There is no correct or incorrect way to choose; you should pick one that resonates with you as the core intent or vision of your work. You will have an opportunity to define further what that vision is for you in question 3 of the application.
  • Cultural preservation/restoration
  • Decarceration
  • Demilitarization
  • Disability justice
  • Economic justice
  • Environmental justice
  • Feminism
  • Housing justice
  • Immigrant justice
  • Indigenous sovereignty
  • LGBQA social movements
  • Racial justice
  • Transgender justice/gender self-determination

Eligibility Criteria

• For Media Artists
  • You are eligible to apply if you:
    • Are a media artist
    • Live in Bucks, Camden, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, or Philadelphia County
    • Are at least 18 years old
    • Identify as a woman, trans, and/or gender nonconforming person
    • Are working collaboratively with a social justice/cultural organization
• For Social Justice/Cultural Organizations
  • You are eligible to apply if your organization is:
    • A social justice/cultural organization with a 501(c)3 status or fiscal sponsor
    • Located in Bucks, Camden, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, or Philadelphia County
    • Working with an operating budget less than $1.5M
    • Collaborating with a media artist

Ineligible

• For Media Artists
  • You may not apply if you:
    • Do not have a collaborating organization
    • Are on the staff or board of the collaborating organization
    • Are a full-time student in an arts-degree program
    • Have received a 2023 Leeway Transformation Award
    • Have applied for a 2024 Leeway Transformation Award
    • Have already received a 2022 or 2023 Media Artist + Activist Residency
    • Have not turned in all reports due from previous Leeway grants and awards
• For Social Justice/Cultural Organizations
  • You may not apply if your organization:
    • Does not have a collaborating media artist
    • Is collaborating with a media artist who is on the staff or board of your organization
    • Has an operating budget greater than $1.5M
    • Has already received a 2022 or 2023 Media Artist + Activist Residency.

For more information, visit Leeway Foundation.