ASU Art Museum receives 2018 Art for Justice Fund grant

Arizona State University Art Museum has announced that it is joining the Art for Justice Fund community as a fall 2018 grant recipient. This $125,000 planning grant will allow the museum to continue the fight for meaningful and lasting criminal justice reform by conducting research for an exhibition titled “Undoing Time: A Visual History of Incarceration” and related public programs by the museum’s director, Miki Garcia, and curators Heather Sealy Lineberry and Julio Cesar Morales.

“We are honored to be among the awardees of this vitally important grant program, which is in direct alignment with the core values of the ASU Art Museum,” Garcia said. “ASU Art Museum is committed to actively rethinking its role as a cultural commons in a rapidly changing cultural and political landscape — expanding and deepening the ways in which all people experience and value the visual arts in their own lives.”

The Art for Justice Fund is a five-year initiative created by Agnes Gund in partnership with Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and the Ford Foundation. The fund is dedicated to combating the injustices of mass incarceration through the collective action of artists, advocates and philanthropists.

“These grantees are bellwethers of change in the criminal justice reform space. I am confident that the contributions of our newest grantees will continue to improve the lives of those affected by the injustices of our criminal justice system,” said Helena Huang, project director for the Art for Justice Fund. “We are at a unique moment in time to drive meaningful, long-term change. This is why the Art for Justice Fund exists: to support the work of artists and advocates to seize this moment and accelerate the movement. And this movement is a defining movement of our time.”

A full list of grantees can be found at the Art for Justice website. The recipients span four categories of work:

• Keeping people out of jail and prison.
• Shortening excessive prison sentences.
• Improving reentry into the community.
• Changing narratives about criminal justice.

With Art for Justice’s support, grantees will work to close prisons and create community alternatives for youth, raise awareness of the needs of women who are incarcerated and children who have incarcerated parents, and implement campaigns to change criminal justice policies and practices at the state and local levels. Learn more about our work with Art for Justice.

This is the third cohort of Art for Justice grantees. Since it was established in 2017, the fund has awarded more than $40 million in grants to 100 grantees.

ASU Art Museum was founded in 1950 with a significant gift of American, Mexican and European artworks purchased by Oliver B. James, a prominent local lawyer. Today, it is known as one of the most important contemporary art spaces in the region.

ASU Art Museum is embedded in Arizona State University’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, the largest comprehensive design and arts college in the U.S. The museum has access to all of the resources and talent of this global research university to advance its mission: To be a meeting point for the exchange of new ideas, perspectives and experiences among artists, students and the public through our exhibitions, residencies, collections and programs. The museum forges meaningful connections across all areas of research in order to create a better, more sustainable future. 

For more information on the museum, visit asuartmuseum.asu.edu.