The National Endowment for the Arts and the National Park Service announced $1,092,500 in support of 51 grants in 27 states, including an award of $25,000 to the University of Central Arkansas to support a multidisciplinary arts festival at the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site.
Imagine Your Parks is a grant initiative from the National Endowment for the Arts created in partnership with the National Park Service to support projects that use the arts to engage people with memorable places and landscapes of the National Park System. These awards are part of a larger National Endowment for the Arts announcement also made today in which the agency will make 1,148 awards totaling $82.3 million to organizations in all 50 states and five jurisdictions.
“Our project, ‘If Buildings Could Talk,’ will use 3-D video projection and an original musical score to tell the story of Little Rock’s Central High School as we commemorate the 90-year anniversary of the building itself and the 60- year anniversary of the 1957 desegregation crisis,” said Gayle Seymour, associate dean of College of Fine Arts and Communication. “By using contemporary arts to tell this story, we hope to connect new generations to our collective past.”
This effort is collaborative project within the UCA College of Fine Arts and Communication. Seymour serves as the project director. Scott Meador, associate professor of digital filmmaking, Blake Tyson, professor of percussion and Jennifer Deering, grants developer, are collaborators.
The project includes a weeklong celebration of remembrance activities from September 18 through September 25, 2017. In addition to the 3-D video projection and original musical score, other activities include bus tours of the Daisy Bates home and other neighborhood civil rights architectural landmarks; a vacant lot Pop Up with culinary artists, jazz musicians, and a mini Maker Faire and a pilgrimage event in the Central High Garden with its designer Michael Warrick and Tania León, composer of the Little Rock Nine opera.
“As part of the NEA’s 50th anniversary, this year we are celebrating the magnificence of America’s national cultural treasures through art,” said NEA Chairman Jane Chu. “The Imagine Your Parks grant program unites our mission with the National Park Service by connecting art projects with natural, historic and cultural settings of the National Park System and will inspire a new generation to discover these special places and experience our great heritage.”
“The ‘Imagine Your Parks’ grants are really helping us celebrate the NPS Centennial and the NEA’s 50th Anniversary with some incredibly diverse and interesting projects that continue to inspire more Americans of all backgrounds to connect with their national parks,” said National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis. “The grants already awarded are already demonstrating the success of the program through a variety of inspiring projects. A new generation of artists is connecting to national parks through their work, and motivating others to do the same.”
Follow “Imagine Your Parks” on Twitter @NEAarts and @NatlParkService #NEASpring16
About the National Park Service
More than 20,000 National Park Service employees care for America’s 401 national parks and work with communities across the nation to help preserve local history and create close-to-home recreational opportunities. To learn more about the National Park Service, visit www.nps.gov.
About the NEA
Established by Congress in 1965, the NEA is the independent federal agency whose funding and support gives Americans the opportunity to participate in the arts, exercise their imaginations, and develop their creative capacities. Through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector, the NEA supports arts learning, affirms and celebrates America’s rich and diverse cultural heritage, and extends its work to promote equal access to the arts in every community across America. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the National Endowment for the Arts and the agency is celebrating this milestone with events and activities through September 2016. Go to arts.gov/50th to enjoy art stories from around the nation, peruse Facts & Figures, and check out the anniversary calendar.
