about the program.

ENGAGING ARTISTS (EA) is More Art’s 2-tiered, Fellowship and Commission program for artists seeking to both develop and sustain their public art and socially-engaged practice. The program curriculum encompasses a professional development series, public art commission opportunities, mentorship, and peer networking. 

Fellowship

More Art’s year-long Engaging Artists Fellowship is designed to help emerging NYC artists and community organizers develop and sustain a socially engaged and public art practice. The Fellowship program curriculum includes mentorship, peer networking, access to programming opportunities in New York City, and workshops and artist talks tailored to the interests/needs of the cohort. The infrastructure and laboratory provided by More Art allow selected emerging and underrepresented artists to gain a deeper understanding of the history and vitality of public and socially engaged art and encourage artists to expand and develop social practice.

The 2023 Fellowship application is now closed. Click here to read more about the Fellowship.

Commission*

More Art’s Engaging Artists Commission is an opportunity for early career artists focused on the incubation and commissioning of a public art project and carries an $8000 award to realize the project, plus curatorial, conceptual, budgetary, and logistical mentorship. The infrastructure and laboratory provided by More Art allow one selected early career and underrepresented artist (or collective) to gain a deeper understanding of the history and vitality of public and socially engaged art. 

*Formerly known as the EA Residency

The 2024 Commission application is now closed. Click here to learn more about the Commission.

 


community engagement + the EA model.

More Art believes art and artists play an integral role in empowering social justice movements by creatively illuminating social issues, engaging new audiences in activism, and catalyzing public discourse. The EA program enables artists to deepen their understanding of public art that is socially engaged through direct action including volunteering, outreach initiatives, workshops, expanded stakeholdership and the building of publics, educational programs, and public works. When applicable, More Art will assist our participants in establishing and/or sustaining crucial partnerships with community-based organizations, advocacy groups, agencies, neighborhoods, places, individuals or groups of New Yorkers.

artist community + mentorship. 

In order to build strong artist-led coalitions, More Art believes in creating synergies between artists in various stages of their careers through dialogue and access to accomplished artists working in/with the public. There will be opportunities to connect with More Art’s commissioned public artists

Our EA artists will also have an opportunity to engage and collaborate with a diverse network of past EA participants whose work addresses such critical issues as immigrant rights and economic empowerment, food justice, health and human services, housing justice, and gentrification. A large number of our EA alumni from both program tracks continue work in collaboration with others they have met during the program.

 


2023 EA fellows.

Clockwise from top left: Carrie Sijia Wang; Chava DiMaio; Danielle Cowan; Jessica Angima; Ray Jordan Achan; Nava Derakhshani; Mei Ling Yu. Click here to learn more about the 2023 Fellows! 

2023 EA Commssion.

A Black man stands on the sidewalk of a city street. There is scaffolding poles behind him. He wears a white t-shirt and dark pants. He is looking at the camera, unsmilng, with a hand in his pocket. He is young with a short beard and short braided hair.

Immanuel Oni produced Beyond Memorial, an art, design and healing justice response to the invisible—yet palpable— scars left in community spaces after gun violence and loss. Click here to learn more.


2022 EA fellows.

Clockwise from top left: Maya Simone Z., photo by Whitney Brown; María Bonomi y Lucía Cozzi; Yeseul Song; Buena Onda Collective; Tanika Williams, photo by Duane Garay; ayo Ohs, photo by Azu Rodriguez. Click here for more info.  

2022 Thematic Focus

This year’s thematic focus is on concepts related to gates and borders, physical and imaginary, including, but not limited to, mass incarceration, criminal justice reform, policing, gated communities, immigration, border security, and COVID-related barriers.

2022 EA resident.

Lily Honglei, artist collective photo.

Lily Honglei produced The Red String, a physical and digital installation. Click here to learn more.

 


2021 EA fellows.

Clockwise from top left: Hyperlink Press;  Amy Ritter, photo by Joe Chavez, 2019 ; Chantal Feitosa; Bel Falleiros, photo by Robin Michals; Andrew Freiband; Freya Powell; Amy Wetsch; Hanae Utamura, photo by Peter Rosemann. Click here to learn more.

2021 EA resident.

A black and white photograph of a gender-non-conforming Black person wearing a white dress shirt. They are touching their hair and looking at the camera.

Sean Desiree. Photo © Kiki Vassilakis, 2019.

Sean Desiree will produce Beam Ensemble, an interactive public artwork. Click here to learn more.

 

 

 


media.

Engaging Artists As Creative Leaders from More Art on Vimeo.

 


2019 project support.

Photo of a C.U.R.B. banquet

C.U.R.B. Banquet #1, February 2019.

Candace Thompson
Public Art — $4000

The Collaborative Urban Resilience Banquet (C.U.R.B.) is an interdisciplinary social practice project that reconnects urbanites with our fragile (and oft displaced) food web as we face oncoming climate change. Through video storytelling, hands-on bioremediation experiments, and seasonally foraged community meals, Candace Thompson invites participants to personally and directly engage with the urban wilds while learning about/with/from the many diverse species currently surviving and thriving amidst our hot mess. It’s time to look to the more-than-human world as resilience role models, collaborating with them to create local, sustainable food economies for all. Perhaps we can still eat one another away from the brink of extinction. For more information on C.U.R.B. follow the project on Instagram.

Ro Garrido
Research & Development in Social Practice — $1000

En esta casa/ In this house is a transformative-­justice organizing project that is interested in creating spaces to address and transform violence within organizing communities in Queens. The project will specifically focus on addressing sexual violence that occurs in organizing spaces, as well as community accountability as a transformative justice process and response to sexual violence. Through the creation of a practice space, as well as political education and skill building, the project hopes to create a cultural shift on a local level where communities are able to collectively envision and build transformative justice. For more information on Garrido, visit rogarrido.com

 

past projects.

Bryan Rodriguez Cambana, Waiting for the session to begin, 2017-2018
Vanessa Teran Collantes, Runa Ñawi (Runa Eye), 2017-2018
Bridget Bartolini & Priscilla Stadler, Almost Home, 2015-2016
Soi Park, Funeral Portrait Service, 2015-2016

Ligaiya Romero, 2016-2017
Jonathan Gardenhire, 2016-2017
Hidemi Takagi, Hello, It’s Me, 2015-2016
REMAP, 2014-2015
Sue Jeong Ka, ID Shop, 2014-2015

 

community partners.

CAAAV – Chinatown Art Brigade
Eviction Intervention Services
Families United for Racial and Economic Equality
GOLES – Good Old Lower East Side
Hudson Guild

Neighbors Together
New York Cares
Queens Neighborhoods United

past Engaging Artists.

2020

Fellows
Althea Rao
Amy Khoshbin
Bryanna Bradley
Cody Herrmann
Luisa Valderrama
Mafe Izaguirre
Sean Desiree
Yemisi “Juliana” Luna

Artist in Residence
Nolan Hanson

2018-2019

Ro Garrido
Nolan Hanson
Zaq Landsberg
Manuel Molina Martagon
Julian Louis Phillips
Judith Rubenstein
Philip Santos Schaffer
Candace Thompson

2017

Richard Tran
Edward Salas
Camila Ruiz Diaz
Tiffany Fung
Alvaro Franco
Workers Art Coalition
Melissa Liu
Noe Gaytan
Adam Golub
Bryan Rodriguez
Ahmed Tijay Mohammed
Vanessa Teran Collantes
Floor Grootenhuis

2016

Bridget Bartolini
Emily Chow Bluck
Dani Delade
Alexander Dwinell
Jonathan Gardenhire
Arthur Wang
Aneeta Mitha
Ilaria Ortensi
Ligaiya Romero
Arya Samuelson
Ethan Shoshan
Aldo Soligno
Priscilla Stadler
Cynthia Tobar

2015

Alon Nechushtan
Annie Kurz
Aurelien G.
Christie Neptune
Eugenia Malioykova
Guido Garaycochea
Hidemi Takagi
Michelle Melo
Andrew Nemr
Chee Wang Ng
Sara Meghdari
Soi Park
Trokon Nagbe
Uday K. Dhar

2014

Christina Sukhgian Houle
Anne Peabody
Emily Miller
David Wallace
Corinne Cappelletti
Anna Adler
Kate Weigel
Flavia Berindoague
Fanny Allié
Sue jeong Ka
Dato Mio
Travis Fairclough
Anthony Heinz May
Jamie Marie Rose Grove
Julia A. Rooney

 

 

past fellowships.

2019 Engaging Artists: SMORGASBORD at CUE Art Foundation

In December 2019, More Art presented SMORGASBORD at CUE Art Foundation, a series of workshops, performances, and presentations led by the 2018-19 cohort of Engaging Artists fellows, including Ro Garrido, Nola Hanson, Zaq Landsberg, Manuel Molina Martagon, Julian Louis Phillips, Philip Santos Schaffer, and Candace Thompson.

2019 Engaging Artists: New Works in Practice Exhibition at HERE

Engaging Artists: New Works in Practice exhibition was on view at HERE, January-February 2019, featuring recent work by artists who participated in More Art’s 2017-18 Engaging Artists Fellowship.

2017 Exhibition at Flux Factory

Building Stories was an exhibition of recent work by Engaging Artists was shown at Flux Factory during October 2017.

2016 Engaging Artists: Housing Justice

The 2016 Engaging Artists residency program focuses on issues of housing inequality in New York City. The goal of the 4 month residency is to prepare artists for long-term activist work with housing advocacy organizations, homeless services, and/or anti-displacement efforts in their respective communities.

2015 Engaging Artists Exhibition at Queen Museum

The Engaging Artists exhibition features the work of 8 NYC-based first generation and foreign born artists.

2015 Engaging Artists: Aging + Immigration

In 2015, the residency program was open exclusively to foreign-born and first generation American artists. Throughout the summer, the cohort of 14 artists volunteered and created arts and activism projects in collaboration with in partnership with nursing homes, hospitals, and, community centers—providing both multilingual, one-on-one cultural and social services to more than 150 elderly immigrants in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens.

2014 Engaging Artists: Homelessness

In 2014, the program focused on homelessness and 15 artists were selected to volunteer in homeless shelters at partnering organizations all across the city. It is estimated that 3000 New Yorkers were served during the run of the program.