Mellon Foundation

Announcing the 2024 Letras Boricuas Fellows 🎉 In partnership with Flamboyan Foundation’s Arts Fund, the Mellon Foundation announces the third cohort of Letras Boricuas Fellows, comprising twenty Puerto Rican #authors whose work spans literary genres, including the newly added category of playwriting. Since 2021, the Letras Boricuas Fellowship has provided more than $1.5M to 60 Puerto Rican writers on the archipelago and across the U.S. diaspora. Fellows are awarded unrestricted grants of $25,000 each to support their literary practice, providing crucial support to preserve #PuertoRico's rich yet historically underfunded literary tradition. Read more about this third class of Fellows at on.mellon.org/4f1sxQ9 ________________ Se anuncian los becarios de Letras Boricuas 2024 🎉 En colaboración con el Fondo de las Artes de la Fundación Flamboyán, la Fundación Mellon anuncia la tercera cohorte de becarios de Letras Boricuas, compuesta por veinte autores puertorriqueños cuyas obras abarcan diversos géneros literarios, incluida la recién añadida categoría de dramaturgia. Desde 2021, la Beca Letras Boricuas ha proporcionado más de $1.5 millones a 60 escritores puertorriqueños del archipiélago y de la diáspora en Estados Unidos. Los becarios reciben becas sin restricciones de $25,000 cada uno para apoyar su quehacer literario, proporcionando un apoyo crucial para preservar la rica pero históricamente mal financiada tradición literaria de Puerto Rico. Lea más sobre esta tercera cohorte de becarios en on.mellon.org/4f1sxQ9 • José Rabelo – Gurabo, PR • Jaquira Díaz – New York, NY • Carina del Valle Schorske – New York, NY • Roxana Domenech Cruz – San Juan, PR • Christian Ibarra – San Juan, PR • Richie Narvaez – New York, NY • Charles Rice-Gonzalez – New York, NY • Huascar Robles – Los Angeles, CA • Ana Teresa Toro – San Juan, PR • Mayda del Valle – Illinois, IL • Tatiana Figueroa Ramirez – Maryland, MD • Cindy Jiménez-Vera – Bayamón, PR • Samuel Medina – San Juan, PR • Willie Perdomo – New Hampshire, NH • Alejandra Rosa – Trujillo Alto, PR • Gaddiel Francisco Ruiz Rivera – Vega Baja, PR • Roque Raquel Salas Rivera– San Juan, PR • Vincent Toro – New Jersey, NJ • Rayze Ostolaza – Carolina, PR • Aravind Enrique Adyanthaya – Lajas, PR

🏅 Last week, the Mellon Foundation was honored to receive the National Humanities Medal. The National Humanities Medal is the highest award bestowed by the U.S. government to individuals and groups whose works has deepened the nation’s understanding of and engagement with the humanities. The nation’s largest funder of the arts, culture, and humanities, the Mellon Foundation champions ideas and imagination as central forces for freedom and justice. This is the first time in its history that the Mellon Foundation has been recognized with this honor. Since 1969, the Foundation has distributed over $8.5 billion in grants, advocating for the arts and humanities as essential to expressing our complex humanity. Learn more about 19 recipients of the 2022 and 2023 National Humanities Medal at on.mellon.org/3UpbIq9. 📷 Emil Kang and Getty Images #ArtsHumanitiesMedal National Endowment for the Humanities

What does culture, creativity, and history look like in the #Borderlands? More than a line that marks two countries and separates Indigenous homelands, the US-Mexico borderlands are vibrant and complicated places. The vast cultural knowledge and creativity of the region is shaped by people and overlapping histories—of contestation and interdependence, migration and adaptation, stewardship and regeneration. Through a fuller exploration of the borderlands, we can expand our understanding of collaboration and artistry, care for land and culture, and challenge ideas of separation and othering. Learn more about Borderlands Cultures, a new #Idea that's being explored across the Mellon Foundation's work, at on.mellon.org/3A9BNT9 📷 Camila Falquez for Mellon Foundation

The Mellon Foundation awards $1.25 million to New Music USA's Next Jazz Legacy program. A collaboration with Berklee College of Music's Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, the program seeks to expand opportunities for women and non-binary artists who have been historically underrepresented in jazz.

The Mellon Foundation is honored to be a recipient of the National Humanities Medal.   The award recognizes individuals and groups whose work has deepened the nation’s understanding of the humanities, and broadened engagement with humanities disciplines for all who live in the United States. The work that is being honored with the National Humanities Medal is our shared work; we also acknowledge our grantee partners. Today, October 21 at 5:30pm ET, tune in as the Mellon Foundation and 18 other changemaking recipients receive the National Humanities Medal from President Joseph R. Biden at The White House at on.mellon.org/40eGaaa #ArtsHumanitiesMedal #NationalEndowmentfortheHumanities

What is the Frontera Culture Fund? 🎨 Last week, Mellon Foundation announced the Frontera Culture Fund, a $25 million initiative that will amplify the voices of artists and cultural leaders who continue to shape the borderlands as a place of beauty, radical imagination, and collective action. Mellon's Program Associate Casandra Hernandez Faham details the new fund, outlining how an “unbordered” approach to arts and culture funding can sustain greater creative expression and facilitate stronger transborder cultural networks. 📖 Read the full interview at on.mellon.org/408LonA

📣 Announcement: The Mellon Foundation has launched a $25 million fund that will support arts organizations based in the US-Mexico borderlands. "Called the Frontera Culture Fund, this program will support nonprofits on both sides of the border, marking the first large-scale instance of binational support for the arts along the frontera."

📣 Today, the Mellon Foundation announced the Frontera Culture Fund, a $25 million commitment to support the work of artists, cultural leaders, and community-driven organizations in the U.S.-Mexico border region and tribal communities. “The U.S.-Mexico #borderlands are home to an abundance of cultures and creative traditions, yet remain a region minimally funded by arts philanthropies in the United States,” said Elizabeth Alexander, President of the Mellon Foundation. “Our long-term support for the artists, culture-builders, and stewards of creative expression among these communities will help amplify and sustain the profoundly varied arts and histories taking place in the borderlands.” Designed in collaboration with artists and cultural leaders from the region, the Frontera Culture Fund will provide flexible funding for grantees spanning the U.S. and Mexico, including artist-led projects, cultural organizations, and grassroots community groups. The fund will also support Indigenous, binational, and Black networks that are facilitating regional and cross-border knowledge exchange and working to defend cultural rights. The inaugural group of #grantees for the Frontera Culture Fund include: • CHICANO PARK MUSEUM AND CULTURAL CENTER (San Diego, California) • Carrizo Comecrudo Nation of Texas, Inc. (Floresville, Texas) • Fandango Fronterizo (Tijuana, Baja California) • Alianza Indígena Sin Fronteras (Tucson, Arizona) • La Semilla Food Center (Anthony, New Mexico) • HAITIAN BRIDGE ALLIANCE (San Diego, California) • Azul Arena (Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua) Learn more at on.mellon.org/4f4z8ZJ 📷 Courtesy of MexiCali Biennial by Camilo Ontiveros

Rescuing our Stories: One Tape at a Time 🎥 This #AskAnArchivistDay, learn about the essential work of ensuring that our archives will endure for generations to come. In the back rooms of public media organizations across the country, countless audio and video tapes collect the stories that have shaped the American cultural landscape. To save these precious archives from degeneration and decay, the Library of Congress and GBH have joined forces through the American Archive of Public Broadcasting to digitize these important pieces of history. George Blood LP plays a crucial role in this endeavor. Located in a suburb of Philadelphia, the production facility transfers thousands of antiquated tapes to digital files each month. From there, the files are collected at the Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, one the largest and most comprehensive collections of its kind. Explore the full story at https://lnkd.in/eFCvffrJ 🎥 by MING Media

The Borderlands—often contested in political debates around immigration and security—are also spaces of artistic invention, cultural renewal, and intermingled histories. How can we better understand and celebrate the intersection of the arts, culture, and social justice within Borderlands communities? Join us on Tuesday, October 22 at 4pm ET as Mellon Foundation President Elizabeth Alexander speaks with Julián Castro, chief executive officer of the Latino Community Foundation; Dr. Patrisia Gonzales, emeritus associate professor, University of Arizona and advisor to the Indigenous Alliance Without Borders; and Cristina Ibarra, filmmaker & co-founding director of Borderlands Studios. Register for the free, virtual Mellon event: on.mellon.org/3TJX3VR 🎨 Dror Cohen for Mellon Foundation ––––––––––––––– Las zonas fronterizas—a menudo discutidas en debates políticos sobre inmigración y seguridad—también son espacios de invención artística, renovación cultural e historias entrelazadas. ¿Cómo podemos entender y celebrar de mejor manera la intersección de las artes, la cultura y la justicia social dentro de las comunidades fronterizas? Únase a nosotros el martes 22 de octubre a las 4:00 p. m., hora del este, cuando Elizabeth Alexander, presidenta de la Fundación Mellon, hable con Julián Castro, director ejecutivo de la Latino Community Foundation; la Dra. Patrisia Gonzales, profesora asociada emérita de la Universidad de Arizona y asesora de la Indigenous Alliance Without Borders, yCristina Ibarra, cineasta y directora cofundadora de Borderlands Studios. Regístrese en el evento virtual gratuito de Mellon: on.mellon.org/3TJX3VR 🎨 Dror Cohen para la Fundación Mellon