The 2021-2022 Student Arts Innovation Grant cycle has concluded. Please check back in Fall 2022 for updates to the 2022-2023 SAI Grant cycle.

Overview

Arts Everywhere is invested in the creation and maintenance of art on the University of North Carolina’s campus and seeks to fund the creation of new works by passionate students who are most familiar with the campus, its diverse culture, and expansive history. It is our goal to increase students’ ability to engage with and produce art by providing access to materials and resources. We recognize that students are often limited by monetary barriers in realizing an artistic work.

Arts Everywhere has established a grant for students to feasibly create a work of art for the Carolina community to help offset some of those barriers. This award is granted once a year all UNC students (undergraduate and graduate) are eligible to apply. Students (individuals or groups) can apply for an award up to $3,000 to exhibit, perform, or showcase an original work on UNC’s campus. Cross-disciplinary ideas will be prioritized. The project must be displayed or performed on campus within a year after receiving the award.

We are looking for projects that demonstrate serious planning, reflection, feasibility, and innovation. We encourage proposals of all art forms—visual, performance, media, music (composition or otherwise), film, writing, and/or new media. We imagine projects that propose turning a script into a reading, installing a sculpture on campus, performing a piece of composed music, installing an interactive digital display, etc.

Students have the ability to affect what their community looks like and contribute to the larger landscape of art at UNC and in Chapel Hill in lasting and meaningful ways. This award will introduce and sustain a cyclical process of creating new work to be displayed or performed on this campus, supporting our belief that the arts unlock our fullest potential. Both as individuals and as a collective, the arts cultivate our emotional intelligence that equips us to respond empathetically, embrace differences, and better understand our shared humanity.

Space Accommodations and Coordination

Selected artists will work with Arts Everywhere to coordinate the installation, exhibition, or display of the piece or performance. The work is not required to be exhibited or performed on any specific part of campus; it can happen anywhere on campus so long as the appropriate permissions are acquired (from Facilities, from certain departments, venue managers, etc.).

Permission does not need to be given before the applicant submits a proposal, but it must be finalized by the beginning of Fall 2023. The chosen artist is required to meet with Arts Everywhere upon selection at the end of Spring 2023, and again at both the beginning and end of Fall 2023 in order to discuss the progress of their work. Arts Everywhere can assist with identifying the types of permissions needed for the realization of the artist’s work, but it is then the artist’s responsibility to keep the appropriate parties updated as they create and install, rehearse, or perform their project.

Timetable

The application opens December 8th, 2021 at 9 AM. All applications must be submitted by February 6, 2022 at 11:59 pm to be eligible for consideration.

An interdisciplinary committee of faculty and staff members from across the university’s arts departments and institutions will review the applications mid-February. The selected artist will be notified March 4, 2022, and the winner will be publicly announced during Arts Everywhere Day 2022. 

Application Requirements 

Applicants must be students enrolled full-time or part-time at UNC as undergraduate or graduate students. Applicants do NOT have to be enrolled in the College of Arts and Sciences or in an arts-related major or professional school, though we do appreciate students who have demonstrated experience in creating high-quality work.

Proposals should appropriately consider how the artist’s project will enrich UNC’s art landscape and engage our community. Think: why this and why now?

Application must include:

  • Artist’s resume
    • Should exceed no more than one page
  • Project description of 500 words or less
    • The project description should include the purpose and goals of the project, who is involved, the inspiration for this work, the process of creation and/or the methods to be used to create the work. This project description should be able to answer questions such as: What will your project look like? What media or materials will you use? How will members of the UNC community engage with it? What values does it convey? Why is this piece of importance to you and/or the campus
  • Use of creative resource or scholarly research on campus
  •  Budget
    • Should include costs related to materials, supplies, labor, and/or tools necessary to complete the project.
    • Budgets inclusive of UNC’s pre-existing art making spaces – Makerspaces and Morrison Art Studio – are strongly suggested.
  • Timeline of the piece’s creation to display/performance
  • A statement of support or letter of recommendation from a UNC faculty member
    • Should exceed no more than one page, and must be submitted by February 6, 2021 at 11:59 PM to be eligible for consideration.
  • Relevant sketches or designs