Grants to Individuals are administered by a confidential nomination and selection process. Applications and informal nominations are not accepted. The FCA awards Grants to Individuals in the following fields: dance, music/sound, theater/performance art, poetry and the visual arts. Artists are suggested and selected by their peers in a two-stage process. Each year, the FCA invites a pool of distinguished artists and arts professionals to serve as nominators and propose up to three exceptional individuals, artists' collectives, or performing groups whom they feel deserve and will benefit from an unrestricted $25,000 award. Nominators are selected by field, but are free to propose artists working in any of the five areas supported. They are asked to serve for one grant cycle and to remain anonymous. A selection panel chooses grant recipients on the basis of the merit and imaginativeness of their work and the effect such recognition and support might have at this point in their careers.
Although most artists who receive support live and work in the United States, grants may be awarded internationally. The number of selections made in any of the five fields is determined by the strength of the candidates and the FCA's resources in any given year. The grants are not designated for specific projects. Rather, they are intended to provide recipients with the financial means to engage in whatever artistic endeavors they wish to pursue, to research and develop ideas, embark on projects, and complete projects already under way. At the end of the year, artists are asked to describe how the grant was used.
Announcements of Grants to Individuals are made in the beginning of the year. The 2008 awards are $25,000 each and have been awarded to twelve artists. The Directors of the FCA were joined in the selection process by dance critic Nancy Dalva, artists Molly Davies and Carroll Dunham, and composer and Bang on a Can co-founder, David Lang.
Grants to Individuals are supported in part by a generous grant from the Frederick R. Weisman Philanthropic Foundation.
View past Individual Grant Recipients
