$98,543 awarded to support 19 humanities projects throughout Arizona
Arizona Humanities awarded $98,543.10 to support 19 projects throughout the state of Arizona. These Project Grants were awarded to organizations to engage the public with the humanities through exhibits, performances, discussions, films, and more.
Brenda Thomson, Arizona Humanities Executive Director commented, “Thank you to all who participated in our most recent grant cycle. It was a highly competitive cycle with over 50 applicants seeking funding for worthwhile projects across the state. We have been truly impressed with the diversity and creativity of the applications. It is clear that Arizonans care about the humanities. “
Any findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in these programs do not necessarily reflect those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Ah-Mut Pipa Foundation – Bard, CA
Carlos Montezuma: Survival, Perseverance, & Homecoming
Total Grant Award: $5,000
Part of an hour-long documentary, this project will provide the research and on-camera interviews pertaining to the life and legacy of Carlos Montezuma. Carlos Montezuma was an outspoken critic of government treatment of Native Americans, and with this documentary the Ah-Mut Pipa Foundation seeks to remember this forgotten controversial champion for Native rights.
Project Director: Daniel Golding / 928-446-1871
Amerind Foundation Inc. – Dragoon, AZ
Fleet of Foot: Indigenous Running and Games from Ancient Times to Today
Total Grant Award: $5,000
With two exhibits and six public events this Project will explore running traditions in Indigenous communities including the achievements of Indigenous runners and the contemporary role of running in society. By delving into the history of indigenous sports and athleticism (themes that are common to every human society) Fleet of Foot seeks to compare commonalities and differences among historically diverse communities. Project venues include the Amerind Museum in Dragoon, AZ and the Tohono O’odham Nation Cultural Center and Museum in Topawa, AZ.
Project Director: Eric J. Kaldahl / 520-586-3666
Archaeology Southwest – Tucson, AZ
Exploring the Big Questions at Archaeology Café, 2015-2016
Total Grant Award: $5,000
Archaeology Café brings experts and lifelong learners together in an informal gathering to consider millennia of history together. Programs are held in Tucson and Phoenix over a variety of themes pertaining to Southwest archeology. Audiences are to consider not only the past, but also their own place in our human story.
Project Director: Catherine Sarther Gann / 520-882-6946
Arizona Opera Company – Phoenix, AZ
The Stories We Tell
Total Grant Award: $5,000
This project is a partnership between Arizona Opera, the Heard Museum and the Grand Canyon Music Festival and will premiere micro-operas commissioned from prominent Native American composers in Arizona. In addition, these composers will instruct Native American students who will compose their own works to be performed in conjunction with the professional commissions. The project will present works in both English and Native Languages.
Project Director: Joshua Borths / 602-218-7325
Bisbee Council of the Arts & Humanities – Bisbee, AZ
Bisbee Film Festival: One People One Planet
Total Grant Award: $5,000
The Bisbee Film Festival provides an opportunity to consider human culture and global history through one of the major art forms of our time – film. This free event includes 12-14 feature films, 8-10 shorts, and guest speakers to put films in historical and political context and facilitate post screening discussion. Selected films will deal with a variety of issues in order to challenge audiences to consider how we communicate what we think; how to interpret what we see and hear; and how to understand and respond to differences.
Project Director: Vicky Westover / 520-626-9825
Casa Malpais Archaeological Park and Museum – Springerville, AZ
Archaeology Road Show
Total Grant Award: $4,550
This event encourages residents of the White Mountain region to bring family collections of ancient artifacts to Casa Malpais Museum in Springerville, where professional archaeologists will provide in-depth information on these objects. Participants will learn what these objects tell us about the lives and arts of the White Mountains’ ancient residents (monetary values will not be discussed). Archaeologists will also be given the chance to briefly evaluate these artifacts. This event is free and open to the public.
Project Director: Lynette Cross / 928-333-5375
Kore Press – Tucson, AZ
Un-Silencing Anatomies: Race, Gender and the Medical Humanities
Total Grant Award: $5,000
This project will encourage critical thinking and inclusive civil dialogue about how the humanities, and humanistic approaches to medicine, can impact community health and encompass structural concerns of racial and gender justice. Utilizing exhibits, community dialogues and oral histories Kore Press author Monica Ong and other scholars will open communication about power differentials, communication barriers, fears and cultural assumptions that shape client-provider interactions.
Project Director: Lisa Bowden / 520-661-1410
Latino Public Broadcasting – Burbank, CA
Community Engagement in Arizona for Pedro E Guerrero: A Photographer’s Journey
Total Grant Award: $5,000
Through a series of film screenings and discussions Latino Public Broadcasting will amplify the community engagement and educational impact of the documentary film Pedro E Guerrero: A Photographer’s Journey. Pedro Guerrero was a trailblazing photographer and Arizona native, and the documentary seeks to illuminate Guerrero’s success, artistic style and journey as a photographer. This project also includes partnerships with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and Mesa Arts Center and an exhibit featuring the work of Pedro Guerrero.
Project Director: Luis Ortiz / 818-847-9656
Maricopa County Historical Society dba Desert Caballeros Western Museum – Wickenburg, AZ
Wickenburg Oral History Project
Total Grant Award: $5,000
This project will serve to inventory, transcribe and digitize almost 100 existing oral history interviews while recording and transcribing new interviews with approximately 30 Wickenburg residents with unique memories of the area’s legacy. These interviews will be available on the Desert Caballeros Western Museum’s website, giving the public access to these firsthand accounts of life in a western town.
Project Director: Sandra Harris / 928-684-2272
Museum of Northern Arizona – Flagstaff, AZ
Heritage Insights Programing for the 2015 Celebraciónes de la Gente Festival
Total Grant Award: $5,000
The Museum of Northern Arizona will integrate humanities content into the 12th annual Celebraciónes de la Gente Festival through lectures, discussions and presentations. The goal is to illuminate, explore and share humanities-based topics important to the Latino community in order to engage audiences and heighten appreciation for their history, philosophies, and life ways.
Project Director: Linda R. Martin / 928-774-5211
Musical Instrument Museum – Phoenix, AZ
Opening Celebration Speaker Series for “Stradivarius – Origins and Legacy of the Greatest Violin Maker”
Total Grant Award: $5,000
In conjunction with the opening of the new special exhibit Discover Stradivarius: The Continuing Legacy of Italy’s Master Violin Makers, the Musical Instrument Museum will host four speakers over two days. These presentations will examine the history, art criticism and culture surrounding the lasting legacy of Cremona’s master violin makers. Topics include critical histories of violins as art-market objects, reasons for continuing global media fixation on the maker, Stradivari’s contentious influence on modern violin makers, and his instruments as motivators of forgery and fraud.
Project Director: Kathleen Wiens / 480-478-6074
Phoenix Art Museum – Phoenix, AZ
Painting in the New World: A Symposium on Spanish Colonial Art
Total Grant Award: $3,500
Accompanying the exhibit Masterworks of Spanish Colonial Art from the Phoenix Art Museum’s Collection, this symposium seeks to enrich visitor understanding of the artworks and their cultural significance. Themes include the intersections between culture, religion, society, and politics at the heart of artistic production. The symposium will consist of three 20-minute talks and one 40-minute keynote address with time for questions at the end.
Project Director: Dr. Vanessa Davidson / 602-307-2082
Prescott Film Festival – Prescott, AZ
Prescott Film Festival
Total Grant Award: $5,000
The 7th annual Prescott Film Festival provides a mix of independent, classic and critically acclaimed films with the goal of connecting people who come from different classes, races and ideological stands in an environment conducive for exploration and discussion. The festival features independent films showcased with introductions before the film and post film discussions, three free workshops, two evening events where audience members can interact informally with filmmakers, and the opportunity to rate each viewed film.
Project Director: Helen Stephenson / 928-458-7209
Sedona International Film Festival – Sedona, AZ
Sedona 24 Theater “Hard Choices”: Dealing with Today’s Ethical Dilemmas
Total Grant Award: $5,000
Using play writing and performance, the 3rd Annual 24 Hour Theater will examine ethical dilemmas and the depiction of such dilemmas in literature and theater. Students from Sedona Red Rock High School will create and stage two ten-minute plays, with the help of humanities advisors, to be performed in local schools and as part of a 24 Hour Theater Production. Performances are followed by discussions of their ethical dilemmas.
Project Director: Tammy McKenzie / 330-495-5918
Tempe History Museum – Tempe, AZ
Legend City: Arizona’s Western Wonderland
Total Grant Award: $7,000
This exhibition will reveal the true legends behind Legend City while engaging visitors in sharing memories and opinions of a phenomenon that arose from rapid urban growth and a bold, independent spirit characteristic of the people of Arizona. Bringing together objects, photographs, memorabilia, oral and written histories and programs, the exhibition and presentation of the history of Legend City will also draw parallels to the current explosion of urban growth and how it will impact the future of the city.
Project Director: Brenda Abney / 480-350-5105
University of Arizona, Fred Fox School of Music – Tucson, AZ
Music + Festival: Bernstein, Adams and Berio
Total Grant Award: $5,000
The goal of the 2015 Music + Festival: Bernstein, Adams, Berio is to present the lives and music of three major composers with a rich humanistic framework. The festival consists of a film screening, symposium with scholars presenting the lives and work of the composers, and four concerts. The objective is not only to present the finest musical works of the 20th century, but also to contextualize these pieces within the fabric of history, politics and the broader human experience.
Project Director: Daniel Asia / 520-621-1655
University of Arizona, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences – Tucson
2015 Downtown Lecture Series on Immortality
Total Grant Award: $5,000
The Downtown Lecture Series connects humanities research to the general public through five weekly lectures at the historic Fox Tucson Theater. This year’s theme, immortality, will investigate how our beliefs about life beyond death shape the human experience. The series will also be available through a live broadcast.
Project Director: Lydia Breunig, Ph.D. / 520-626-3886
Veterans Heritage Project – Carefree, AZ
Since You Asked, Arizona Veterans Share Their Memories
Total Grant Award: $10,000
Through student lead interviews the Veterans Heritage Project seeks to develop an understanding of American military history and acknowledge the service and sacrifice of our veterans. These stories will be published in the in the annual volume Since You Asked. Further program activities include a lecture series to 10 public middle and high-school History and English classrooms along with a community presentation.
Project Director: Laura Byers / 602-421-9419
Yuma Art Center/City of Yuma – Yuma, AZ
Beyond the Horizon
Total Grant Award: $3,493.10
Beyond the Horizon will help to bring more awareness of contemporary Art and architectural history through an artist talk and symposium. The goal is to increase perception of contemporary art and intellectual frameworks around ideas associated with not only art but also urbanism, landscape and architecture.
Project Director: Claudia Mendoza / 928-817-7446
