This year’s awards were made across two funding tracks, each reflecting a different—but deeply connected—approach to how art can support thriving communities:

• GIG Fund: For organizations with budgets under $2 million annually whose projects reach underserved audiences. These grants fund creative, engaging public activities, ensuring that audiences have access to high quality arts activities.
• GIG Fund: Arts and Wellness For organizations of any budget size whose projects have an arts and wellness focus. These grants fund high quality arts activities such as efforts that engage veterans in the arts, creative aging programs, artists working in schools, and more.

Grants of up to $15,000 were awarded to organizations across Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and the Native Nations that share this geography.

Funded projects will take place between December 2025 and June 2026.

GIG Fund 2025-26 Grantees

GIG Fund: Arts and Wellness 2025-26 Grantees

The post 87 New GIG Fund Grants Power Creativity and Wellness Across the Midwest appeared first on Arts Midwest.

Through this grant, Midwestern organizations can now request up to $15,000 to bring a professional artist into their community and host creative, engaging public activities.

New this year: We’re thrilled to introduce GIG Fund: Arts and Wellness, a new opportunity that supports projects that connect art and wellness. This track also includes professional development sessions to support your team and your work.

We’re also continuing the regular GIG Fund, which seeks to ensure audiences across the Midwest have access to high quality arts activities. The grant amount has been increased to better serve a wider range of projects.

If you’re part of a Midwestern non-profit that wants to host an arts project or activity between December 2025 to June 2026, read on!

GIG Fund Overview

• What is it? The GIG Fund is a grant of $2,000 – $15,000 that helps organizations bring artists into their community. This year, there are two tracks: GIG Fund and GIG Fund: Arts and Wellness.
• Who can apply? 501c3 non-profit organizations, hospitals, and clinics; and tribal organizations.
  • GIG Fund is for organizations with budgets under $2 million annually whose projects reach underserved audiences.
  • GIG Fund: Arts and Wellness is for organizations of any budget size whose projects have an arts and wellness focus.
• Where? Your organization must be located and operate in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, or Wisconsin, or the Native Nations that share this geography. 
• When to apply? A mandatory Intent to Apply is due September 15, 2025, with final applications due September 29, 2025.

Watch an Informational Webinar

Hear from Arts Midwest staff about the latest round of GIG Fund, including a new track for Arts & Wellness projects.

Watch the Webinar

Photo Credit: Zach Rosing, courtesy of Indianapolis Shakespeare Company

5 Tips for Combining Arts and Wellness in your Programming

Explore tips and examples for how to design arts programming that supports personal and community wellness.

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ORMACO

Homerville, Ohio

GIG Fund

Photo Credit: Thomas Sigel

The post Now Accepting Applications: 2025-26 GIG Fund appeared first on Arts Midwest.

Rodeo plays a pivotal part in ballet history. It helped define “American ballet,” setting it apart from predominant Russian influences of the time. And de Mille’s choreography introduced what she called “storytelling dance,” which transformed everyday gestures like cowboys riding horses or ropers throwing lassos into dance.

Now 80+ years on, Rodeo is being reimagined by Dancing Wheels, the nation’s first physically integrated dance company. Founded in 1980 and based in Cleveland, Ohio, the international touring group consists of 10 full-time professional dancers, with and without disabilities, from diverse dance backgrounds.

Photo Credit: Mark Horning / Dancing Wheels

Mary Verdi-Fletcher, Dancing Wheels’ president and founding artistic director, says that she’s loved Rodeo ever since she first saw it staged by Cleveland Ballet in the ’80s. The vibrant movement and storyline, and de Mille’s approach to dance all resonated with her.  

“I really wanted to do Rodeo for years, but it wasn’t possible [for Dancing Wheels] to do the actual movement … the choreography at the time. So, I thought, “Why don’t we reimagine it, modernize it, put it in today’s mindset where inclusion is so important in dance,” she elaborates. 

Verdi-Fletcher says Dancing Wheel’s version of Rodeo represents a major milestone: It’s the first time a major ballet “master work” has been recreated to be physically integrated. “We’re pretty noted for taking on bigger projects,” she shares. 

Photo Credit: Sara Lawrence-Sucato / Dancing Wheels

A Collaborative Transformation

Rodeo Reimagined incorporates different genres of dance, all to meet the expertise and experience of sit-down dancers in wheelchairs and stand-up dancers. It’s also being reenvisioned in other ways: a reworked score, a slightly different storyline, new costumes, and fewer cast members than the original.

To pull it off, Dancing Wheels collaborated with Cleveland Jazz Orchestra’s Paul Ferguson for the score and leading New York-based choreographer and director Amy Hall Garner.

“This has been a different process for me because we are telling a story. So, I have to make sure that stays in the forefront of all the movement,” says Garner, whose recent works lean non-narrative or abstract. “It’s really opening my creative voice in a different way and making sure that everything is clear and comfortable, and cohesive and precise.”

 

Photo Credit: Sara Lawrence-Sucato / Dancing Wheels

Photo Credit: Al Fuchs / Dancing Wheels

Photo Credit: Sara Lawrence-Sucato / Dancing Wheels

And how long did they have to create Rodeo Reimagined? Just two weeks and three days of intensive in-person choreography with Garner, plus a handful of rehearsals!

She says her time with Dancing Wheels has been a gift “because you get so used to working in the vocabulary that you normally work in … It really is cool for me to figure out new ways of moving and consideration.”

This interpretation of the historic American ballet will premiere on June 14 at Dancing Wheels’ annual benefit gala.

Dancing Wheels’ production of Rodeo Reimagined is supported in part by Arts Midwest’s GIG Fund. The GIG Fund provides flexible grants for nonprofit organizations to support programs and activities featuring professional artists.

The post Reimagining an Iconic American Ballet with Dancers of All Abilities appeared first on Arts Midwest.

That’s what happened in Granite Falls, Minnesota (population 2,600), during a recent artist residency featuring JJ Kapur, a theater performer turned psychology PhD student.

Over the course of a week, Kapur’s workshop, Letters of Love, invited participants to explore vulnerability through letter-writing and oral storytelling. Attendees spent two evenings writing heartfelt letters while sharing home-cooked Singaporean meals prepared by the artist’s father. The final night culminated in a public reading.

The love letters took many forms, including messages to partners, departed family members, and even the town itself.

“I did not expect people to open up the way that they did,” Kapur said. “There were folks who came up to me who literally didn’t know things about the people they’ve lived with in this community for years.”

A Space for Exchange

Photo Credit: Alana Horton

Based in Des Moines, Iowa, Kapur was invited to rural Granite Falls by Department of Public Transformation, a nonprofit arts organization that runs a unique space called The YES! House.

The YES! House is a creative, multi-use community gathering space on Main Street. Upstairs, two apartments host visiting artists. Downstairs, community members can attend events, hold meetings, cowork, or simply hang out. Each year, the space hosts up to 20 artists-in-residence—a number that continues to grow.

Kapur said that staying at The YES! House during his residency was essential to Letters of Love, allowing him and his father to connect with community members and share stories and food beyond workshop sessions.

“We made The YES! House our home. In our Indian culture, when people come to your house, you take off your shoes, you’re offered tea, and the first thing someone asks is: ‘Have you eaten?’ Not ‘How are you?’” he said. “We wanted people to feel they could write from that place—like they were sitting in their living room.”

The ability to offer that kind of care is what makes The YES! House special, says coordinator Luwaina Al-Otaibi.

“Deep work takes more than a one-off event,” she said. “It’s about the connection between artists and the community—and how we can facilitate that.”

Photo Credit: Alana Horton

Photo Credit: Alana Horton

Photo Credit: Alana Horton

Photo Credit: Alana Horton

Photo Credit: Alana Horton

Healing and Performance

Kapur, who is studying to become a counseling psychologist, is drawn to the intersection of therapy and theater.

“I’m interested in how groups can heal together,” he said. “How is the theater therapeutic and how is therapy kind of a form of theater?”

That resonance was felt by participants, including Al-Otaibi, who read a love letter to her cat of 23 years who was nearing the end of his life.

“I would never just have had that outlet,” she said. “There’s something healing about getting up and reading something like that in front of people.”

In a world that often asks us to guard our hearts, Letters of Love made space for Granite Falls residents to speak theirs out loud—and be heard.

JJ Kapur’s performance at The YES! House was made possible in part by Arts Midwest’s GIG Fund. The GIG Fund provides flexible grants for nonprofit organizations to support programs and activities featuring professional artists.

The post Practicing the Art of Love, One Letter at a Time appeared first on Arts Midwest.

As part of their most recent exhibit, Mitchell Street Arts created a miniature version of a real house in Milwaukee’s South Side neighborhood, as seen through two different eras of the home’s history. It’s meant to be a conversation starter about immigration, gentrification, cultural change, and what makes the South Side home.

Over the past 140 years, the area around Mitchell Street has welcomed waves of immigrants, including Germans, Poles, Norwegians, Soviet Jews, and, more recently, Hispanic and Middle Eastern families. What has stayed the same is the neighborhood’s houses–which led to the idea of making one in miniature.  

“I think miniatures inspire a sense of wonder and awe in a way that is unique amongst a lot of other art forms,” says Rew Gordon, Executive Director of Mitchell Street Arts. “It’s a perfect entry point into talking about the melting pot that is our city.”

A Neighborhood-Wide Search

To find the right house to recreate, Mitchell Street Arts partnered with Dr. Jill Lackey of Urban Anthropology Center. Dr. Lackey’s team ventured across the near South Side, canvassing over 30 blocks to find a house whose style, lot size, and window dimensions might capture the essence of the neighborhood.

Once they had a list of potential addresses, they dove deep into the history of these homes, using databases from the Milwaukee County Historical Society and Ancestry.com. They uncovered fascinating details like who lived there, where they came from, how many children they had, and what work they did.

And then, they started work to build a miniature version of a duplex located at 1512/1514 S. 7th Street.

Two Families, Connected by a Home

The lower level of the miniature represents the 1950s, when the Polish-American Golec family lived there. Catherine Golec, a widow, shared the home with three of her six children.

The upper level depicts the 1985 home of the Acevedos, a Mexican-American family who lived in the house until 2010. The floors are filled with miniature furniture, outfitted to match each family’s story.

Mitchell Street Arts hopes that the miniature home can be a connector. So far, it’s having the intended effect. One visitor, a current renter of the house, was moved to tears by the exhibit.

“These are different periods and different groups of people, but we all have more in common than we realize. We’re living in the same kinds of units and making them our own,” says Bella Biwer, a local architect who helped to construct the miniature house. “I hope that it gives people a sense of belonging and pride in their community and their homes.”

The miniature house will be on display at Mitchell Street Arts through mid-March 2025, with additional programming around memory, community and documentation, including drop-in family photography sessions for neighbors.

The Milwaukee South Side Miniature Project was made possible in part by Arts Midwest’s GIG Fund. The GIG Fund provides flexible grants for nonprofit organizations to support programs and activities featuring professional artists.

The post Understanding Milwaukee History Through a Miniature House appeared first on Arts Midwest.

The GIG Fund provides flexible grants to support activities featuring professional artists. The selected artists must take part in at least two public events as part of their GIG Fund project. Funds may also be used for project costs such as accessibility accommodations and marketing.

The GIG Fund prioritizes organizations that are led by or engage artists from historically underrepresented or marginalized communities, rural communities, and under-funded areas. 53% of this round’s organizations have never been funded by Arts Midwest in the past. 25% of the organizations are from rural areas, according to the National Endowment for the Arts definition. All funded organizations this round had organizational budgets below $1 million.

We work with a panel to help us review applications and distribute grants annually. With limited funding, Arts Midwest was not able to award all projects.

See all 2024 GIG Fund Grantees

The post Announcing 99 New GIG Fund Recipients appeared first on Arts Midwest.

If you’re part of a small to medium-sized Midwestern non-profit that wants to host performing and visual arts activities between September 2024 to May 2025, read on!

GIG Fund Overview

• What: The GIG Fund is a grant of $2,000 – $4,000 that helps organizations bring artists into their community. Curious about what kinds of projects have been funded as part of the GIG Fund? Explore recent GIG Fund grantees in our filterable database.
• When: Intent to Apply is due May 23, 2024 (required). Applications are due June 12, 2024. Funded activities should take place between September 2024 and May 2025.
• Where: Non-profit organizations located in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Wisconsin and the Native nations that share this geography can apply.
• Who: This funding is available to non-profit and tribal organizations with a budget of $1 million or less looking to present at least two community activities featuring an artist.

Key Dates + Deadlines

Intent to Apply (Required): May 23, 2024 @ 11:59 p.m. Central Time 

Application Deadline: June 12, 2024 @ 11:59 p.m. Central Time

Notification of Award Decisions: Late July 2024

GIG Fund Activities Take Place: September 1, 2024 – May 31, 2025

Learn More

RELIC

Kalamazoo, MI

GIG Fund

Photo Credit: Photo by Fran Dwight, courtesy of Relic

Read the Application Guidelines

Learn more about the GIG Fund, eligibility requirements, how to write your application, and how submit your application.

Apply Now

Indigenous Roots Cultural Center

St. Paul, MN

GIG Fund

Photo Credit: Mary Anne Quiroz

Explore Past GIG Fund Projects

Want to see some of the projects supported by the GIG Fund in the past? Check out our filterable grantee database.

Read More

Bread and Puppet Theater

Iowa City, IA

GIG Fund

Photo Credit: Public Space One

The post Now Accepting Applications: 2024-25 GIG Fund appeared first on Arts Midwest.

A Hardanger fiddle looks at first glance like an intricately ornamented violin, with a fingerboard and tailpiece often inlaid with mother-of-pearl, ebony, or bone. It is more lightweight, however, with four slimmer strings, ink decorations on the wooden body, and the scroll at the end often carved into the likeness of a dragon or wild animal.

Photo Credit: Gabby Clavo

Another key element of a Hardanger fiddle is the addition of sympathetic strings, which sit in a layer below those that the bow touches, vibrating when the instrument is played and adding a richness to the sound. “You are playing, generally, two notes at once whenever you play a Hardanger fiddle,” says luthier Robert “Bud” Larsen, a side effect of the instrument’s flat bridge. 

Larsen, who is based in Brainerd, Minnesota, was introduced to the art of fiddle-making and restoration with the help of local violin-maker Gunnar Helland. Helland had emigrated to the U.S. from Norway in 1901. After stints in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, and Minneapolis, he established a shop in Fargo, North Dakota, to carry on his family’s craft tradition.

“Our family moved into the same building where Gunnar had his shop,” Larsen says. “We hung out a lot, and I was very interested in what he was building. When I was in the seventh grade, he gave me an old violin and helped me through the process of restoring it.” 

Larsen’s lifelong love for the instrument was born. Over the next several decades, he would build at least 40 Hardanger fiddles and restore more than twice that many.

Preserving, and Evolving, Tradition

Troyd Geist, state folklorist of North Dakota, is a big fan of traditional culture and history. He focuses not only on the heritage of traditional arts but also sees the potential for craft to contribute to health and a sense of wellbeing. He heads an apprenticeship program where a master artist is paired with a younger person in order to pass along knowledge. 

Geist is fascinated by how U.S. makers have gradually evolved the Hardanger fiddle over time. Though the instruments have maintained many of their recognizable features, their designs have become distinctly American.

“For instance, the fiddles in Norway would have different rosemaling designs and different flowers that they really focus on,” Geist says. “And the head above the fret is often carved, in Norway, like a lion or a dragon. They do that here, too, but they also carve, instead of a lion or a dog head on the end of it, a buffalo head.”

Larsen and others in the community who are passionate about the Hardanger fiddle liken the craft to being similar to language.

“We know that a language that is not willing to change will soon die,” says Larsen, who was a linguist in Papua New Guinea for more than 20 years before turning to fiddle making. “If people say a language should be prescriptive and you should write it the way the dictionary tells you to, and speak it that way, then the language will die out because it can’t change. And that’s the same with Hardanger fiddle music. Because new music is being written, and it’s being used in different genres as well, it will stay with us for a long time because the music has learned to adapt to people’s interests and cultures.”

Both Geist and Larsen agree that it’s important to continue to teach others how to make the fiddles, which can sometimes take a novice apprentice up to two years to complete. Some makers seek to protect their secrets, but “if you’re not willing to share broadly and freely, the tradition is going to die,” Geist says.

A Generational History 

First comes the making of a fiddle and then, of course, comes the playing. Arts Midwest’s GIG Fund recently supported an event at the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County (HCS) where more than 220 people attended a concert performed by the Fargo Spelemannslag.

A spelemannslag is a group of folk musicians, often dominated by fiddles. 

The wintertime concert featured a song written two centuries ago by Eirik Medås. “Eirik’s direct descendant, a high school student named Elsa Ruth Pryor, played a new song that she wrote herself, on a Hardanger Fiddle that she made herself,” says Markus Krueger, programming director of HCS.

Photo Credit: Gabby Clavo

“Minnesota and North Dakota are the two most Norwegian states in America. For a lot of people in our community, this is the music of their childhood that they remember their parents and grandparents playing,” Krueger says, reflecting on the significance of the event. “It’s a symbol of Norwegian culture and heritage, and even more than that, it’s a symbol of Midwest culture.” 

The concert featured performances by Bud Larsen and Loretta Kelley, the president of the Hardanger Fiddle Association of America. It was a meaningful showcase of a living tradition, passed down through generations.  

“The immigrants brought their fiddles with them, and they kept playing them in America, says Krueger. “They kept making them in America. We still make them and play them today.”

Loretta Kelley’s performance at the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County was made possible in part by the GIG Fund. The GIG Fund provides flexible grants for nonprofit organizations to support programs and activities featuring professional artists.

The GIG Fund is a program of Arts Midwest that is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional contributions from the Illinois Arts Council Agency, Indiana Arts Commission, Iowa Arts Council, Michigan Arts and Culture Council, Minnesota State Arts Board, North Dakota Council on the Arts, Ohio Arts Council, South Dakota Arts Council, and Wisconsin Arts Board.

The post Across the Upper Midwest, Communities Converge Around Norway’s Hardanger Fiddle appeared first on Arts Midwest.

The artist uses materials like shells, beads, and other decorative objects that swirl around portraits of confident subjects in dreamlike settings. Resin holds the pieces together, adding depth and gloss.

Sunami’s recent exhibition I Am Because You/We Are, was hosted by the Peggy R. McConnell Arts Center (MAC) in Columbus, Ohio. Pieces were inspired by the artist’s community, especially the role that her mother and other influential women have played in shaping her into the person and artist she is today.

Photo Credit: Peggy R. McConnell Arts Center

Creating Through Collaboration 

Part solo show and part curatorial endeavor, the exhibition combines Sunami’s poignant mixed-media works with pieces made by members of a local art collective called Creative Women of Color.

The collective was fairly small when Sunami first joined, and she describes it as “kind of like a salon. A handful of us would get together and rotate at each other’s homes and talk about art and what we were working on.” Over time, it became more formal, and the group organized events like exhibitions and talks. 

“In that collective, I really started to find my voice as an artist,” says Sunami. “So, it felt right to have their work as a part of the show.”

In addition to the exhibition, Sunami presented a free resin workshop. With support from Arts Midwest’s GIG Fund, the workshop was among a series of events that enabled people to participate in the event and work with the materials for free, boosting the MAC’s commitment to accessibility.

The MAC focuses on showcasing the work of living, Columbus-based artists in its gallery. Michelle Tavenner, who joined the organization as director of programming in Autumn 2021, jumped right in to set up a show with Sunami. 

“They had had just two artists programmed for moving forward,” she says. “So one of the first things I needed to do was to start scheduling some artists. In the first month that I started my position, I had numerous people telling me you have to get April Sunami. I saw April’s work, and I was mesmerized by it.”

When Tavenner met Sunami, ideas flowed from the get-go. Sunami already had some thoughts about the body of work she’d like to exhibit, and over time, the project evolved into a collaborative and multifaceted presentation.

Photo Credit: Peggy R. McConnell Arts Center

Photo Credit: Peggy R. McConnell Arts Center

Photo Credit: Peggy R. McConnell Arts Center

The Women Who Make Us Who We Are

“For the show, I landed on this term, ‘I am because you are.’ It really stuck out to me,” Sunami says about how the title of the show emerged. “It was something really personal—something I actually had said to my mother in the last days of her life… Everything I am is because of this woman. And then if I look at it, everything is because of all of the women—all women in my family.”

The phrase “I am because you/we are” is also traced to a powerful pan-African philosophy summed up in the Bantu word Ubuntu, emphasizing the interconnectedness of individuals within a society and an understanding of humanity as a collective. 

Asked why presenting this show was important for the community of Columbus, Sunami pointed to a text she got recently from a friend who was grappling with the significance of art.

“We live in these really difficult times. Being an artist, is it important what we do?” Sunami asks, but the answer is clear: “Yes, yes, it is! It’s what I tell myself all the time. Art is always on the forefront of cultural shifts and cultural changes. And I think this exhibition is also a part of that.”

At the core of Sunami’s show is honor and respect for those who have been pivotal in the artist’s own life. At the same time, it also highlights her approach to support networks, the local community, and inspiring the next generation.

“I feel like it’s so important for the community to see this work by primarily Black women artists,” she says, “I want everybody to see themselves or see something they can relate to, and really just have a moment to connect with each other’s humanity in this work. That’s the most important thing to do right now.”

April Sunami’s exhibit at the Peggy R. McConnell Arts Center was made possible in part by the GIG Fund. The GIG Fund provides flexible grants for nonprofit organizations to support programs and activities featuring professional artists.

The GIG Fund is a program of Arts Midwest that is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional contributions from the Illinois Arts Council Agency, Indiana Arts Commission, Iowa Arts Council, Michigan Arts and Culture Council, Minnesota State Arts Board, North Dakota Council on the Arts, Ohio Arts Council, South Dakota Arts Council, and Wisconsin Arts Board.

The post In Columbus, April Sunami’s Portraits Honor Creative Women of Color appeared first on Arts Midwest.

Crista McCandless and Joan Klein, residents of the Bismarck/Mandan area in North Dakota, wanted to showcase Asian art and culture in their community. In 2022, the duo—originally from the Philippines—co-founded the North Dakota Asian-American Arts and Culture Initiative (NDAAACI) to meet their vision. In a short span of time, their organizing efforts through this nonprofit initiative has paid off in big ways.

Humble Beginnings

The organization holds numerous events throughout the year from family game nights to community conversations. Without a brick-and-mortar for their nonprofit, McCandless and Klein meet in coffee shops, restaurants or in each other’s homes to organize NDAAACI’s cultural programs and other gatherings to welcome new Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders to the community.  

Every May, during Asian American Pacific Islander Cultural Heritage month, they hold an expo highlighting Asian and Pacific Island culture. The event grows larger every year and presents culture, art and dance from countries such as India, Indonesia, Philippines and Pacific Islands to name a few. Recently, at the request of the Mandan Morton County Library, the nonprofit started a series of ‘Know My Culture’ talks featuring different Asian and Pacific Island populations living in the Bismarck area.

Photo Credit: NDAAACI

The first ‘Know My Culture’ event in November 2023 featured the islands of the Philippines. It included an art showcase, along with handmade crafts, food and fellowship with the help of volunteers and sponsors. A panel discussion was held with co-founder Crista McCandless as the moderator, followed by questions from the audience. Co-founder Joan Klein’s art pieces were on display, along with other artwork from members of the Filipino community. Klein has a background in art and a career in architecture, using her talent and abilities to sketch and draw blueprints. She also uses oil paints, watercolors, multimedia and photography in her artwork. 

A Growing Population

North Dakota has one of the fastest growing populations of Asians in the country, with close to 12,000 residents according to the last census. Klein says that they know of a few thousand Filipinos in the area, many of whom are nurses and teachers. “We send our money back home and support our families,” Klein says. “We don’t care where we are, as long as we are in the US working and helping our community, family and friends in the Philippines.” 

She says if there was just one thing she could share with the community about her culture, it would be their passion. “We are passionate about everything. We love people, art, food, music, and we love to share. That’s who we are. Our love language is giving. We welcome everybody. We are proud of our heritage, and we love to celebrate us, as Filipino people. We want to share that with everyone.”

Photo Credit: NDAAACI

Photo Credit: NDAAACI

Photo Credit: NDAAACI

Photo Credit: NDAAACI

During the panel discussion at the library, when asked about the one thing they could keep about their culture, the panelists’ response was language. The main language spoken in the Philippines is English, but Bisaya and Tagalog/Filipino are also widely spoken in the three regions and 7,000 islands that make up the country. 

“Even though we live in America, we want to be able to speak our language from back home. Knowing our language and passing that on to the next generations will help them to understand culture and artistic expression,” says Klein. 

A Growing Vision 

As the Asian-American population grows in the state, the NDAAACI will continue to grow their work and vision. “I could see where we (NDAAACI) could act as a resource center, where new Asian Americans can get oriented about the Bismarck/Mandan community, but also to be seen as a place for AAPI artists to sell their artwork or have a gallery space,” says Klein. 

The nonprofit was recently named as a 2024 GIG Fund recipient. It is a grant through Arts Midwest that prioritizes organizations that are led by or engage artists from historically underrepresented or marginalized communities, rural communities, and under-funded areas.

Photo Credit: NDAAACI

“We are very excited to use this grant to highlight these artists and their creativity, their ethnic backgrounds, and how their artworks define their identities,” she adds.

The GIG Fund will be used to organize the annual Asian-American Cultural Expo in Bismarck that will invite professional artists from the Chicago, Illinois, area to showcase their art pieces and offer demonstrations of their techniques to the local artist community. The cultural expo this spring will also showcase many Asian and Pacific Island cultures and artists from the area. The organization plans to continue the ‘Know My Culture’ events at the Mandan Morton County Library and feature China, India, and Indonesia in early 2024. 

“Asia is the biggest continent in the world. A really big vision is to represent every Asian community that lives here in North Dakota and to showcase them—here we are, this is what we can do. Learn from us. Have that experience with us.”

The post This Nonprofit is on a Mission to Platform Asian Culture and Artists in North Dakota appeared first on Arts Midwest.