Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts

Limit: 1 // B. Carter (Center for Digital Humanities)

Grants to Organizations  priorities are to: 1) Assist with the production and presentation of significant programs about architecture and the designed environment in order to promote dialogue, raise awareness, and develop new and wider audiences. 2) Support them in their effort to take risks in programming and create opportunities for experimentation. 3) Recognize the vital role they play in providing individuals with a public forum in which to present their work. 4)Help them to realize projects that would otherwise not be possible without our support.

UArizona may submit one inquiry form per department/unit.
 

Founded in 1956, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts fosters the development and exchange of diverse and challenging ideas about architecture and its role in the arts, culture, and society. The Graham realizes this vision through making project-based grants to individuals and organizations and producing exhibitions, events, and publications.

Grantmaking Focus

Architecture and related spatial practices engage a wide range of cultural, social, political, technological, environmental, and aesthetic issues. The Foundation is interested in projects that investigate contemporary conditions, expand historical perspectives, or explore the future of architecture and the designed environment.

The Foundation supports innovative, thought-provoking investigations in architecture; architectural history, theory, and criticism; design; engineering; landscape architecture; urban planning; urban studies; visual arts; and related fields of inquiry. The interest also extends to work being done in the fine arts, humanities, and sciences that expands the boundaries of thinking about architecture and space. In an effort to bridge communities and different fields of knowledge, we support a wide range of practitioners (such as architects, scholars, critics, writers, artists, curators, and educators) and organizations (such as non-profit galleries, colleges and universities, publishers, and museums).

Open discourse is essential to advance study and understanding, therefore our grantmaking focuses on the public dissemination of ideas. With our support, the work of individuals and organizations reaches new audiences, from specialized to general, and creates opportunities for critical dialogue between various publics.

Priorities and Criteria

For organizations, our priorities are to:

• Assist with the production and presentation of significant programs about architecture and the designed environment in order to promote dialogue, raise awareness, and develop new and wider audiences.
• Support them in their effort to take risks in programming and create opportunities for experimentation. 
• Recognize the vital role they play in providing individuals with a public forum in which to present their work. 
• Help them to realize projects that would otherwise not be possible without our support. 

Overall we are most interested in opportunities that enable us to provide critical support at key points in the development of a project or career.

Criteria for Evaluation

Given our priorities, we believe projects of the greatest potential should fulfill the following criteria:

• Originality: the project demonstrates an innovative, challenging idea; critical, independent thinking; advanced scholarship; a new or experimental approach
• Potential for impact: the project makes a meaningful contribution to discourse and/or to the field; expands knowledge; is a catalyst for future inquiry; raises awareness of an understudied issue; promotes diversity in subject matter, participants, and audience
• Feasibility: the project has clear and realistic goals, timeframe, work plan, and budget
• Capacity: applicant possesses strong qualifications and/or knowledge; demonstrates the ability to carry out the project successfully; has access to necessary resources outside of the grant request