The Soul of Nations Foundation is a for-purpose 501(c)3 organization that aims to uplift Indigenous peoples through various forms of media, innovative strategy, and youth-led initiatives. Our mission is to progress Indigenous and Black communities through the arts, research, and scholarship. We envision a world where all people of color are respected as contemporary societies and have greater access to equal opportunities in the following sectors: social, creative, academic, and economic.
The vision of the Foundation is to fund artists and researchers creating works of large scale with underlying vernacular media, similar to patronage systems of the Renaissance, to invite innovative perspectives of space reclamation and the evolution of cultural transformation over time.
PROGRAMS
All Soul of Nations Foundation programs aim to assist Indigenous and Black communities to explore and develop alternative relationships among people, place, space, environment, and the non-human; build trust and a sense of shared purpose among and within communities; develop new models of community organization, empowerment, and governance; expand collective imaginative capacity to envision new structures and processes for social relations; and use the expressive arts to inspire and shape alternative social, economic, and technological relations.
Soul Center— New York presents the concept for a hybrid institution that includes space for vernacular sculpture, ceremonial performance, and collective experimental healing. Its basis is a research and process-oriented platform, a space for showing, broadcasting, and making art public, while offering another place for reflecting, meeting, and creating community. Ideally, its program model will be to support the creation of innovative, site-specific, socially engaged artworks in the public realm, particularly in vacant spaces of historical and architectural interest in Manhattan.
Soul Center for the Arts functions as a contemporary art gallery and residency concept dedicated to exhibiting, elucidating, and documenting the modern anthropology of Indigenous American, African American, and Afro-Italian communities in Florence. Soul Center for the Arts provides emerging and renowned Indigenous American and African American visual artists with the opportunity to engage in public restorative healing practices and workshops in the birth country of Christopher Columbus, all the while unearthing Afro-diasporic historic and present regal legacies.
The Advocacy and Research Program is a hybrid fellowship designed to provide opportunities for young research Fellows to identify ways of best leveraging civil society’s skills, tools, and access to investigate and monitor policy reform strategies. The objective of the Advocacy and Research Program is to empower at-risk minority communities in the policy development sector by focusing on human rights and fundamental freedoms, governance, and environmentalism.
The Green Architecture Project in a one-year hybrid fellowship between Indigenous and Black women and non-binary artists and designers to aid the exploration and conceptualization of cultural intersectionality within the framework of a number of issues pertaining to the access to affordable housing, urban planning, environmental policy, and traditional architectural representation.
The following program statements are now accepting applications. Please email apply@soulofnations.org with any questions.
ARTIST FELLOWSHIP GRANTS
The Green Architecture Project will provide collaborative artist fellowship grants ranging from $2,000 – $5,000 for emerging artists and architects, from the United States, Canada, Bolivia, Kenya, and Rwanda, to make one large-scale work utilizing vernacular materials and digital-based media. In order to be selected as an Artist Fellow, artists should apply online or email apply@soulofnations.org to submit a collaborative artist creation concept, CV, and portfolio to be reviewed by the Soul of Nations Artist Advisory Board. Applications for this program statement will close on May 5, 2023.
DESIGN MENTORSHIP GRANTS
The Green Architecture Project will provide collaborative mentorship grants ranging from $500 – $1,000 for artists, educators, and architects, from North America, South America, and Africa. In order to be selected as mentor, please apply online or email apply@soulofnations.org to submit a 30-minute virtual mentorship concept, along with a CV and portfolio, to be reviewed by the Soul of Nations Artist Advisory Board. Applications for this program statement will close on May 5, 2023, and are accepted on a rolling basis.
ARTIST CREATION GRANTS
Soul of Nations Foundation’s Soul Center for the Arts is supporting artists fellowship grants for Indigenous American, African American, and Afro-Italian artists and researchers; and support a possible one-month artist residency and professional development programming in Florence, Italy. Vernacular sculpture and abstract ceremonial artist performance will be the primary thematic and practical use of the Artist Creation Grant. All dramatic themes should be rooted in natural, environmentally friendly, and Indigenous or Afro-diasporic practices. In order to be considered, artists should apply online. Please click here to learn more about eligibility and program details. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis and are reviewed three times per year.
NEWS
Keep up with all of the happenings at the Foundation by subscribing to our newsletter. If you would like a newsletter feature please contact press@soulofnations.org.
The Soul of Nations Foundation respectfully acknowledges that we currently operate on the ancestral lands of the Munsee Lenape, Piscataway, and Anacostan peoples, which have not been ceded. Thank you for your commitment to Indigenous and Black communities. Please, share our organization’s work with those in your network who are just as invested in BIPOC progression as we are.