The Chicago-based Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation (the Foundation)which supports land conservation, artistic vitality and regional collections for the people of the Chicago region and the Lowcountry of South Carolinaannounces the 10 recipients of the foundation's"Broadening Narratives" initiative, which aims to fund specific collections projects that bring forward underrepresented stories.
The five Chicago-based organizations are the Haitian American Museum of Chicago, Honey Pot Performance, National Museum of Mexican Art, South Side Home Movie Project, and University of Illinois Chicago's College of Nursing:
Haitian American Museum of Chicago will hire a specialist to catalogue its collection, establish procedures for working with the collection, and ultimately improve community access to the collection for future programming.
Honey Pot Performance's Chicago Black Social Culture Map is the first initiative to construct an accessible archive of Black social history rooted in Chicago house music while exploring the cultural expressivity that precedes and follows it.
The enhancement of National Museum of Mexican Art's Nuestras Historias: Stories of Mexican Identity permanent exhibition will include a series of videos about artist Carlos Cortez, a central figure in the Chicago art community, and will highlight the contributions of Mexicans to the storyline of Chicago.
South Side Home Movie Project preserves and presents intimate images of historically marginalized groups, particularly African American families and youth, from the 1930s to the 1980s, offering public access to this unique historic resource through an online digital archive.
The University of Illinois Chicago, College of Nursing's Chicago Black Nurses Archive Mapping aims to decolonize nursing archives, starting with the Midwest Nursing History Research Center (MNHRC), and recuperate Black nurses' narratives with a publicly accessible, Black-centered history of nursing in Chicago.
The South Carolina organizations include Coastal Carolina University, Avery Research Center for African American History & Culture at the College of Charleston, Drayton Hall Preservation Trust, Harbor Historical Association / South Caroline Maritime Museum, and Penn Center.
This announcement represents the first round of organizations to receive the Broadening Narratives grant, with the second round of awardees to be announced in November 2021. All projects illustrate BIPOC communities, LGBTQ+ perspectives, working-class narratives and small community experiences as well as other underrepresented groups and viewpoints.