Criteria & eligibility
RESEARCH GRANTS
Eligibility and Requirements:
- Applicants must live within the greater Washington area either in DC, Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax, Montgomery, or Prince George’s counties
- Applicants must be visual artists, or artists with a history of presenting their work in visual arts contexts/venues (performance, film, text, and/or sound artists are eligible if their work explicitly engages visual arts discourses)
- Artists can choose to apply for either a Research Grant or Project Grant (not both) depending on which best supports your practice at this time
- If you are applying as a collective, one person must serve as the applicant, be responsible for the receipt, management, and distribution of the funds, handle all communications with WPA, and be responsible for grant reporting
- A minimum of $3,500 of the grant should be set aside as compensation for the time you will spend on research and development (reading, writing, communicating with other artists and/or scholars)
- The remaining $1,500 can be used to pay collaborators or thinking partners and/or gain access to specific resources (travel, book or journal purchases, workshops and classes, photocopying from archives, subscriptions, etc.)
- Grants can be used to support new or ongoing research
- WPA asks that grantees prepare a public-facing presentation of their research to be given in the summer 2022, more information will be provided upon award
Ineligible:
- Full-time undergraduate or graduate students
- 501(c)(3) organizations and for-profit organizations (LLC, corporations, partnerships, etc.)
- Research for already-scheduled exhibitions, performances, or presentations at 501(c)(3) organizations and for-profit organizations
Evaluative Criteria:
Successful applicants will excel in one or more of the following:
- Artistic Impact: The inquiry is experimental, imaginative, innovative, or unconventional, and furthers the applicant's practice in meaningful ways
- Context/Relevance: The research is considerate of its context; it engages with other artists/thinkers in relevant discourses
- Feasibility: The applicant demonstrates the ability to carry out the proposed research within the grant period
PROJECT GRANTS
Eligibility and Requirements:
- Applicants must live within the greater Washington area either in DC, Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax, Montgomery, or Prince George’s counties.
- Applicants must be visual artists, or artists with a history of presenting their work in visual arts contexts/venues (performance, film, text, and/or sound artists are eligible if their work explicitly engages visual arts discourses).
- Projects must be shared publicly during the grant period. These public presentations can take a variety of forms, including but not limited to: in-person or virtual events, exhibitions, performances, publications, interventions, screenings, readings, round-table discussions, installations, lecture series, curated dinners, festivals, and walking tours.
- The project, as described, should have a clear beginning and end date, either or both of which can fall outside of the grant period.
- Projects must take place in DC or in the eligible surrounding counties (Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax, Montgomery, or Prince George’s counties), or take place virtually.
- Grantees are responsible for organizing and managing their projects as well as finding sites and venues.
- If you are applying as a collective, one person must serve as the applicant, be responsible for the receipt, management and distribution of the funds, handle all communications with WPA, and be responsible for grant reporting.
- These $5,000 grants can be used to pay for your time and that of your collaborators, production and material costs, etc. It can entirely fund a small-scale project or event, or contribute to the funding of a larger project with multiple sources of funding.
- Grantees are required to submit a final report on outcomes and reflections at the end of the grant period.
Ineligible:
- Full-time undergraduate or graduate students
- 501(c)(3) organizations and for-profit organizations (LLC, corporations, partnerships, etc.)
- Projects that will take place in/at 501(c)(3) organizations or for-profit organizations (LLC, corporations, partnerships, etc.)
Evaluative Criteria:
Successful applicants will excel in one or more of the following:
- Artistic Impact: The project has a core idea/inquiry/theme and its presentation is experimental, imaginative, innovative, or unconventional, and furthers the applicant's practice in meaningful ways
- Context/Relevance: The project ideas are considerate of their context; the project engages artists/thinkers and audiences in relevant discourses and meaningful ways
- Collaboration: The project engages multiple artists and thinkers in the development and presentation processes
- Feasibility: The applicant demonstrates the ability to carry out the proposed project within the grant period
Key dates and contact
2022 GRANT CYCLE
Virtual Information Session: Thursday, September 23
Office Hours: September 22–October 7, 2021
Application Deadline: Monday, October 18, 2021 at 11:59 pm EDT
Independent panel convenes: November 2021
Notifications: December 2021
Grant Period: January–December 2022
Research Grant In-Process Presentations: Summer 2022
QUESTIONS?
Contact Regrants Manager Nathalie von Veh at nvonveh@wpadc.org or follow @wherewithalgrants on Instagram
Apply now
2022 GRANT CYCLE
The application portal is now closed. Applications will be reviewed by an independent panel of artists and arts professionals with up to 12 grants awarded and announced in December 2021. The grant period is from January–December 2022. Please find the application questions and links to apply to both grants below.
RESEARCH GRANTS
These $5,000 grants are for research and ideation. Research Grant funds can be used to compensate you for your intellectual labor, to pay other artists and thinkers for their time and contributions, and for costs associated with gaining access to specific resources.
PROJECT GRANTS
These $5,000 grants are for collaborative projects. Project Grant funds can be used to support ongoing, or new, artist-organized projects that are presented publicly during the grant period in unconventional or D.I.Y. artist-run spaces in the DC-area, or virtually. Projects cannot take place in established commercial galleries, museums, or non-profit art spaces.
QUESTIONS?
Please email Regrants Manager Nathalie von Veh at nvonveh@wpadc.org. For updates, follow @wherewithalgrants on Instagram and sign up for WPA's newsletter here.
Wherewithal Grants
Wherewithal Grants are a funding source for visual artists in the DC-area. Generously funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts as part of its Regional Regranting Program and managed by Washington Project for the Arts, these grants are intended to support a wide range of experimental and multidisciplinary practices, particularly those that emphasize collaboration and discourse. Since launching in 2019, Wherewithal Grants has supported 124 visual artists with a total of $220,000 in grants.
2022 Grant Cycle
On January 28, 2022 we announced the 12 grant recipients for the 2022 funding cycle. Each artist or artist collective will receive $5,000 for either a project or research.
The recipients of Research Grants are: Rasha Abdulhadi, Safiyah Cheatam & Hope Willis, Larry Cook, Deirdre Darden, Rex Delafkaran, Monica Jahan Bose, and Armando Lopez-Bircann.
The recipients of Project Grants are: Fabiola Ching & Mayah Lovell, Ayana Zaire Cotton, Dirt, Imogen-Blue Hinojosa, and Naoko Wowsugi.
Over the next year, these artists will organize projects and conduct research around fascinating and timely topics such as club photography, queering Palestinian embroidery, climate injustice, O-1 artist visas, and worldbuilding through Black aesthetics.
An independent panel of four curators reviewed 114 applications and recommended the final 12 for funding. The panelists were Monica Peña, Programs Manager, Locust Projects (Miami); Eriola Pira, Curator, The Vera List Center (New York); Victoria Reis, Executive & Artistic Director, Transformer (DC); and Tiffany Ward, Curator and Founder, Mare Residency (Baltimore/London).
For updates, follow @wherewithalgrants on Instagram and sign up for WPA's newsletter here
Washington Project for the Arts (WPA)
Washington Project for the Arts (WPA) is a platform for collaborative and experimental artist-organized projects, dialogue, and advocacy. Artists curate and organize all of their programming—as an extension of the artist's research. Projects can take many forms, from conversational dinners, exhibitions, field trips, film screenings, grass-roots organizing meetings, performances, publications, symposia, and more. Wherewithal Grants furthers WPA’s commitment to supporting artist-organized culture.
The Andy Warhol Foundation
Established in 1987 in accordance with Andy Warhol’s will, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts’ mission is the advancement of the visual arts. The primary focus of its grant making activity is to support the creation, presentation, and documentation of contemporary visual art, particularly work that is experimental, under-recognized, or challenging in nature.
The foundation’s Regional Regranting Program, launched in 2007, aims to support vibrant, under-the-radar artistic activity by partnering with leading cultural institutions in communities across the country. The program allows the Warhol Foundation to reach the sizable population of informal, non-incorporated artist collectives and to support their alternative gathering spaces, publications, websites, events and other projects.
The regranting programs are facilitated by 516 Arts in Albuquerque; Baltimore Arts Realty Corporation in Baltimore; Gallery 400 and Three Walls in Chicago; DiverseWorks, Aurora Picture Show, and Project Row Houses in Houston; Charlotte Street Foundation and Spencer Museum in Kansas City; Locust Projects in Miami; Midway Contemporary Art in Minneapolis; Antenna and Ashe’ Cultural Fund in New Orleans; Portland Institute of Contemporary Art in Portland (OR); Spaces Gallery in Portland (ME), Southern Exposure in San Francisco, and Washington Project for the Arts in Washington, DC.