Wood to collaborate with Prattsville Art Center and others on the “Living Archive” Project
Delhi, NY-based artist, Christina Hunt Wood has been awarded the Creatives Rebuild New York Artist (CRNY) Employment Program (AEP) grant. Wood will collaborate with Prattsville Art Center and Residency, Youth Clubhouse of Columbia-Greene, and Community Action of Greene County on “The Living Archive Project.”
Wood and collaborators will collect stories of people living in the Northern Catskills, with special attention to historically underrepresented and marginalized people.
“Since 2016, I have wanted to create work based on the personal archives and lived experiences of underrepresented people in this region,” Wood explained. “However, with a busy full-time job and limited resources, it felt impossible to focus my energies on such a complex endeavor.” She explained that the AEP grant now provides time, support, and capacity to devote attention to this creative project.
Designed to support employment opportunities for artists, the AEP program is funding 98 collaborations invo
lving a dynamic group of 300 artists employed by community-based organizations, municipalities, and tribal governments across New York State. CRNY has awarded a total of $49.9M in funding to support artists’ salaries and benefits, with an additional $11.7M in funding provided to the organizations holding employment.
According to Nancy Barton, the Art Center’s Director, who will be collaborating with Wood, “The Living Archive will expand the Center’s role as a laboratory for inclusive rural culture and empower small town participants across the Northern Catskills in building more open communications and a more equitable and resilient future.”
“If we are to truly rebuild our amazing state, we must celebrate artists’ contributions not only to the economy but to what makes us human,” says Creatives Rebuild New York's Executive Director Sarah Calderon. “The incredible work being funded through CRNY’s Artist Employment Program underscores the importance of direct support for both individual artists and the organizations that hold their employment.”
Artist Employment Program recipients were selected through a two-stage process by a group of twenty external peer reviewers alongside CRNY staff. From an initial pool of over 2,700 written applications, 167 were shortlisted for interviews with reviewers. The reviewers represented a diverse mix of artists and organizational representatives from a broad range of artistic disciplines, regions across New York State, cultural identities, and lived experiences that were reflective of the applicant pool. To view the list of 98 Artist Employment Program participants, visit https://www.creativesrebuildny.org/participants/.