Collective Futures Fund (CFF) is pleased to announce twenty grant recipients for visual artists and artist-run activities in the Greater Boston area for the 2026 cycle.
This cycle, CFF awards a total of $110,000 to artists and groups for collaborative, public-oriented projects, with emphases on experimentation, risk-taking, and unconventional perspectives. Building upon the expansions of New Projects, Ongoing Platforms, and Sustaining Practice tiers in 2024 and 2025 through generous stewardship, CFF is honored once again to announce further financial support to expand extant tiers and a new tier in 2027 with a coalition funding model galvanized by Barr Foundation and Wagner Foundation in collaboration with the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and an anonymous donor.
“In the sixth year of Collective Futures Fund, artist applicants and grantees continue to inspire the CFF staff, its independent panel of jurors, and Boston community members engaged with its mission. Even amidst a challenging landscape of shifting federal and local commitments to the arts, artists remain steadfast in their commitments to innovation and social transformation. Barr Foundation and Wagner Foundation recognized this call towards increased resourcing in a pathmaking collaboration,” says Collective Futures Fund Program Director, Laurel V. McLaughlin. “Barr Foundation and Wagner Foundation have taken on this challenge by dedicating funds directly to the artists in the Greater Boston arts ecosystem and preserving the longevity and capacity-building of the Collective Futures Fund. We’re grateful for their partnership and look forward to how these funds can extend artistic impact in the region.”
In the coming year, Collective Futures Fund looks forward to the unfolding lives of grantee projects across Boston and beyond, engaging community archiving practices, memorial tracings, curatorial collectivity, and embodied data rendered in textile.
Sustaining Practice
$3,000 grants for emerging individual artists and collaborators who need critical support for research, to develop new projects and future ideas, and sustain themselves in the process.
• Beatriz Amelia with Gabo Azurdia | Today I remember: Cartografías de Memoria
• Jana Amin | Azooma: The Arab Kitchen as Visual Archive
• Jamison Cloud | where the roots meet
• Delia Harrington | Measured in Stitches: Fiber Art, Disability, and Lived Data
• Simone John | Motherwit: Archival Storytelling Practice and Platform
• Daniel Keating Jr. | Can I get a ride
• Enzo Nguyen | Doo-rēan
• Melissa Q. Teng | The Urgency of Presence
• Dorian Wood | Mares Ocultos
• Andrew Zou | Where We Belong Data
New Projects
$8,000 grants to support the creation and public presentation of new work by visual artists, curators, or collectives.
• Bosede Ajibola Opetubo & Lucy, Lomas, MD | Artist/(m)Other…
• Cicely Carew & Anthan Rajaratnam | Witnessing Tree
• Ruben Feliz | A Man’s First Bouquet
• Tushar Gidwani & Homa Sarabi | Beatrice Has A Dream
• Fatima Hamdani & Felix Rosen | House(ing) of Worship
• Karina Malm, Paul DeFazio, Hannah Wong, & Caroline Karbowski | Blind Design Workshop: Perkins Campus + Multi-sensory Access Mapping
• ponnapa prakkamakul | Streetlife
Ongoing Platforms
$8,000 grants to support sustaining or the completion of long-term projects. This category recognizes the commitment, time, and focus required to pursue long-term artistic endeavors that support and foster local artist communities.
• An Hà with Miguel Caba and Vivian Tran | Copenger
• Leddy Rosalia Saenz & Yumi Izuyama | Banderines de la Memoria: De Muchas Casas / From Many Homes
• Gabriel Sosa with Colomba Klenner, Riley McLaughlin, Iz Hall, and Nate Bourget | Come print with us: ñ press open studios
Collective Futures Fund is excited to to introduce the 2026–2027 advisory council. Starting this Fall, 2024 grantee Joanna Tam, and former CFF Program Coordinator Camila Bohan Insaurralde will be joining current advisory council members, Jasper Sanchez, and Mary Amanda McNeil. Joanna Tam is a visual artist whose interdisciplinary practice examines the issue of migration and one’s physical and emotional connections to places through video, photography, performance, installation, and community engagement. Her ongoing body of work, “Visibility Studies,” unpacks the meaning of hypervisibility and invisibility pertaining to safety and vulnerability for folks whose identities do not align with societal norms. Bohan Insaurralde is a Boston-based interrelated media artist and cultural organizer. They are also the programs and partnerships manager for Boston Art Review and serve on Boston Ujima Project’s Member Arts Advisory Committee.