This fellowship will support the development of Under an Open Sky, an exhibition and publication that examines the artistic practices of self-taught artists who have utilized outdoor spaces—streets, private yards, and public venues—as sites of both production and display. Inspired by the artist Bill Traylor (1853–1949), whose visual narratives reimagined the African American experience from an improvised outdoor studio in Montgomery, Alabama, this project amplifies the voices of historically marginalized artists whose works were created outside institutional frameworks. The project’s premise, aligned with Gilles Deleuze’s concept of “La Pensée Nomade” (Nomadic Thought), reflects on decentralized identities and nonhierarchical frameworks as conduits for “out-of-the-box thinking” and the dismantling of established social and cultural codes. Initial phases, led by Valérie Rousseau, PhD, Curatorial Chair and Senior Curator of 20th-Century & Contemporary Art at the American Folk Art Museum (AFAM), will include archival research, site visits, and interviews with a broad network of artists, scholars, and community members to ensure grounded perspectives. This outreach, centered on a core group of self-taught artists, will explore the lived experiences of displacement, marginalization, and resilience. It will investigate kinships with formally trained artists, questions of artistic boundaries, and themes of nomadism, transience, environment, and community, fostering a broader understanding of how art intersects with pressing issues such as climate change, housing insecurity, and forced migration.