Live Arts Boston announces the thirty artists in the program’s 2024-2025 cohort

Boston – The Boston Foundation and the Barr Foundation announced today the names of the 30 members of the 2024-2025 Live Arts Boston program cohort. The 30 performing artists, creators, and cultural practitioners will share over $1 million in grants and technical support as they participate in an 18-month program to nurture their creative practice and present new and/or existing work.

Rooted in core principles of artistic risk-taking, creative discomfort, and centering personal and professional development through well-being, the trainings and support will be organized into four different themes:

• Personal Growth, Health and Wellness
• Mentorship and Planned Accountability
• The Business of Creativity (Professional Development)
• and Creative Works and Progress (Constructive Feedback)

“You simply cannot have thriving communities, grounded in racial equity, without a strong arts and creative community,” said M. Lee Pelton, President and CEO of the Boston Foundation. “Our creative assets are vital threads in the rich tapestry we seek to create for equitable, vibrant places in Greater Boston. By focusing on and supporting the complete experience of what it means to be a practicing artist, we are making a commitment to the arts as a core piece of our vision for community wealth.”

“Fundamentally, artists help us see possibilities,” said Jim Canales, President of the Barr Foundation.  “Amidst division, polarization, and what our Surgeon General has dubbed an ‘epidemic of loneliness’, artists can play a vital role to help us connect with one another, to see our common humanity, and to forge the kinds of communities where all can feel welcome and thrive. Barr is grateful to partner with TBF in supporting this exciting new group of local artists through the next evolution of LAB.”

The 30 cohort members (listed below), were selected through a two-round community-led review process by panels that included past grantees, arts leaders, and representatives from other organizations committed to thriving communities.

After an initial meeting in July, the 30 artists are beginning a curriculum that will focus on and bridge the four major themes, with the support of key partners including National Arts Strategies, Meta Mind Art, and Dunamis.

The shift from a focus on performance in earlier iterations of the Live Arts Boston program to a practice centered around artists themselves meshes with the longer-term goals of both organizations and their centering of racial equity.

“This timely improvement to the Live Arts Boston program builds upon one full year of listening and the incorporation of feedback from past LAB participants, project advisors and panelists, that has informed our thinking about centering racial equity and the fundamental ways that the pandemic has changed the arts community,” said Catherine T. Morris, Director of Arts and Creativity at the Boston Foundation.

"Live Arts Boston, with its focus on holistic artistic development, invites artists into an intentional space to contemplate and prepare for longevity in their careers,” said Jamilah Bradshaw, Arts & Creativity Program Officer at the Barr Foundation. “Looking ahead, we imagine the lasting impact on their creative process and their future as working artists within the cultural sector of Greater Boston."