February 2026 News

How do we build a durable financial safety net for marginalized artists?

Large audience seated in a conference ballroom facing a stage with a screen that reads “STORMSHAPING NPN 2025 CONFERENCE Adaptation Resistance Reimagination.” Attendees sit at round tables listening attentively during a keynote session. — NPN 2025 Conference. Photos by Melisa Cardona and Roy Wallace, respectively.

“How do we honestly address and mitigate the violence of an arts economy that hoards the resources it has?” Gabrielle Octavia Rucker asks in her essay, “Reflections from the 2025 National Performance Network Conference,” in response to a conference panel she attended on the financial instability of marginalized artists.

This essay is part of NPN’s Critic-in-Residence program, which supports regional arts writers to participate in NPN convenings and share their reflections. The program is shaped by NPN’s belief that arts criticism and journalism is an essential component of a healthy arts ecosystem, as it creates better understanding of the socio-political conditions of artists regionally and the issues impacting their communities and livelihoods.

Voices from the Network

“I Kind of See Us as This Ecosystem”

An Interview with Take Notice Fund Artist Juicebox P. Burton

Performer Juicebox P. Burton, visible from the waist up, stands in a dark space, their body illuminated on one side by a cool white light and on the other side by a blue light, and stares intently into the camera. They are unclothed, and tattoos cover their torso, chest, shoulders, and neck. They have blue and silver eye shadow, and the left side of their face has been transformed with prosthetics and makeup into a large, nightmarish circular mouth filled with concentric rows of sharp teeth. Their hair is decorated with what appear to be small silver or white spheres that reflect the light. — Juicebox P. Burton in a promo still for the EP *Demarcation*.

2022 Take Notice Fund grantee Juicebox P. Burton is a genderfluid multidisciplinary artist living in New Orleans, LA, who has created music, short films, and live performance art. In this interview, part of NPN Take Notice Fund’s commitment to bring more visibility to Louisiana artists of color, Juicebox shared their journey from performing drag to becoming a self-taught filmmaker, and talked to NPN about the community that welcomed and supported them when they arrived in New Orleans: “I kind of see us as this ecosystem that happens specifically in New Orleans around queer Black and brown folks. And I think that’s what keeps me the most inspired. I have people I love, and they also are going through the exact same thing.”

Read the full interview on our Voices from the Network blog.

Mixed Metaphor

Nothing About Us, Without Us, Is for Us

Top-down view of an open workbook. The left page is a solid field of light purple. The sides and top of the page are decorated in monochromatic hand-drawn leaf shapes in dark purple, over a wash of bright pink that fades into the light purple background. In the center of the top half of this page, in white lettering, is the title "Popular Education." On the right page are blocks of text that are too small to be legible, and three small purple flower images in the margin near the bottom right corner. — “Popular Education” is part of “Chapter 3: Cornerstones to Guide Us” in the Mixed Metaphor Workbook.

“Popular education is an educational approach that collectively and critically examines everyday experiences and raises consciousness for organizing and movement building, acting on injustices with a political vision in the interests of the most marginalized.”

–Paulo Freire

Popular education centers the knowledge and lived experiences of those most impacted by systems of oppression, so that people’s own perspectives, strategies, and actions guide liberation. The “Popular Education” section (page 58) of the Mixed Metaphor Workbook offers opportunities for reflection and resources for further exploration.

Explore the Mixed Metaphor Workbook, and its companion the Mixed Metaphor Learning Deck.

NPN Funding Opportunity

NPN Creation Fund Application Period Is Open

A photo collage made up of five tall, narrow crops of performance photos of five previous Creation Fund awardees. Starting from the left, the five photos show: a person wearing indigenous clothing crouching and singing into a microphone; two Black dancers close together with arms extended toward a blue and white circular light above them; a Black woman holding a microphone and addressing an audience in the round; four Black women seated at various levels on a wooden platform and singing in unison; and a dancer wearing an ornate white and gold dress, gold arm-length gloves, and an elaborate gold head ornament with gold rods that extend in an arc like rays of sunlight. — Past NPN Creation Fund awardees, from left: 2023 awardee Sol Ruiz (photo by Elvis Suarez), 2025 awardee Sweat Variant (photo by Maria Baranova), 2022 awardee Autumn Knight (photo by Lynn Lane), 2022 awardee Anna Martine Whitehead (photo by Ricardo Adame), and 2024 awardee CONTRA-TIEMPO (photo by Tyrone Domingo).

The NPN Creation Fund is Phase I of a three-part program that supports the creation, development, and mobility of new artistic work that advances racial and cultural justice and results in an exchange between artists and communities.

Creation Fund artists receive a minimum of $15,000 of unrestricted funding, but unlike more traditional grants, the NPN Creation Fund is structured so that eligible performing and visual artists work with partner organizations to create equitable, long-running relationships.

NPN is accepting applications for the 2026 Creation Fund now through May 18.

Learn more about the Creation Fund.

NPN Staff Highlights

NPN’s Stephanie Atkins Named a 2026-2027 Fellow for Southern Progress

NPN Director of Southern Programs Stephanie Atkins, named a 2026-2027 Fellow for Southern Progress.

Congratulations to NPN Director of Southern Programs Stephanie Atkins, who has been named a 2026-2027 fellow by Grantmakers for Southern Progress! Their fellowship is “an innovative leadership development program that helps participants develop the knowledge and skills necessary to support grassroots movements and structural change in the South. Together, we are reckoning with philanthropy’s complicated history and building a future where our communities can thrive.” Over the next year, the fellows will work together to cultivate a justice-focused approach to philanthropy that centers race and gender equity.

Learn more at Grantmakers for Southern Progress or visit them on Instagram.

NPN Artists Recognized

Rauschenberg Centennial Award Recognizes Three NPN-Supported Artists

Two square photographs side by side, with orange borders along the top and bottom. The left image is a publicity photo of Chandra McCormick and Keith Calhoun. The right image is a publicity photo of Dave Thomson. — Recipients of the Rauschenberg Centennial Award include NPN-supported artists (from left) Chandra McCormick, Keith Calhoun, and Dave Thomson.

The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation has named three NPN-supported New Orleans artists as recipients of the Rauschenberg Centennial Award. These one-time awards, established to honor Rauschenberg’s 100th birthday, “recognize excellence across four disciplines — Art, Performance, Photography, and Writing — with one recipient in each field receiving an unrestricted amount of $100,000.”

Chandra McCormick (Take Notice Fund 2022) and Keith Calhoun (Take Notice Fund 2025) were recognized for Photography. Photographer, filmmaker, author, and professor An-My Le says, “[their] life’s work constitutes an expansive documentation not only of the daily life in Louisiana over the past thirty-five years, but also of the criminal and environmental justice systems … [and] the enduring legacies of slavery.”

Dave Thomson (Creation Fund 2021, Development Fund 2022, and Documentation & Storytelling Fund 2022) was recognized for Performance. Stuart Comer, the Lonti Ebers Chief Curator of Media and Performance at The Museum of Modern Art, says, “David Thomson is a singular agent for dance and performance … [and] has routinely demonstrated the urgency of building culture, sustaining communities, and creating living archives.”

Congratulations to all three artists! For more information on the awards, visit the Rauschenberg Foundation’s website.

Opportunities

Funding Opportunity

PAC NYC – The Democracy Cycle’s 2026 Open Call

Deadline: April 28, 2026 at 5pm Eastern Time

Applications are now open for The Democracy Cycle, a commissioning and development program supporting new performing arts works exploring themes relating to the nature, practice, and experience of democracy. Proposals are now being accepted from artists currently working in theater, dance, music, opera, and multi-disciplinary performance. The Cycle provides $60,000 in support to each awarded project, consisting of a $30,000 commission plus an additional $30,000 towards each commissioned project’s development process. This is a national and international open call.

Visit the PAC NYC website to learn more and to view a recording of their recent Live Info Session Webinar.

Upcoming Artist Activities

Again, There Is No Other (The Remix): Premiere, Amy O’Neal

March 26, 27, 28, 8:00 pm
On The Boards (Seattle, WA)
Ticketing and show info

The dark and joyful Again, There Is No Other (The Remix) merges street and contemporary dance to interrogate fear of the Feminine in patriarchal culture where race and gender are inseparable.

Three young women — two Black and one white — stand in a line with their right hands on the shoulder of the woman in front of them. Their left hands extend out and appear to touch. They are wearing patterned light-colored jackets and dark cargo pants. Intense blue and purple lighting on the otherwise dark stage illuminates the performers. — Three performers in Amy O”Neal’s *Again, There Is No Other (The Remix)*.

Arms Around America, Dan Froot & Company

April 9 and April 10 at 7:30 pm
Kingsbury Hall, University of Utah (Salt Lake City, UT)
Ticketing and show info

Dan Froot & Company’s Arms Around America is based on oral histories of families in South Florida, Western Montana, and Southern California whose lives have been shaped by guns.

A chaotic performance space with papers and items of clothing strewn across the floor alongside long electrical cables. On the right side of the image, a man wearing a dark short-sleeved t-shirt stands behind a long rectangular table draped in blue tarp and covered with an assortment of household items, including what looks like a red plastic cup, a toy truck, and a plastic container with a lid. A laptop is also open on the table, and there are two microphone stands in front of the table and pointed at the man. He is holding in each hand a ¼” by 4” wood board that is approximately 3 feet long, and he appears to be in the act of slapping the boards together like cymbals. His head is tilted up and his mouth open as he sings. Softly illuminated behind him in the upper left quadrant of the image, a musician wearing a green, yellow, and white shirt and dark-framed glasses sits playing a guitar. — Musicians create live music in a performance of Dan Froot & Company’s *Arms Around America*.

YOUR HONOR, a care procession, Emily Johnson / Catalyst

April 11 at 4:00 pm
MASS MoCA (North Adams, MA)
Ticketing and show info

Gather on and amongst 84 hand-stitched quilts and listen to stories and provocations transmitted from artists across territories and First Nations, and the sounds of famed DJ Dat Gurl Curly.

Against a blank white wall, a performer stands fully draped in a handmaid quilt consisting of a grid of squares in white, beige, multiple shades of blue, multiple shades of red, and red tartan. The inner lining of the quilt is a light teal. The performer’s head is covered by the blanket, but their face is partially visible behind a long red tulle veil. — *Quilt Being Star*, worn by Ty Fierce Metteba. Photo by Two Hawks Young.

Navegando la Masculinidad de la Frontera / Navigating the Border’s Masculinity, José Villalobos

Through April 17, 2026 (Tue-Fri, 10:00 am-5:00 pm)
Space One Eleven Art Center (Birmingham, AL)
Gallery and show info

In Navegando la Masculinidad de la Frontera / Navigating the Border’s Masculinity, multidisciplinary artist José Villalobos presents works that explore masculinities within Norteño culture.

A brown-skinned young man with a slight black mustache and goatee, and wearing a pale blue t-shirt and a white cowboy hat, is leaning back with his head tilted up and eyes closed, as if he is unconscious. Two leather belts, one in tan and brown and the other in black and gold, and each decorated with what appear to be Indigenous design patterns, are wrapped around his neck, with the belts extending out of frame on either side of the image. Both belts have decorated leather oval buckles: the tan and brown buckle is decorated in geometric shapes that complement the pattern on the belt, and the black and gold buckle features a rooster surrounded by a simple border made of nesting zig-zag shapes. In the background, slightly out of focus, is yellow hay. — Still from *The Same Air we Breathe / El Mismo Aire Que Respiramos*, by José Villalobos.

NPN’s Collective Learning Series

What We’re Reading

An illustration of three white boxes against a blue background. Each box contains a letter, a title, and a phrase, in an all-caps font that suggests uniform handwriting. The left box reads, “A,” then “problem solving,” then “joint, consensual.” The center box reads, “B,” then “power building,” then “unilateral, non-consensual.” The right box reads, “C,” then “vanquishing,” then “unilateral, non-consensual.” There are two circular black arrows between the left card and the center card, suggesting a cyclical relationship between “A” and “B.” — Illustration from “When to Comply and When to Resist: Strategic Decision-Making in a Time of Authoritarianism” by Rebecca Subar.

Each month, NPN’s staff and board engage with a reading that helps shape our analysis of our sociopolitical landscape and deepen our understanding of how to embed liberatory practices throughout our work. The Collective Learning Series is organized by NPN’s Department of Racial Justice and Movement Building (DRJaM).

Our latest selection is “When to Comply and When to Resist: Strategic Decision-Making in a Time of Authoritarianism,” by Rebecca Subar of Dragonfly Partners. Published in August 2025, this document examines how individuals and institutions can respond to the current political context, and asks, “What is your role in ending authoritarianism?”

Past Issues

View all field news

January 2026 News

Remembering the sacred; plus: a Take Notice Fund artist interview, Development Fund awards, and an NPN new Partner spotlight

November 2025 News

Artist mobility is a human right, not a luxury; plus: Reassessing history in Mississippi, artist awards, and a Grammy nomination

October 2025 News

Joy, resistance, and care at the NPN 2025 Conference; plus: How to build movements, and why nonprofits became battlegrounds for democracy

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