Grants $25,000
DEADLINE: MAY 28TH, 2024
The NEA National Heritage Fellowship is the nation's highest honor in folk and traditional arts. Each year since 1982, the program has recognized folk and traditional artists whose exemplary achievements contribute to our nation's distinctive cultural heritage, increasing opportunities for the public to encounter different artists, art forms, and cultural traditions.Annually, the NEA awards at least nine National Heritage Fellowships, including one Bess Lomax Hawes Fellowship (described below). Through their folk and traditional arts practices, National Heritage Fellows demonstrate the importance of the arts to personal, cultural, and national identity and reflect the benefits that artful lives contribute to the well-being of individuals and their communities.National Heritage Fellowship nominees must be worthy of national recognition and have a record of continuing artistic accomplishment. They must be actively participating in their art form, either as practitioners, mentors, or as community scholars. Successful nominations demonstrate significant contributions to living traditional arts, their source communities, and/or the transmission of traditional knowledge to future generations.