The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation
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2023 Grant Awards

In its sixth year, The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation awarded $265,000 in funding to 45 ambitious and creative projects across the arts and humanities.

The projects and practitioners supported span creative practice and include such themes and ideas as motherhood, comics, poetry, painting, Jewish queer culture, Caribbean visual arts, ecological futures, climate change, animation, music technology, experimental chamber music and film, street life, human rights, creative writing, and youth engagement with food culture, fashion, music, and social media.

Funding categories include Artist Residency Grants, Community Partnership Grants, Curricular Grants, First-Year Seminar Grants (awarded in collaboration with the College of Arts and Sciences), Independent Creative Production Grants, Project Grants, and Student Grants.

Not included in this list are our Rolling Grants: grants of up to $2,000 offered on a rolling basis to faculty, staff, departments, programs, and centers to support arts activities that fall outside of our annual grant cycle.


  • We Express Us Through Arts Program
    • Akhenaton S. Mikell, MS, Penn Community Scholar, Imani Star Development, and Research & Equity in Academic Community Partnerships for Health (REACH)
    • Center for Public Health Initiatives (CPHI), Research & Equity in Academic Community Partnerships for Health (REACH)
      • Presenting Art Grant
      • Community Partnerships
  • Unraveling Hidden Stories: Chinese American Families
    • Alan Zhang
    • College of Arts & Sciences, Department of English
      • Student Grant
      • Student Creative Production
  • Exactly the Same But Completely Different — Comics About Parenting
    • Alli Katz
    • Kelly Writers House
      • Making Art Grant
      • Independent Creative Production
  • Lighting the Way
    • Angel (Qi) Wu
    • College of Arts & Sciences, Undergraduate Program in Fine Arts and Design, Wharton School
      • Student Grant
      • Student Creative Production
  • Embodied Plastic Entanglements (working title)
    • Ani Liu
    • Undergraduate Program in Fine Arts and Design, Weitzman School of Design
      • Making Art Grant
      • Independent Creative Production
  • What Happened To Classical Myths?
    • Ann Kuttner
    • College of Arts & Sciences, History of Art Department
      • Teaching Art Grant
      • First-Year Seminar
  • Mozart to Mitski and Bach to Beyonce
    • Anna Weesner
    • College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Music
      • Teaching Art Grant
      • First-Year Seminar
  • Religion, Identity and the Self
    • Anthea Butler and Justin Mcdaniel
    • College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Religious Studies
      • Teaching Art Grant
      • First-Year Seminar
  • Studying Sex
    • Beans Velocci
    • College of Arts & Sciences, Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies
      • Teaching Art Grant
      • First-Year Seminar
  • Meantime Activation Toolkit
    • Brian Phillips
    • Graduate Department of Architecture, Weitzman School of Design
      • Presenting Art Grant
      • Project Support
  • On Belonging: Music, Displacement, and Well-Being
    • Carol Mueller
    • College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Music
      • Teaching Art Grant
      • First-Year Seminar
  • (Un)Learning Revolution, a Residency with Tessa Mars
    • Cecilia González Godino and Corine Labridy
    • Department of Francophone, Italian and Germanic Studies (FIGS), Department of Spanish and Portuguese, School of Arts & Sciences
      • Making Art Grant
      • Artist Residency
  • American Pasts in American Places
    • Emma Hart
    • College of Arts & Sciences, Department of History, McNeil Center
      • Teaching Art Grant
      • First-Year Seminar
  • Portrait of the Artist
    • Gwendolyn Shaw
    • College of Arts & Sciences, History of Art Department
      • Teaching Art Grant
      • First-Year Seminar
  • Palestine Writes Literature Festival: Indigenous Stories of a Fabled Homeland
    • Huda Fakhreddine and Palestine Writes
    • Cinema and Media Studies Program, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations (NELC), Kelly Writers House, Middle East Center, School of Arts & Sciences, Wolf Humanities Center
      • Presenting Art Grant
      • Community Partnerships
  • Portraiture
    • Ivan Drpic
    • College of Arts & Sciences, History of Art Department
      • Teaching Art Grant
      • First-Year Seminar
  • [speaking in a foreign language]
    • James Diaz and Julia Suh
    • Department of Music, School of Arts & Sciences
      • Student Grant
      • Student Creative Production
  • Skin Hunger
    • Jamie Diamond
    • Undergraduate Program in Fine Arts and Design, Weitzman School of Design
      • Making Art Grant
      • Independent Creative Production
  • Black Jazz Experimentalisms in the United States
    • Jasmine Henry
    • College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Music
      • Teaching Art Grant
      • First-Year Seminar
  • BARTOK’S MONSTER
    • Jay Kirk and the Daedalus Quartet
    • Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing, Department of English, Department of Music, Penn Live Arts, School of Arts & Sciences
      • Presenting Art Grant
      • Project Support
  • Why College? Historical and Contemporary Perspectives
    • Jonathan Zimmerman
    • College of Arts & Sciences, Department of History
      • Teaching Art Grant
      • First-Year Seminar
  • Penn Climate Animation and Research Studio
    • Joshua Mosley and Simon Richter
    • Department of Francophone, Italian and Germanic Studies (FIGS), Graduate Fine Arts Department, School of Arts & Sciences, Weitzman School of Design
      • Presenting Art Grant
      • Project Support
  • Making Italian Art Media Accessible for Language Classrooms
    • Julia Heim
    • Department of Francophone, Italian and Germanic Studies (FIGS), School of Arts & Sciences
      • Teaching Art Grant
      • Curricular Support
  • Grids
    • Julia Ongchoco
    • College of Arts & Sciences, Mindcore, Program in Cognitive Science
      • Student Grant
      • Student Creative Production
  • Lessons in Love and Struggle: the story of Karen and Omar Ali
    • Julie Flandreau
    • College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Comparative Literature, Program for Comparative Literature and Literary Theory
      • Student Grant
      • Student Creative Production
  • In the Workshop: Collaborative Multisensory Ethnography of Musical Instrument Making
    • Juliet Glazer and Giovanni Cestino
    • Department of Music, School of Arts & Sciences
      • Student Grant
      • Student Creative Production
  • Gay Sex, Excess, and Work– All Lights On/All Lights Off
    • Kevin Mulvey
    • Graduate Fine Arts Department, Weitzman School of Design
      • Student Grant
      • Student Creative Production
  • HERitage
    • Khayla Saunders
    • Historic Preservation, Weitzman School of Design
      • Student Grant
      • Student Creative Production
  • Behind the Iron Curtain
    • Kristen Ghodsee
    • College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Anthropology
      • Teaching Art Grant
      • First-Year Seminar
  • Obstinate document
    • lexi welch
    • Graduate Fine Arts Department, Weitzman School of Design
      • Student Grant
      • Student Creative Production
  • What I want you to know
    • Marta Rodriguez Maleck
    • Graduate Fine Arts Department, Weitzman School of Design
      • Student Grant
      • Student Creative Production
  • grounds (chapter1)
    • Maxime Cavajani
    • Graduate Fine Arts Department, Weitzman School of Design
      • Student Grant
      • Student Creative Production
  • The Woodlands Magazine
    • Meg Gladieux and Mira Sydow
    • College of Arts & Sciences, Department of English, Department of Francophone, Italian and Germanic Studies (FIGS), Kelly Writers House, Penn Urban Studies
      • Student Grant
      • Student Creative Production
  • Morning in Olam Haba
    • Miriam Saperstein
    • Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies
      • Making Art Grant
      • Independent Creative Production
  • Trans Oral History Project – Artist Collection
    • Nat Rivkin and The Trans Oral History Project
    • Department of English, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, School of Arts & Sciences, The Center for Research in Feminist, Queer, and Transgender Studies
      • Presenting Art Grant
      • Project Support
  • Beautiful Trouble
    • Natacha Diels
    • Department of Music, Penn Live Arts, School of Arts & Sciences
      • Presenting Art Grant
      • Project Support
  • Multispecies Relations Across Diasporic Landscapes
    • Nicole Cheng
    • Landscape Architecture, Weitzman School of Design
      • Student Grant
      • Student Creative Production
  • Of Horses, Bows and Fermented Milk: the Turkish Empire in 15 Objects
    • Oscar Aguirre Mandujano
    • College of Arts & Sciences, Department of History, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations (NELC)
      • Teaching Art Grant
      • First-Year Seminar
  • Your Food Story: Storytelling through the Photography of Community Landscapes
    • Penn Museum, The Barbara and Edward Netter Center for Community Partnerships, and Sayre High School
    • Agatston Urban Nutrition Initiative (AUNI), Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Material (CAAM), Penn Museum, The Netter Center
      • Presenting Art Grant
      • Community Partnerships
  • Quake Magazine
    • Quake Magazine
    • College of Arts & Sciences, Penn Women's Center (PWC)
      • Student Grant
      • Student Creative Production
  • Contemporary Italy: Black Italy
    • Rossella Di Rosa
    • College of Arts & Sciences, Department of Francophone, Italian and Germanic Studies (FIGS)
      • Teaching Art Grant
      • First-Year Seminar
  • It could lead to dancing: where basketball was Jewish
    • Rudy Gerson
    • Center for Experimental Ethnography, Graduate Fine Arts Department, Weitzman School of Design
      • Student Grant
      • Student Creative Production
  • Envisioning Climate: Afrofuturist Chronicles, a Residency with Vanessa Keith
    • Simon Kim, Mark Yim and Camillo Jose Taylor
    • Graduate Department of Architecture, Immersive Kinematics, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (Penn Engineering), Weitzman School of Design
      • Making Art Grant
      • Artist Residency
  • Memories of a Forest City: Ecological Encounters and Affect in Islamabad
    • Tayeba Batool
    • Department of Anthropology, School of Arts & Sciences
      • Student Grant
      • Student Creative Production
  • …be, not allowed, but embraced
    • The Black Cultural Studies Collective (Amber Rose Johnson and taylor manigoult)
    • Black Cultural Studies Collective, School of Arts & Sciences, Weitzman School of Design
      • Student Creative Production

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The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation

John McInerney (he/him)
Executive Director
215-573-0874
mcinernj@upenn.edu

Chloe Reison (she/her)
Associate Director
215-573-2159
reison@upenn.edu

Elizabeth Shaw (she/her)
Administrative Assistant
215-898-5930
elizshaw@upenn.edu

The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation offices are located at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Pennsylvania.

3680 Walnut Street
Philadelphia PA

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