The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation 2025 Grant Awards support innovative arts activities throughout the University of Pennsylvania community. Cover design by Elaine Lopez.
The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation is happy to announce its eighth round of annual grant awards supporting 20 projects across five categories: Artist Residency Grants, Community Partnerships Grants, Project Support Grants, Curricular Support Grants, and Independent Creative Production Grants.
The 2025 Sachs Program grantees include 20 Annual Grant recipients, 15 Student Grant recipients announced earlier this spring, and 7 First-Year Seminar Grant recipients previously awarded during the fall 2024 semester. On Monday, April 28, 2025, we celebrated all 2025 Sachs Program Grant Award recipients at a public event at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts.
The arts are critical to the fabric and vitality of our campus and our communities. These ambitious projects shine a bright and welcome light on the depth and breadth of artistic inspiration at Penn.
— Timothy Rommen, Vice Provost for the Arts, University of Pennsylvania
Over the 2024–2025 academic year, The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation has awarded 42 grants supporting Penn students, faculty, staff, artists, and community partners. Grantees hail from the Annenberg School, Penn Nursing, Penn Medicine, School of Arts & Sciences, Weitzman School of Design, and Wharton—in addition to Penn Libraries, the College Houses, the Health System, and multiple arts and cultural centers—highlighting a broad integration of the arts across the University of Pennsylvania.
2025 Annual Grant Awards
We are proud to share the list of Sachs Program 2025 Annual Grant Awards. These 20 projects were selected from our largest and most competitive pool of applications to date. They reflect the breadth and depth of the creativity within the arts and humanities at Penn and in our surrounding communities.
- Alicia Kachmar and The Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing
Disability & Art in Nursing Education - Amalia Daché
Orisha Tales: Preserving Afro-Cuban Heritage Through Stories for Young Readers - Asian American Studies, Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies, the Centro de Cultura, Arte, Trabajo y Educación (CCATE), and Southeast by Southeast
Migrating Lives: Celebrating Communities Through Participatory Murals - Common Press
The Typography of Independence - Dyan Castro (Project Manager, Penn Praxis) and Dante Leonard (Executive Director, Smart Futures CDC)
Lex Street Garden Stewardship Project - Ekaterina Derysheva
Poetic Prisms - Eva Pensis
Citywide Special: An Oral History of Philadelphia’s Drag Communities - Hakimah Abdul-Fattah and the Center for Experimental Ethnography
Senegalese Archival Film Project: West African Film Heritage (working title) - Heather Love and Juno Rosenhaus (Founder, Dyke+ ArtHaus) with support from M.C. Overholt (Weitzman) and S.E. Eisterer (GSWS/FQT)
Bridging Dyke and Trans Feminisms: An Intergenerational Exhibition and Salon Series - Jack Drummond and The West Philadelphia String Music & Mentorship Program
Playing Tunes – Healing Wounds - Kelly Writers House and Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts
CAPA + KWH: A Writing Partnership - Lisa Ann Britton
Caves, Cathedrals, and Curiosities: Unearthing Stories of the Chemin des Dames in France - Mélanie Péron
Paris Under the German Occupation and Its Places of [Non-]Memory - Melodee Arevalo Mendoza and the Board of the Bahay Kultura Filipino School of Philadelphia
Bahay Kultura – Filipino American School of Philadelphia - Patricia Renee’ Thomas
Oil Baby - Penn Press
Builders, Shapers & Independents: A Residency With Daniel Tucker - Rob Buscher
KIYOSHI, A Feature-Length Documentary on the Life of Kiyoshi Kuromiya (working title) - Sara Kazmi
Songs of Protest From South Asia - Syd Zolf
Neutrøis - West Philadelphia Sanctuary
Storytelling Through Art at the West Philadelphia Sanctuary
Complete information about all Sachs Program 2025 Grant Awards, including previously announced 2025 Student and First-Year Seminar Grant Awards, is available on our website.
A complete list of all Sachs Program 2025 Grant Awards can also be found in the program brochure from our April 28, 2025, awards celebration.
Download the 2025 Grant Awards Celebration program. (PDF)
Grant Awards Review Process
The decisions around what to fund each year are extremely difficult and not taken lightly. This year, 2025 grant cycle applications were peer-reviewed by eleven different committees, reflecting a range of expertise. Committee members included former grantees, Penn students, faculty, staff, and alumni, as well as Philadelphia community members and colleagues within the arts.
While the committees change each year, the decisions they make are always informed by The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation’s grantmaking priorities and criteria and are undertaken with great care and attention. The feedback committee members generate for applicants is also an integral element of our efforts to support the communities we serve.
We are grateful to our 2025 committee members for the time and thought they dedicated to this year’s grants evaluation process.
The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation
The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation was established by Penn Alumni Keith and Kathy Sachs in 2016 to support the arts at the University of Pennsylvania. Our vision is that the arts at Penn are valued and embraced as a creative catalyst, driving innovation, inspiration, and action. We support a creative, culturally diverse, and pluralistic Penn community and are committed to supporting individuals and groups from all races, ethnicities, gender identities, sexual orientations, religions, disabilities, and socioeconomic backgrounds.
To learn more about Sachs Program funding opportunities, subscribe to our newsletter and receive the latest information about our grant cycle schedule with selected updates about arts happenings and news at the University of Pennsylvania.