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Announcing the Sachs Program 2021 Grant Awards

May 11, 2021

Photo Credit: (Top Left to Right) ‘Shuttle Service’ Musica Practica/Elettronica Viva, ‘Non-Conceptual Concepts’ Emmet Foley, ‘Jallalla!’ Image Curtesy of Roberto Mamani, ‘from’ Actress Kishia Nixon-Curtesy of Nikki Brake-Sillá, ‘The Masks We Wear’ Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) and Memory Studio (Second Row Left to Right) ‘Fighting the Night: My Father in World War II’ Paul Hendrickson, ‘Jamal Batts Artist in Residence’ Graduate Fine Arts, ‘Calling Home’ Zoe Penina Baker, ‘Through the Doors’ Ania Vu (Third Row Left to Right) ‘Archiving Lived Experiences Through Film’ Debra Harner, ‘Rx/Museum: Art & Reflection in Medicine’ Lyndsay M. Hoy, M.D. and Aaron Levy, ‘Houses of Domestic Memory’ Lisa Marie Patzer (Bottom Row Left to Right) ‘Ethiopia’s Last Jews’ Peter Decherney, ‘t-art Magazine’ T’Art, ‘throwntogetherness’ Lino Kino, ‘With My Own Hands’ Farrah Rahaman

Images from The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation's 2021 Grant Award Recipients

The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation is thrilled to announce its fourth annual round of grant awards today, providing $177,000 to support 25 ambitious and creative projects in the arts and humanities at Penn. Since its launch in 2017, the Sachs Program has funded over 200 projects and distributed approximately $1.1 Million in artistic and creative support. The Sachs Program’s grantmaking is part of its larger efforts to support and advance the arts across the University and the 2021 grants support a broad range of projects in the visual arts, opera, theater, film, writing, music, translation, and cultural planning.

“These ambitious projects are a testament to Keith and Kathy Sachs’ vision to support a groundswell of artistic creation at Penn.”
– University of Pennysylvania Provost Wendell Pritchett

These 25 grants are in addition to 10 Student Grants and 4 First-Year Seminar Grants awarded in the fall, as well as the grants awarded through our Ben Art Bucks program.

We are also happy to announce that we are re-opening our Ben Art Bucks program, which provides up to $250 in funding to students and student groups. Please visit our website, sachsarts.org, for information on how to apply. And for information on future funding opportunities, please sign up for our newsletter.

With this said, it brings great joy to announce the 2021 Grant Awards:

  • Alexandra Lenihan
    Queers in Quarantine: love Stories
  • Américo Mendoza-Mori and Catherine Bartch
    Jallalla! – Healing and Reclaiming Indigeneity Through the Arts
  • Ania Vu
    Through the Doors – An Opera for Chamber Ensemble, Multimedia, and Electronics
  • Clayton Colmon
    Designing Critical Futures
  • Enrique Morales
    Community Based City Planning
  • Erin Busch
    New Mixed Chamber Piece with Dance and Film
  • Farrah Rahaman
    With My Own Hands
  • Graduate Fine Arts
    Jamal Batts: Curator-in-Residence
  • Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) and Memory Studio
    The Masks We Wear
  • Kelly Writers House
    Millennial Black Muslim Writers
  • Julian Hunter
    Duality
  • Lino Kino
    throwntogetherness
  • Lisa Marie Patzer
    Houses of Domestic Memory
  • Lyndsay M. Hoy, M.D. 
    Rx/Museum:Art & Reflection in Medicine
  • Marc Anthony Richardson
    The Serpent Will Eat Whatever is in the Belly of the Beast
  • Music Practica/Elettronica Viva
    Shuttle Service
  • Nikki Brake-Sillá
    “from”
  • Orkan Telhan
    Designing Motherhood
  • Paul Hendrickson
    Fighting the Night: My Father in World War II
  • Penn Nursing
    A Digital Series of Theatrical Performances Created from Conversations with Frontline Workers
  • Peter Decherney
    Ethiopia’s Last Jews
  • The History of Art department’s Living Land Acknowledgment Group
    Indigenous Arts in Focus
  • Transcribez
    Expanded Impact: Diversifying Modes of Engagement with Trans Youth Poets
  • Zain Mian
    Translating Bhed (The Secret) by Muhammad Asim Butt
  • Zoe Penina Baker
    Calling Home

Full descriptions of each project and listed associations can be accessed through the Grant Awards section of our website.


The decisions around what to fund each year are extremely difficult and not taken lightly. This year, as we’ve done in past years, we employed a two-stage evaluation process. Applications were first reviewed by a group of committee members, including former grantees, faculty, and staff. There were two committees in total. Feedback from each committee was then shared with the Sachs Program Advisory Board, who made the final decisions over the course of multiple meetings.

Over the course of this academic year, the Sachs Program also provided additional funding to students and student groups, in the form of Ben Art Bucks: small, quick-turnaround grants up to $250 for individuals and student groups. Additionally, through a partnership with the College of Arts and Sciences, we supported four First-Year Seminars, which took place during the fall 2020 and spring 2021 semesters and are also listed among the 2021 Grant Awards on our website.

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

Tamara Suber (she/her)
Executive Coordinator of Grants and Community and Equity Strategies
215-898-0608
suber@upenn.edu

The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation is located on the Upper Mezzanine of the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts

3680 Walnut Street
Philadelphia PA

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