45 Artists And Organizations Awarded $185,215 In Local Cultural Council Grants By Cambridge Arts

 

45 artists and organizations are being awarded $185,215 in Local Cultural Council Grant funding by Cambridge Arts and the City of Cambridge.

 

Funded projects include:

 

• A fashion show highlighting adaptive and accessible fashion for people with disabilities.

• A concert exploring the 20th century Great Migration of Black people from the South to the North and West.

• Kayaking and singing circle songs along the Charles River to highlight our interconnection with nature.

• A short film and immersive installation inspired by “The Hum,” an unexplained low-frequency noise reported worldwide.

• Exhibition battles, performances and open cyphers of hip hop, bachata, krump, popping and other dance.

• A concert of music composed by Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

• A dance celebrating local women cultural elders.

• Workshops teaching comics, DJ-ing, lantern-making, soca dance, West African drumming, Yiddish dance, and zine-making.

• Festivals celebrating Africa Honk Kong, Jewish music, Latinx and Latin American film, Lunar New Year, Puerto Rico, and very short films.

• Author and illustrator visits and dance education in Cambridge public schools.

• The 20th annual Revels RiverSing

• Cultural programming at the Cambridge Kiosk in Harvard Square.

• An artist-in-residence at Lynch Family Skatepark.

(See full list below.)

 

Overall Cambridge Arts and the City are distributing $369,715 to more than 67 artists, cultural organizations, and community-based grant reviewers via grants and stipends in 2026 through three funding opportunities offered by Cambridge Arts: Organizational Investment Grants, Art for Social Justice Grants, and Local Cultural Council Project Grants.

 

Each year, the City of Cambridge contributes substantial funding to support local artists, cultural workers, and arts organizations through the Cambridge Arts Grant Program. This support is coupled with funding received through the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s statewide Local Cultural Council Program. All these grants are awarded on an annual cycle, with the due date to apply usually in mid-October of each year.

 

 

Grant Award: $5,000

 

Adam Theater seeks support for "The Flood," our second major production, which we plan to present in Cambridge. Aimed at elementary-school audiences, "The Flood" reimagines the story of Noah’s Ark through the eyes of two children during a sleepover. When one confides in feeling overwhelmed by his parents’ divorce, his friend recalls Noah’s story, and together they explore it through hand-held cameras, live storytelling, and music, creating an ark-like sanctuary of friendship, resilience, and hope. Blending theater, film, and music, the play transforms emotional struggle into art, addressing themes of anxiety, belonging, and care. Building on the success of Library Lion, which reached 4,000 children and families in 2024-2025, "The Flood" expands our mission to Cambridge, offering young audiences an accessible, transformative cultural experience through performance, and dialogue.

 

Grant Award: $5,000

 

The Bridge Vol 4 is the fourth annual community dance event by All Things Dance Boston (ATDB) featuring a three-day lineup of a dance session, workshop, and main event. The event will open with a free dance session and a live DJ at Qi Studio (Brookline), followed by a free dance workshop the next day at The Dance Complex (Cambridge). The main event on a Saturday night, held at the fully ADA-accessible Sonia in Cambridge, will feature exhibition battles, performances and open cyphers celebrating diverse cultures and their dance styles including but not limited to Hip Hop, Bachata, Krump, Popping and many more. Local vendors will be selling their flavorful merchandise as well. The social dancing in cyphers will foster connection in a safe, judgment-free space for our diverse communities. In its 4th straight year, ATDB invites you to The Bridge Vol 4 where "Cultures Move & Community Grows".

 

Grant Award: $4,790

 

The Gathering is an immersive performance experience that creates an intergenerational exchange between audience and performers centered around street dance, featuring the choreographic work of Shakia “The Key” Barron. Sharing Hip-Hop, House, and Funk dance and music, this evening-length work premiered in Springfield, MA for an audience of over 200 people at Sam Bolden Park in August 2025. With this grant funding, The Gathering will be restaged and performed for the first time in a proscenium theater at The Dance Complex, engaging the greater Boston metropolitan audience with history and appreciation of these Black social and cultural dance and music forms through narrative-based education, recounts of personal experiences, intricate and energetic choreography, and audience participation. The Gathering is not only a performance but a place to connect through the power of music and dance.

 

Grant Award: $4,500

 

Every child deserves the opportunity to learn through dance; the educational gains will become a lifelong benefit to themselves and to society, akin to learning to read. The Dance in the Schools 2026 Project aims to bring a team of professional dance teaching artists into the Cambridge public elementary schools throughout the spring to facilitate dance sessions during school hours. Students will discover new entryways into academic subject matter and explore spatial awareness. To ignite collaboration process prior to implementation, each dance teaching artist will be carefully matched with a classroom teacher based on skills and requests. Next, the educators discuss curriculum and choose themes like literacy or custom topics. Goals are to improve session distribution across JK through fourth-grade classrooms, build participation, and raise the dance teaching wage to match market value.

 

Grant Award: $3,930

 

To provide a cultural theatre experience for the 1 thru 3rd graders in the traditional, scale and SEI classrooms at John Tobin Montessori-a Cambridge Public School. They will see the book 'Charlette's Web' adapted to the stage by the Wheelock Family Theatre. 

 

Grant Award: $5,000

 

Liars and Believers will present THE END IS NIGH, a hopeful new comedy about the end of the world. We will present a free, public work-in-progress showing in December, then a 3-week world premiere run in March. Both will be in Cambridge. In THE END IS NIGH, three unsuspecting contestants on a reality TV show compete to survive. With physical comedy, live music, satire, and genuine pathos, LaB brings its signature style to grapple with the greatest threats to our existence today. Our free work-in-progress showing will be December 7, 2025 at the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center, followed by a moderated discussion between the artistic team and audience. This feedback process incorporates community voices into the final development of the play. On March 5-22 2026, we will present the world premiere at The Foundry, offering pay-what-you-can tickets throughout the run.

 

Grant Award: $2,934

 

In May and June of 2026, Rachel Linsky will lead a six-week Yiddish dance class series at The Foundry in Cambridge. Open to all backgrounds, ages, and abilities, the series offers an accessible and joyful introduction to Yiddish folk dance, the folk dances of Ashkenazi, or Eastern European, Jews, typically done to klezmer music. Each class will feature live accompaniment by Nat Seelen and one additional member of Ezekiel’s Wheels Klezmer Band. As a diasporic, cross-national tradition, Yiddish dance historically thrived and developed through cultural exchange. Sharing these dances with the broader Cambridge community continues that lineage, fostering connection, collective joy, and contemporary cultural exchange through movement. 

 

Grant Award: $3,890

 

In 2026, we will present a performance series with the Cambridge Public Library featuring Shakespeare of Harlem and the International Folk Song Project. Building on our 2024 collaborations, which drew standing-room-only audiences of over 225 and sparked community dialogue, these programs meet demonstrated demand and have strong potential for continued impact. The series is led and performed by local professional artists, many living and working in Cambridge, with leadership from communities historically underrepresented in opera and art songs. Artists draw on their own cultural traditions, bringing authenticity and creating meaningful paid opportunities. Support from the CAC will sustain these high demand programs, pay artists industry standard rates, and cover essential production costs.

 

Grant Award: $5,000

 

Pico Opera, a nonprofit community-based company, seeks funding for its Opera Performance and Education Initiative. Our mission: break down barriers in opera, creating an accessible space for performers and audiences of any background or experience level. We foster an inclusive training ground where most members are Persons of Color, Queer and/or underrepresented in opera. The Initiative offers amateur musicians a free opportunity to learn and perform 2 fully staged masterworks: Rossini’s Il Conte Ory (Dec ‘25) and Bellini’s Bianca e Fernando (Apr ‘26). Our performances attract large audiences in the Cambridge community. While other organizations charge dues ($500/year) or coaching costs ($100/hr), Pico Opera offers free personalized training through twice-weekly rehearsals and coaching. Members have 2-3 performance opportunities/season including solo roles alongside professionals.

 

Grant Award: $5,000

 

Our Community Dance Classes are sessions offered on a sliding scale to support dancers of all levels. They provide space to release stress and reconnect with joy, health, and community - participants foster new friendships, rekindle old bonds, and regain trust in themselves and others. Soca brings people together and offers the joy and liberation that Black communities need more than ever. While immersed in joy, participants also build skills in movement retention, choreography, and performance, often without realizing it. These classes also strengthen stamina, coordination, and memory, essential skills often overlooked or underfunded in Black spaces. 

 

Grant Award: $5,000

 

Wondermore’s Authors and Illustrators in Schools Program brings culturally relevant, award-winning authors and illustrators into Title I K–12 schools. By learning about visiting author’s creative process, students develop curiosity in the arts, gain confidence in their own work, learn literacy skills and fall in love with reading and writing. We are building our partnership with the Cambridge school district - last year we brought novelist, Colleen Venable to Fletcher-Maynard Academy (FMA) and Haggerty School. This was a great success, and educators are interested in hosting more visits - see attached Letter of Support for details. With these funds, we plan to host six sessions at two Title-1 schools, including FMA. According to evaluation of our work, students are more motivated to read and write after our sessions and have a greater sense of belonging and being seen.

 

 

Grant Award: $5,000

 

For 15 years, the African Festival of Boston has celebrated the richness and diversity of African cultures through music, art, dance, and storytelling. Building on this legacy, we are expanding the festival into a traveling cultural experience called the African Caravan. The Cambridge Edition will spotlight traditional African dance as the centerpiece, alongside cultural exhibits, authentic cuisine, fashion showcases, and youth-focused activities. By bringing these performances and cultural experiences to Cambridge, the project fosters cross-cultural understanding, community pride, and engagement with African heritage for residents of all ages.

 

Grant Award: $4,000

 

BCAF respectfully requests $4,000 to support two youth-serving projects: 1) a three one-day Cambridge Makes Comics summer workshops (previously Comics Camp: Cambridge) serving up to 25 foster youth ages 13 to 18 through Bridges Homeward in Cambridge and 2) a one-day public Cambridge Makes Zines workshop serving up to 25 youth ages 8 to 13 at The Foundry (parents/guardians welcome). BCAF workshops include an instructional lesson (90 min), feedback and guidance, and participant feedback. Funding covers an instructor's time, travel, and curriculum. Bridges Homeward will promote the free class to its network of foster teens. BCAF seeks to include a book buy for the foster youth serving workshop and supply purchase for all workshops. BCAF believes having one private and one public workshop permits our nonprofit to reach more community members while diversifying our funding at the same time.

 

Grant Award: $5,000

 

The Chinese American Association of Cambridge (CAAC) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded in 2021. As the first organization in Cambridge dedicated to serving the city's Chinese American community and their young children, our mission is to foster our community's integration into American life while preserving our cultural heritage. To advance this mission, we propose a project to establish a comprehensive Lunar New Year Celebration in 2026, building upon the continuous success of our events over the past three years. This event will feature a diverse repertoire of activities, including folk arts, martial arts, and performing arts. A portion of the grant budget will also cover the remaining expenses from our well-received 2025 Mid-Autumn Festival, which engaged 100 attendees with activities such as mooncake and paper lantern making, folk music, and children's games. 

 

Grant Award: $5,000

 

Open since June 2025, the Cambridge KiOSK transforms the historic Out of Town newsstand kiosk into a free, public space for art, culture, and community connection. Through rotating installations, events, and workshops, the KiOSK celebrates Cambridge’s creativity while serving as an accessible information hub for residents and visitors alike. By partnering with systemically marginalized artists and organizations, the KiOSK provides a highly visible platform in the heart of Harvard Square—uplifting underrepresented voices, fostering dialogue, activating public space for collective benefit, and showcasing the city’s vibrant cultural ecosystem.

 

Grant Award: $5,000 

 

¡Celebremos! began in 2023 as a free event celebrating Salvadoran heritage. HMSC partnered with local communities to offer performances and activities at the Harvard Museum of Natural History and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology. Strong turnout and feedback led to a repeat in 2024. In 2025, we changed focus to Puerto Rico using the same model. Moving forward, ¡Celebremos! will become an annual tradition, featuring each region for two years. Our goal is to build relationships with Latino & Hispanic (hereafter “Latino”) communities and invite all visitors to learn about the many Latino cultures. The 2026 event will be bilingual and family-friendly with live performances, hands-on activities, and tours exploring Puerto Rico’s flora, fauna, and artifacts. 

 

Grant Award: $1,850

 

This project draws on my childhood memory of eating oysters from the rocks on the Brazilian coast, only to return years later and find them gone. That loss inspired me to explore how communities living in harmony with nature hold wisdom about the link between forest and sea. I will create a kamishibai (Japanese paper theater) story highlighting two movements: "Mori wa umi no koibito" ("The Forest is the Sea's Lover") in Japan and "Mães do mangue" ("Mothers of the Mangrove") in Brazil. Both hold the belief that the health of the forest is vital to marine life. Children will connect this wisdom through kayaking along the Charles River, seeing the river as the living link, and by learning canções de roda (circle songs). The message of the story will be reinforced through play. Story, song, and river exploration will create an engaging journey into nature’s interconnectedness.

 

Grant Award: $5,000

 

The Listening Project is a live performance inspired by interviews we conducted with 15, primarily older, women dancers and community-makers across diverse dance and music traditions. These conversations explored themes like identity, sanctuary, sacrifice, and the geography of dance in their lives. We are creating original choreography in the genre of Irish dance in response to their stories, honoring both the joys and quiet challenges of lives lived in dance. The performance includes two public shows at the Lilypad in Cambridge in May 2026. We are very excited to be collaborating and performing with some of the interviewees, many of whom have not often been celebrated on stage. The event will also serve as a release for a publication and archive of the interviews, available as a magazine and online audio, celebrating these women and making their voices publicly accessible.

 

Grant Award: $4,000

 

Our project will host a Hong Kong–themed community night at The Foundry in Cambridge, designed to bring people together through engaging, culturally inspired activities. The evening will be organized into different segments, starting with live performances by local Cantonese artists, followed by a Hong Kong film screening, then mahjong and karaoke later in the night. Attendees can also enjoy food, conversations, and a clothing swap and donation drive that promote sustainability and community sharing.

 

Grant Award: $1,000

https://www.littleantworld.com 

 

This event will feature bilingual book readings, free book giveaways, live cultural performances, hands on arts and crafts, and food tastings. Designed for both children and parents, the program combines learning with interactive activities that highlight the traditions, history, and the significance of the Lunar New Year. Through storytelling, art and cultural exchanges, we aim to promote awareness, celebrate AAPI heritage, and strengthen community connections.

 

Grant Award: $5,000

 

This will be the 20th annual Revels RiverSing, a free public event that celebrates the autumn equinox. This magical event will include, as always, a puppet parade led by Good Trouble Brass Band from Winthrop Park to Riverbend Park, Morris dancing, a children's and adult chorus, participatory singing, and of course, dragons! Our 2025 RiverSing had its largest audience since 2019, following the pandemic and funding reductions. 2025 featured a larger stage, and the return of the Revels boat with the moon floating down the river accompanied by saxophonist Stan Strickland. We wish to further expand so to give more local artists a platform to perform and be introduced to a new audience. Hosted by Revels Artist-in-Residence David Coffin, RiverSing is a lively, family-friendly event that Cambridge and the surrounding communities look forward to year after year.

 

Grant Award: $5,000

 

Participants aged 8-16 will engage in a hands-on workshop exploring astronomy, planetary defense, and space exploration. They will learn how scientists study asteroids and protect Earth from potential impacts. They will then step into the role of UN Security Council delegates, taking charge of protecting Earth from an asteroid impact threat. Working with a field expert, they will negotiate strategies, tackle policy challenges, and decide the fate of Earth. This interactive session builds diplomacy, critical thinking, and crisis-management skills through creative discussions and negotiations. Run in three Massachusetts public schools in 2025 with support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council Creative Project for Schools grant, the program is free and open to all students, providing equitable access to an engaging hands-on STEAM learning opportunity with real meteorite samples.

 

Grant Award: $565

 

The Screenless Project is a two-hour, phone-free participatory art encounter where attendees create with their hands using simple materials provided. No prior art experience is required. Facilitated in English, Spanish, and Portuguese, it lowers language barriers so newcomers and long-time residents can connect across cultures in a relaxing and welcoming atmosphere. With grant support, participation is free of charge. Every event blends open-ended making with a supportive environment, so participants leave with a handmade piece and new social connections. By combining analog creativity with intercultural dialogue, The Screenless Project becomes both a joyful artistic encounter and a practical on ramp to belonging for adults expanding or rebuilding their social networks in a new country, city, or state.

 

 

Grant Award: $4,000

 

The Boston Festival of New Jewish Music presents Kedmah in concert. Kedmah excavates the power and beauty of Mizrahi Jewish expression through ancient poetry and song. Led by Rabbi Yosef Goldman and Yoni Avi Battat, Kedmah honors the artists’ Iraqi, Syrian, and Yemenite ancestry in conversation with their intersecting musical influences. From Temple times to today, piyyutim utilize complex and beautiful poetry to infuse spirit and meaning into both sacred and ordinary moments of human experience. The stirring melodies are rooted in the illustrious tradition of maqam- a distinct system of musical expression found exclusively in the music of the Arab world - with similar systems in places like Turkey, Iran, and North Africa. Kedmah honors and reinvents these living sacred traditions rendered with deep reverence for tradition and boldly adapted with an ear towards our modern musical world.

 

Grant Award: $5,000

 

Boston City Singers will launch Songs We Share, an intergenerational and multi-cultural event series connecting our Cambridge members with senior residents of Neville Place Assisted Living and Fresh Pond Apartments. Through performances, call and response singing, drumming, and other interactive musical activities, our singers will practice leadership and showcase all they have learned. Alongside the residents, they will have the opportunity to teach traditional and folk songs honoring their own heritages. These cultural and intergenerational exchanges will foster meaningful connections, reduce social isolation, and bridge divides between siloed communities. Songs We Share supports a series of five sessions at each site.

 

Grant Award: $2,000

 

The Boston Festival Orchestra, in partnership with the Cambridge Public Library, will present a free public concert honoring Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. The program features chamber music by AAPI composers and works inspired by AAPI stories and traditions, creating space for reflection, cultural exchange, and community connection. By centering historically underrepresented voices in classical music, the event celebrates diversity while expanding access to the arts. To reach a broader audience, the performance will be professionally recorded and shared as digital learning content on BFO’s website, partner organization platforms, and the Cambridge Public Library’s online channels, ensuring continued engagement beyond the live event.

 

Grant Award: $5,000

 

Cambridge Youth Gamelan (CYG) is a multi-generational ensemble for youth ages 6-18 and their families to learn traditional Balinese music and dance. Rehearsing weekly from September to June, the group presents participatory and family-friendly programs to the greater Cambridge community. In the past 3 years, we have collaborated with Balinese artists Putu Tangkas Adi Hiranmayena and Dewa Ayu Eka Putri. We plan to extend this collaboration through a 6-month virtual and in-person residency, where Putu and Ayu - now first-time parents - will teach the group several Balinese lullabies and collaborate with us to create an original composition based on these songs. The project will teach students about the cultural significance of these lullabies, as well as teach them how to take a song and arrange it for Balinese gamelan.

 

Grant Award: $5,000

 

Castle of our Skins seeks support for And, Perhaps, To Bloom, a 90-minute concert exploring the Great Migration: the period between 1916 and 1970 where Black people fled the rural South in mass exodus, seeking homes in the urban West, Midwest, and Northeast. The performance will be presented in Cambridge on May 3, 2026, at Longy School of Music. Tracing journeys from swamps and maroon societies to northern and midwestern cities like Detroit, this program explores the Great Migration and the enduring resilience of Black communities seeking freedom, life, and humanity. With six musicians including a baritone singer, pianist, and a string quartet, featured works will include Undine Smith Moore’s Before I’d Be a Slave, Carlos Simon’s Warmth of Other Suns, Trevor Weston’s Juba, Adophus Hailstork’s Detroit piano quintet, and Shawn Okpebholo’s Great Day.

 

Grant Award: $2,500

 

In 2021, Celebrity Series began bringing free Neighborhood Arts performances to Cambridge’s Multicultural Arts Center (MAC). On February 28 and March 1, the clarinet takes center stage at the MAC in a weekend that celebrates this relatively unsung hero of jazz, folk, orchestral, and chamber music around the world. Audiences will hear outstanding clarinetists Juan Ruiz, Itay Dayan, and Christopher Elchico, along with their talented friends. The contrasting global music offerings will include a rich blend of jazz and Latin musical traditions in an expressive, rhythm-forward set; a spirited, soulful performance that honors both klezmer and contemporary jazz traditions while pushing musical boundaries; and an elegant afternoon of classical works featuring clarinet, cello, and piano. The March 1 concert closes with the weekend’s featured clarinetists uniting for a many-voiced clarinet choir.

 

Grant Award: $1,000

 

We are seeking funds for the 5th Annual Worlds Collide Showcase, scheduled for Fall 2025. The Pandora Consort has hosted the Worlds Collide Showcase in Cambridge since 2022. This is a first of its kind genre-blending composition competition and fundraising event. Artists from different musical backgrounds apply and are teamed up to perform original songs and original covers combining different genres of music (for example: EDM and Baroque, hip hop and jazz, etc.). Each performing duo and trio will choose a corresponding charity that they are fundraising for. At the end of the showcase the audience will vote for their favorite performance, and an additional cash prize will be awarded to the winning group, as well as an additional cash prize for their corresponding charity. All performers will receive a modest stipend plus the opportunity to raise individual funds.

 

Grant Amount: $5,000

 

This project is a free, five-week DJ workshop series at The Foundry in Summer 2026 for Black and Brown girls and non-binary youth. Co-led by professional DJs who share the participants' identities, the program provides a comprehensive foundation in DJing. Participants will explore its history, gain hands-on skills with industry-standard equipment, and receive dedicated mentorship and practice space. The curriculum is enriched by guest DJs (their bios are listed below) who will perform and share their professional journeys. The series culminates in a public showcase where youth perform their own sets, celebrating their new skills with the community. The goal of this project is to build a lasting resource for the community.

 

Grant Award: $5,000

 

Longy’s Side-by-Side Orchestra (SBS) offers K-12 youth a collaborative, challenging environment, playing and learning alongside Longy graduate students. Meeting weekly on campus, SBS is tuition-free and serves over 60 local children of all background and skill levels and their families. Repertoire is adapted to ensure all youth are challenged and engaged. Rehearsals include breakout sessions for beginner and advanced ensembles, plus individual instruction. Graduate students mentor participants at a 2:1 ratio, fostering skill development and belonging in a collegiate setting. Longy’s Teaching Assistants (TAs) also support SBS and local programs through 180 hours of in-school instruction, expanding access to high-quality music education. Students perform twice annually in Pickman Hall—often their first time on a professional stage—sparking curiosity and confidence in their musical futures.

 

Grant Amount: $5,000

 

NEFO holds several concerts a year in Cambridge. Most of our concerts are free or donation based. We are performing increasingly more sensory friendly concerts, and in the interest of keeping them 100% accessible, we are asking for help with our costs to keep them free.

 

Grant Amount: $2,000

 

Sarasa has performed concerts in Cambridge since it was founded in 1997, as well as provided award winning ‘Music Unlocked’ programs for incarcerated teens in the Greater Boston area. An important highlight of our 2026-27 season will focus on the chains of injustice experienced by composers from diverse eras, whether due to gender, racial, social, physical, or religious discrimination. In our concert “Breaking Free: Words and Music from Exile and Imprisonment,” Sarasa will feature music by Antonia Bembo, Ludwig van Beethoven, Emilie Meyer, Olivier Messiaen, Dame Ethel Smyth, Kurt Weill, Pau Casals,and Alma Rosé. Significantly, we will pair these works with audio recordings of incarcerated teens’ own compositions for our public audiences. These pieces will be developed and created through Sarasa’s summer residencies at Department of Youth Services facilities in Eastern Massachusetts.

 

Grant Award: $5,000

 

The Art of Dununs will provide older adults in Cambridge the rich experience of learning about the Dununs, a family of West African drums, including their rhythms and cultural context such as history, dances, and traditions. Over the course of five weeks, workshop participants will learn about the instrument names, sound production, traditional rhythms, performance techniques, music philosophy, and musical conversations including call and response. During the fifth week, participants learn how to incorporate traditional rhythms into contemporary artistic contexts, embracing fusion and layering singing, poetry, and song writing. During the sixth and final session, Cambridge Senior Center members will enjoy a lively performance where the workshop participants join the instructor and special guest artists to showcase their new skills and artistic creations.

 

 

Grant Award: $5,000

 

CineFest Latino Boston has been Boston's only festival devoted to the films of the Latinx and Latin American cultural world for nearly two decades (previously called the Boston Latino International Film Festival, led by Sabrina Avilés since 2016). CineFest is a five-day film festival showcasing films at premier venues including the Museum of Fine Arts, Emerson Paramount Theatre, and Coolidge Corner Theatre. As part of our ongoing commitment to expanding community engagement, we plan to present a full day of free, family-friendly short film programming at the Lecture Hall of the Cambridge Public Library’s Main Branch. The screenings will be followed by a Q&A session with the filmmakers. This event will be open to the public, with the goal of reaching a broader and more diverse audience by providing accessible, inclusive programming in a welcoming civic space.

 

Grant Award: $5,000

 

The CRC seeks to support a second year of an Artist-in-Residence (AiR) and free wall program at the Lynch Family Skatepark (LFS). In 2025, we established a “free wall” zone through permits with DCR and MassDOT, where artists cannot be charged with vandalism - enabling more intentional artmaking. We also launched our inaugural Graffiti AiR program. The CRC received over 30 applications for the role and ultimately AOA Supply was selected by a community-based Skatepark Advisory Group and CRC staff. Through regular on-site artmaking and engagement with all park users, the AiR program has increased the amount and elevated the tone of public art in alignment with community guidelines. The CRC is now planning a second season of the AiR program for 2026 to build on this success, leverage permitting efficiencies, incorporate feedback and further increase the quantity and quality of public art.

 

Grant Award: $5,000

 

This project proposes a short film and immersive installation based on my MIT research on sound, media, and urban life. Centered on “The Hum,” an unexplained low-frequency noise reported worldwide, it explores how sound shapes collective experience and connects strangers through shared perception. Reports describe it as nuisance, mystery, or conspiracy, circulating through news and online forums. The film combines storytelling with research on noise exposure and its uneven effects on health and wellbeing—stress, disrupted sleep, and cardiovascular issues that disproportionately impact under-resourced communities. By translating this invisible burden into narrative, the work makes sound perceptible as a social force. The installation extends the film into space: a fabricated living room with projection and surround sound that heightens aural awareness.

 

Grant Award: $500

 

The Just A Minute Festival is an online viewer’s choice film festival dedicated to the art of the micro-film—productions one minute or less in total running time. The festival encourages people of all ages and abilities to use the readable devices available, phone, tablet computer, camera or whatever to make short films that tell stories, promote causes, stimulate laughter or create art. The Call for Submissions opens April 1st, 2026, with a final deadline on May 31st, 2026. Entries are juried by a team of industry professionals. The Top Sixty Films are selected and begin streaming at random on the festival website, www.JustAMinute.tv, starting June 10th, 2026. The audience votes on their favorites until July 10th, 2026. After winners are announced, the selected films continue to stream on the site until December 2026 and will be shown on Cambridge Community Television.

 

Grant Award: $2,000

 

Artist Maria Fong will lead participants through playful, expressive, and cathartic drawing exercises in ten free workshops held throughout the spring and summer, each time at a different Cambridge public park. Through various short comics activities, participants will identify and represent emotions and experiences in their lives, using the combination of text and image to uniquely share their stories. As a queer, trans, Asian American artist, Maria will connect with other queer BIPOC to process the emotions coming up in the current political environment.

 

Grant Award: $5,000

 

The Girls Chronically Rock Fashion Show is an inclusive and empowering event designed to highlight adaptive and accessible fashion for people with disabilities. The show will feature models with diverse abilities, celebrating representation in the fashion industry while raising awareness about the need for stylish, functional, and adaptive clothing. Beyond showcasing the Girls Chronically Rock collection, the event will create a platform for dialogue around disability inclusion, self-expression, and body positivity. The fashion show aims to inspire, educate, and engage the community while breaking barriers and redefining what fashion looks like for all.

 

Grant Award: $5,000

 

Lanterns Between Moon and River is a community hands-on art-making project celebrating the Fall Equinox and Mid-Autumn Festival along the Charles River. Participants will join hands-on workshops to make lanterns and then decorate them with papercutting and painting. Inspired by seasonal change, the full moon, and the beauty of biodiversity in and along the Charles River, the project invites families, youth, and community members to reflect on nature, conservation, and community belongings. The workshops culminate in a public festival where the lanterns illuminate the riverbank, celebrating creativity, community connections, and harmony with the natural world. There will be four workshops at the Cambridge Public Libraries. Two workshops are lantern-making with two follow-up workshops of papercutting, painting and lantern decorating. And 3-4 workshops at Mass Audubon Magazine Beach.

 

Grant Award: $5,000

 

A half-hour documentary that follows Cambridge-based artists as they engage communities through creative expression to address social justice issues. The film highlights how art—through murals, workshops, music, and participatory projects—raises awareness, fosters dialogue, and inspires collective action around equity, inclusion, and civic engagement. Combining observational footage, interviews with artists and activists, and contextual scenes of Cambridge neighborhoods and public events, the documentary explores the powerful intersection of creativity and activism.

 

Grant Award: $4,756

 

Wildlife Arts proposes participatory art opportunities using as a springboard either “friends," (metaphorically, mutualist pollinators and plants) or "cousins" (metaphorically, species either closely related genetically or in the same genus—yet that live on different continents). We request retroactive funding for 1) a printmaker (L.R.) who engaged people in making prints at our public nature festival (9/2025), and 2) an emerging artist (L.A.) who integrated garden visits with artmaking for Baldwin Community campers (8/2025). We propose in 2026 that 3) printmaker L.R. run a similar art activity at our Port Arts Festival table (May), 4) author-illustrator (L.L.) design and facilitate artmaking at Fresh Pond Day (June), and 5) we facilitate and commission youth artmaking for new wildlife trading cards and for two Little Free Seed Libraries.

 

 

Grant Award: $5,000

 

This October and November 2024, East End House’s Middle School Program will host approximately 10 workshops led by teaching artists in their afterschool program. These workshops will feature BIPOC fine and performing artists, many of whom are affiliated with the Longy School of Music or are based in Cambridge, MA. Considering the robust programming this fall, with potential extensions into the spring and summer, we are planning a special field trip, "A Middle School Musical Night Out," for students, families, and staff in late summer 2025. The trip will include attending a performance of The Wiz at Citizens Opera House in August 2025, showcasing the artistry of BIPOC musicians.

 

Grant Award: $5,000

 

NEFO holds several concerts a year in Cambridge. Most of our concerts are free or donation based. We are performing increasingly more sensory friendly concerts, and in the interest of keeping them 100% accessible, we are asking for help with our costs to keep them free.