Mellon welcomes inquiries from organizations whose work aligns with our current strategies

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The organization’s multi-discipline approach to civic planning merges the fields of architecture, urbanism, political theory, as well as visual arts and the humanities.

The structures featured in all four of the program’s community stations are co-designed with learning provided by the occupants and students that utilize the spaces.

Partnerships with non-profits well-invested in the stations’ unique habitats provide connections to building materials beneficial to the environment and the local economy.

The university’s proximity to challenges faced along this border allows its students to be on the forefront of climate resilience issues that increase as temperatures rise.

Each station features structures and programming specific to the community it serves; all are described as sanctuary spaces for the protection of both people and nature.

The project’s programming focuses on young people as the cross-border citizens of the future.

A low rectangular building with a window sits in front of a deep blue painted wall with a door and security camera on it

Building Borderland Resources with Each Other in Mind

Built by Arthur George Gaston, the A.G. Gaston Motel welcomed travelers and also became a site of change and advancements of civil rights for all Americans. Courtesy of The Historical Preservation Authority of the City of Birmingham

A vintage gas motel sign featuring a bright neon display that reads "A.G. Gas Motel" against a night sky backdrop.

Reviving a Historic Site in Alabama’s Fight for Racial Justice

Theaster Gates, shown here, wants local Memphian hero Tom Lee to be remembered as “a human who saw other human lives as equally valuable, if not more valuable, than his own.”

A Black man identified as the artist Theaster Gates wearing a white shirt and dark pants sits on a stool covered with a tarp

An “Anti-Monument” Explores History by Asking for Dialogue

A project honoring the "Harriet Tubman of the Underground Railroad to Mexico" is using a $150,000 grant from Mellon to create an interactive mapping project and infrastructure improvements.

Media Axios

Underground Railroad to Mexico project is using major grant to archive history

[Mukurtu is] one tool in a toolkit for communities to use to repatriate, to safeguard, to create, to grow, to continue advocating for their cultural practices, their traditional knowledge-sharing with future generations.

The Huna Heritage Digital Archive includes a range of media and oral histories that share stories of life in Hoonah as told through photos of members of the community—both living and passed. An undated photo comes from the Paul Randolph Collection, named for an “avid Hoonah historian.” Left to Right: Community members Willie Horton, John B. Fawcett, James Houston, Leslie Johnson in special occasion regalia.  

Four Indigenous Alaskan men dressed in ceremonial clothing and headresses

Designed with Care: Mukurtu Provides Ethical Tools for Archiving and Preservation of Indigenous Heritage

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The arts and humanities are evolving tools that allow us to better see and hear each other. Four visionaries reflect on risks they took and how we can connect with others.

Ripple Effect

How does Wikipedia work?

How do you look at the perspectives of other people who … are not represented in the current article? That’s what this project is really about.

All images from Wikipedia / Creative Commons 

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Look It Up: Humanities Students are Filling Wikipedia’s Content Gaps

If no one’s putting you into a show, put yourself into a show... You have agency, you have power, you have the opportunity.

Selections from “Land of Milk & Honey”

“Red Flag/Bandera Roja,” 2013, by Veronica Duarte. Photo courtesy of MexiCali Biennial by Ed Gomez

An extra long Mexican flag hanging from a holder on a white wall inside of a gallery space

A Moveable Feast That’s Transforming Boundaries 

Arts and Culture

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Program Officer

Deana Haggag

Celebrated arts leader and advocate, Deana Haggag, will be promoted to the institutional leadership role of Program Director for Arts and Culture, effective January 1, 2025.

Deana Haggag to Helm Mellon Foundation Arts and Culture Grantmaking

President Joe Biden on Monday established a national monument honoring the late FDR-era Labor Secretary Frances Perkins, the first woman to serve in a presidential Cabinet.

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Biden establishes a national monument for Frances Perkins, the 1st female Cabinet secretary

Until last month, this had been a good year for Samuels Public Library. The fate of the five-year Mellon grant, used to furnish a just-opened “maker space” and media center, is uncertain.

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VA library survived battle over LGBTQ+ books. Now, it faces a new threat.

The Mellon Foundation grant would go toward design of a 2-mile walking trail along an abandoned elevated rail line that once ferried workers to the Chicago stockyards.


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Bronzeville Trail receives $900,000 grant for development of landscape design, study of rail history

The Mellon Foundation recently launched the Frontera Culture Fund, a $25 million initiative to support the work of artists and cultural leaders living and working along the U.S.-Mexico border.

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Six Funders Backing Narrative Change Around Immigration

Mellon makes grants to support communities through the power of the arts and humanities

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Snapshots of a Prolific Career

The home and studio of Robert T. Coles was designed and built in 1961 to be oriented away from Humboldt Parkway—the parkway-turned-highway along which it sits. 

A front view of a yellow and gray two storied modern rectangular house 

Mid-Century Marvel

Artists as Catalysts

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Beyond Incarceration

A side profile of a Black poet who is wearing glasses and a hat with a feather hat pin.

Borderlands Cultures

In portrait orientation, an aerial view of a major highway running parallel to a large border wall set on a hilly landscape

Civic Engagement

A man in a brown jacket stands in front of blue bulletin board that is covered with papers and advertisements  

Evolving Higher Education

A vertical image of an Indigenous person who is sitting on a chair in front of a backdrop.

Expanding Public Knowledge

An interior room filled with audio and video equipment 

Monuments and Memory

A multicolored painted totem pole set in front of a foggy forest landscape

Multivocality

Five people stand together in a group photo. They are laughing and smiling.

Power of the Word

Five colorful neon signs hang on the wall with messages that include, "Freedom cannot wait," "Brown owned," and "America is for Dreamers."

Public Places‚ Public Stories

A group of Indigenous Maskoke people stand and sit in the wooden frame of a structure in a woods

Puerto Rico and Its Diaspora

In a vertical image, a black leather vest is adorned with colorful pins across the front of it. Embroidery on the vest reads: "Felícitas "La Prieta" Méndez" 

Mid-Century Marvel

Mellon makes grants to support communities through the power of the arts and humanities

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Building Borderland Resources with Each Other in Mind