Kalle Benallie
ICT
Federal funding cuts to the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts are being felt across the Native art community.
“Some of the cuts have been absolutely devastating, including research centers that we were partnering with at Bard College that were led by artists that completely lost all of their federal support after the grant was awarded, and I’ll also say that this is really unprecedented,” said Candice Hopkins, executive director and chief curator at the Forge Project. Hopkins is Carcross and Tagish First Nation.
The Forge Project is a Native-led organization that cultivates and advances Indigenous leadership in arts and culture. They have worked with hundreds of people through their programs of partnerships, including the Stockbridge–Munsee Community in Wisconsin.
While her nonprofit organization has not been affected by the funding cuts, many of their partners have like Choctaw and Cherokee artist Jeffrey Gibson.
The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art received a notification in May from the National Endowment for the Arts that the awarded grant for the support of Gibson’s commission “POWER FULL BECAUSE WE’RE DIFFERENT” was terminated.
The museum’s director Kristy Edmunds said the National Endowment for the Arts awarded it during the Biden administration.
“In reading our notification multiple times, I am struck by the words being used, how important they are to absorb, and is why I am sharing them here with you as supporters of MASS MoCA,” Edmunds said in a statement. “The loss of these crucial funding awards for projects at MASS MoCA (pending appeals) is real and will throw us into greater financial strain. As painful as this is financially, what is more so is the diminishment of our revered national agencies and their staff after decades of service in elevating our national creativity, innovation and cultural contributions. These actions in combination with their rhetoric are unnerving, and are but one of many challenges at hand and to come.”
For those who are not familiar with the two federal agencies: the National Endowment for the Arts funds the creation of art and the National Endowment for the Humanities funds the study of that art. NEA was established by Congress in 1965 so its funding is appropriated by Congress annually.
Grants from the National Endowment for the Arts for hundreds of arts groups of various sizes across the U.S. had their funding withdrawn. Copies of the email, shared with NPR, said that awards that fall out of President Donald Trump’s priorities will be terminated. Projects that support tribal communities are included.
“When grants are awarded, they are awarded through a jury process, particularly grants through the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts.
So it’s not like these grants don’t go through an extremely rigorous process, and I would say the number of grants that have been suspended or withdrawn, or taken away for Native research projects, Native artists, Native organizations, is its own form of discrimination,” Hopkins said.
Hopkins’ husband and composer Raven Chacon, Navajo, has had his projects affected by the cuts of both in the performing arts, music and the visual arts.
“We’re all trying to navigate this moment, we’re only less than a year into this new administration,” Hopkins said. “There’s a lot of uncertainty. There’s a lot of fear. I think that there’s a lot of self censorship happening right now among cultural producers because people are in some cases worried about raising their voice because things have been canceled.”
Institute of American Indian Arts President Shelly Lowe, Navajo, spoke at a panel called “Narrative Sovereignty + Cultural Repair” in August about how these funding cuts are detrimental to tribal communities. Lowe was the chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities and nominated by former President Joe Biden in 2022. She left her position in March “at the direction of Trump.”
“One of the things about being invited on the panel and understanding the importance of it is that we often don’t have the Native voice at that level or in these arenas to talk about really what is happening,” she said.
Lowe said when she was on the council for the National Endowment for the Arts that it was apparent they were under-serving Native communities, Native organizations, and Native artists. But when President Biden started electing Indigenous people to high positions of power in the government, she saw a shift and was motivated by Deb Haaland’s Interior Secretary nomination to take the position of chairperson for the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Especially, when Haaland announced the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative that Lowe knew there were going to be significant changes.
“That kind of sealed the path for NEH to be saying, we are working with Native communities because every federal agency we know trusts responsibility. We know that every federal agency needs to be thinking about their relationships with tribal communities. We were able to say, this is a priority now and we all need to be paying attention,” Lowe said.
That became even more clear when the 26-member National Council on the Humanities told Lowe that they didn’t know about federal Indian boarding schools. So she created the strategic advisor for Native and Indigenous affairs position at the National Endowment for the Humanities. Jason Packineau assumed that role in 2023. Packineau is Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara Nation and from Jemez and Laguna Pueblos.
It was the first time a position of that kind was created in the agency’s 59-year history. The office no longer exists.
Lowe’s former workplace, the National Endowment for the Humanities, had some funding cuts too.
Since NEH is a federal granting agency, this means individuals, organizations and institutions apply for the federal funding. Additionally, a portion of the funding goes directly to state and jurisdictional humanities councils to support humanities initiatives at the state level.
“NEH funds museum exhibitions, NEH funds educational programming, NEH funds national documentaries, those ways that help us to understand our own history as a country or the history of other artists and institutions and things that have happened globally. Without that, we will have less access to all of that cultural knowledge, all of that sharing and all of that education. It’s gonna be very sad not to have that access to humanities,” Lowe said.
NPR reported in April that 145 staff members were put on administrative leave. In addition, 56 state and jurisdiction humanities councils across the country also received a letter that their NEH grants were terminated.
“NEH has a number of grant opportunities that prior to this administration were earmarked for tribal college and university initiatives; those initiatives, to my understanding, have been taken away,” Lowe said.
Lowe said taking away the grants will affect the opportunity for tribal colleges and universities to create humanities initiatives that can then be offered to students and communities.
“These initiatives are often very high level courses and advancements in teaching that they are able to offer. There are also ways that the tribal colleges can collaborate either with local communities or organizations, or even with the tribe itself and some of the knowledge keepers of the tribe,” she said. “It’s going to be that those opportunities are going to have to be found in other places, either through foundations, if they are able to fund projects like that.”
The National Endowment for the Humanities announced on Aug. 1 that there will be $34.79 million in grants for 97 humanities projects across the country to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary.
Lowe said she’s optimistic about the federal funding cuts not affecting the resilience of Indigenous people.
“We have always been here, then we are going to continue to be here. We’ve gone through difficult, difficult times before. We’re going to go through difficult times again, but we’re resilient and we’re going to take care of each other and we’re going to continue to grow our cultures, our languages and keep it going,” she said.
Lowe said the board of trustees, faculty, staff, alumni, are talking about the importance of the institution and the federal funding that is needed since IAIA is congressionally funded.
“IAIA is the premier school for Native arts and cultures and we’re moving that forward. So we’re going to do everything we can to continue that,” she said.
One of the ways to continue doing that according to Lowe is to make other branches of government than the executive branch aware of tribal sovereignty. Congressional leaders and house representatives that have tribal communities in their jurisdictions have that knowledge.
“We need to remember that they are on our side and we need to be encouraging and we need to be telling them that this needs to keep on,” Lowe said.
”I’m the type that says, it’s going to be a couple of years, it’s going to be rough, but we’re going to get to the other side. We have to make sure that we’re all on the same page, and we’re working together to that other side.”