The Newberry is pleased to announce it has received a grant of $50,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) as part of a Grants for Arts Projects award. This grant will support the upcoming exhibition, Native Pop!, which shares four centuries of Indigenous creators, athletes, activists, and fans engaging with pop culture. The grant is one of 1,127 Grants for Arts Projects awards nationwide, totaling more than $31.8 million as part of the recent announcement of fiscal year 2025 grants.
“The NEA is proud to continue our nearly 60 years of supporting the efforts of organizations and artists that help to shape our country’s vibrant arts sector and communities of all types across our nation,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “It is inspiring to see the wide range of creative projects taking place, including the Newberry’s Native Pop! exhibition.”
Native Pop! will open in the Newberry’s Trienens Galleries on March 20 and run through July 19. The exhibition draws from the library’s growing collections of books, manuscripts, and artworks related to American Indian and Indigenous Studies, which are among the largest in the world. Indigenous people have been central to the story of popular culture in the Western Hemisphere, and popular culture is important to many Indigenous people and experiences.
“We are grateful to NEA for this generous support of our upcoming exhibition,” said the Newberry’s Will Hansen, Roger and Julie Baskes Vice President for Collections and Library Services and co-curator of Native Pop! “These funds will help us share with the public a trove of zines, comic books, artworks, and other materials that show how Indigenous creators have reimagined pasts, presents, and futures, and reshaped popular culture narratives.”
Native Pop! and other exhibitions at the Newberry are free and open to all. Learn more about the exhibition here.