Deadline: 15 May 2025
The Leeway Transformation Award provides unrestricted annual awards to women, trans and gender nonconforming artists and cultural producers living in Greater Philadelphia who create art for social change and have done so for the past five years or more, demonstrating a long-term commitment to social change work.
Categories
- Crafts and Textiles
- Media Arts
- Performance
- Folk Arts
- Music
- Visual Arts
- Literary Arts
- Multidisciplinary
Vision
- Impact of Art with Vision
- Raise consciousness
- Alter how we think about ourselves, their society, or their culture
- Create a vision of a more just world
- Be a tool or strategy for organizing and movement building
- Preserve or reclaim traditional cultural practices using your artistic practice as a form of resistance or empowerment
- Create space for expression and build a sense of community
- Challenge racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ageism, ableism, or other oppressions
- Question mainstream culture and beliefs
- Shift or transform the perception of power and/or privilege and the dynamics associated with justice, equality, and/or accountability
- Value healing justice practices focused on strengthening communities, not just individuals
- Engage and utilize a reciprocal process — where there is teaching and learning simultaneously and the consent for engagement is mutual, as is the beneft for yourself as an artist and the community you are engaging
- Social Change Intent/Vision
- Cultural preservation
- Decarceration
- Demilitarization
- Disability justice
- Economic justice
- Environmental justice
- Feminism
- Housing justice
- Immigrant justice
- Indigenous sovereignty
- LGBQA social movements
- Racial justice
- Transgender justice/gender self-determination
Award Information
- Award: $15,000
- The 2025 Leeway Transformation Award period is from January 2026 to December 2026.
Eligibility Criteria
- Have lived for the past two years or more (since April 2023) in Bucks, Camden, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, or Philadelphia County
- Are at least 18 years old
- Identify as a woman, trans, and/or gender nonconforming person
- Have been creating art for social change for the past fve years or more
- All applicants must verify that they:
- Live in Bucks, Camden, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, or Philadelphia County
- Are at least 18 years old
- Transformation Award applicants may apply and receive the Art and Change Grant in the same year.
- Transformation Award applicants may not apply for the Media Artist + Activist Residency in the same year.
- If you receive a Transformation Award, you may not apply for the Art and Change Grant and/or the Media Artist + Activist Residency during your award year.
Ineligibility Criteria
- Are a full-time student in an arts degree program
- Have previously received a Transformation Award
- Have received a Media Artist + Activist Residency in 2024
- Have not turned in all reports due from previous Leeway grants and residencies
Review Criteria
- Breadth and depth of your experience creating art for social change for fve years or more
- Whether or not social change is an intentional part of your artistic practice
- Your relationship to the communities you work with
- Audience and/or community engagement
For more information, visit Leeway Foundation.
