CEI Pilot Program Call for Applications

DEPARTMENT OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS ANNOUNCES SECOND APPLICATION PROCESS FOR NEW CULTURAL EXCHANGE INTERNATIONAL PILOT PROGRAM

Los Angeles - The City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) launched the second round of its Cultural Exchange International (CEI) Pilot Program and released the second set of guidelines for new applicants. CEI is a two-year fellowship program intended to enhance Los Angeles as a national and international center for the arts and foster cultural understandings through the expansion of networks and the exchange of knowledge between creative professionals.

CEI provides fellowship support to creative professionals (artists, arts administrators, arts/cultural educators and scholars, curators, presenters, creative entrepreneurs, cultural innovators, and cultural experts) traveling abroad for intensive residencies
(two weeks to three months), or creative professionals coming to Los Angeles for intensive residencies (also two weeks to three months), who have planned collaborative relationships with Los Angeles organizations to host their residencies. The program has been designed to support individual professionals or small groups (with a limit of three to four people per group).

In the first round of fellowship awards, 7 creative professionals, often leading teams of artists; 1 Los Angeles for-profit company; and 4 Los Angeles non-profit organizations were recommended for support with $88,000 for fellowship projects in Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Poland, and Rwanda. All of these projects will also culminate in free public presentations in Los Angeles. An additional $12,950 is being awarded to three of these projects, which take place in Latin America, by the National Performance Network (NPN) for a total of $100,950 in funding support.

The two-year pilot program was made possible with seed funding from the City of
Los Angeles and the Durfee Foundation. The Durfee Foundation’s funding supports
Los Angeles artists traveling abroad. Funding from the National Performance Network focuses on exchanges between Los Angeles and Latin America and the Caribbean.

To date, several respected sponsor-partners have enlarged the pool of funds committed over the two-year pilot project to more than $550,000. For CEI’s second round of fellowships, partnerships have been extended to include the Foundation for International Cultural Activities (SICA) in the Netherlands, the Sacatar Foundation in Brazil, and the Trust for Mutual Understanding, which supports exchange between the United States and Russia, as well as Central and Eastern Europe.

Local creative professionals and businesses, and non-profit organizations are encouraged to find DCA’s CEI Program Grant Guidelines online at:

http://www.culturela.org/grants/CEI/CEI_Application_052109_wforms.pdf

The postmarked deadline for submission of all application materials is Friday, June 26, 2009. An informational workshop will be held at DCA’s main office at 201 North Figueroa Street, Suite 1400, Los Angeles, CA 90012, on Monday, June 8, 2009 from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. For more information about the CEI Pilot Program guidelines and application, please contact Joe Smoke, DCA’s Cultural Grant Program Director at:

joe.smoke@lacity.org.


About DCA:

The Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) both generates and supports high quality arts and cultural experiences for Los Angeles residents and visitors. DCA advances the social and economic impact of the arts and assures access to arts and cultural experiences through grant making, marketing, public and community arts programming, arts education, and creating partnerships with artists and arts and cultural organizations in every community in the City of Los Angeles.

DCA grants $3.2 million annually to over 280 artists and nonprofit arts organizations and awards the Artist-in-Residence (A.I.R.) and City of Los Angeles (C.O.L.A.) Individual Artist Fellowships. The Department provides arts and cultural programming in its numerous Neighborhood Arts and Cultural Centers, theaters, and historic sites, and manages several arts and education programs for young people. It directs public art projects and manages the City’s Arts Development Fee and Percent for Arts Programs, and the Art Collection and Murals Programs. DCA markets the City’s cultural events through development and collaboration with strategic partners, design and production of creative promotional materials, and management of the culturela.org website.