Three awards to AMP from the Knight Arts Challenge
Allied Media Projects is proud to be the recipient of three awards from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s Knight Arts Challenge. The Knight Arts grants to AMP will support the launch of an Allied Media Conference music festival, Detroit Future Schools’ “Data Murals” project, and the Detroit Digital Stewards’ “Detroit Music Box.”
The Knight Arts Challenge funds ideas that engage and enrich Detroit through the arts. The grants were announced at an October 6th awards event at The Fillmore Detroit. More information about each of the funded AMP projects is below.
Allied Media Conference – AMC Music
The award from Knight Arts will expand the annual Allied Media Conference to include a full music showcase, further exploring the intersection of art and social change.
Now entering its 16th year, the Allied Media Conference draws 2,000 participants to explore the intersection of art, media and technology for a more creative world. With challenge funding, the conference will expand its music offerings into AMC Music, a showcase for Detroit’s grassroots music scene. The event will include satellite shows across the city in small to medium-sized venues, featuring mainly local acts, in addition to panels and workshops. With 60 percent of participants coming from outside Michigan, AMC Music hopes to cultivate a local-national exchange of ideas and partnerships.
Detroit Future Schools – “Data Murals”
This project will help children tell their neighborhood stories by having them conduct research about their communities and convey their findings through “Data Murals.”
Detroit Future Schools will launch a “Data Murals” project that visualizes student research about their community. Professional artists will work with teachers in K-12 classrooms to develop a big question facing the school or community that ties into the curriculum. First, students will conduct research on that question through interviews, field trips and online research. Then, students will analyze the data, create a collaborative design that visualizes the findings, and ultimately create a mural about it in their neighborhood. Data Murals seek to be beautiful public art that engages residents in a critical dialogue about data-driven representations and misrepresentations of their community.
Detroit Digital Stewards – “Detroit Music Box”
To tell the story of Detroit’s neighborhoods through sound, the Detroit Digital Stewards will create a suite of digital radio shows produced by the people who live there. The shows will combine music from the neighborhood, audio from the streets and interviews with neighbors to make a feature track that asserts an identity and vision for the place. Broadcast on community wireless networks, each will be facilitated by residents and community technologists who will be trained in radio production and community organizing.
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The grant awards to each of these projects requires us to raise matching funds. Help us reach our fundraising goals by becoming an Allied Media Projects sustainer.