Seguin—Teatro De Artes De Juan Seguin has been approved for a $50,000 Our Town award from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to support Our Town-Sharing of People, Places, Culture and Stories through Art Creation in Seguin. This is one of 57 grants nationwide, totaling $4,175,000, that the NEA has approved in the Our Town category. These creative placemaking grants support projects that integrate arts, culture, and design activities into local efforts to strengthen and authentically engage communities, center equity, advance artful lives, and lay the groundwork for long-term systems change.

 

“The National Endowment for the Arts is pleased to support a wide range of projects, including Our Town-Sharing of People, Places, Culture and Stories through Art Creation in Seguin demonstrating the many ways the arts enrich our lives and contribute to healthy and thriving communities,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “These organizations play an important role in advancing the creative vitality of our nation and helping to ensure that all people can benefit from arts, culture, and design.”

 

“Our breath was taken away when learning Teatro De Artes De Juan Seguin was one of 57 recipients of this prestigious nationwide grant. We are excited to engage the community in conversations that will gather and share the stories of our communities and in turn will provide an avenue to create participatory art projects that mirror the ethnicities in our community. We look forward to all Seguin citizens working together to document our cumulative history which will not only be shared locally, nationally, but internationally as well,” said Teatro Executive Director Yvonne M. De La Rosa, PhD.

 

“This is an amazing accomplishment and well deserved! Teatro is a very important part of our community and this NEA Our Town grant will certainly be put to the best use,” said City of Seguin Mayor Donna Dodgen.

 

Teatro De Artes De Juan Seguin will be leading the way in an artist residency program focused on telling the stories of the communities of color to include people, places, history and culture in Seguin, TX in partnership with the City of Seguin, Seguin Mainstreet, and the Seguin Public Library. Teatro will actively engage the community through community platicas (conversations) to capture the stories that will be at the center of the artist residency community co-creation of art (visual art and/or mixed media). These art creations will be unveiled one by one throughout 2024/2025. The artwork will circulate throughout the community (in part or as a whole) for years to come at many different locations.

 

For more information on the projects included in the Arts Endowment grant announcement, visit arts.gov/news.