• Article

    An innovative collaboration between Independent Filmmaker Project Minnesota and Forecast Public Art

    Published April 7, 2014 by

    By Melinda Childs, Forecast Public Art An innovative collaboration between Independent Filmmaker Project Minnesota and Forecast Public Art produced a series of short films featuring recent public art projects in Minnesota. This collaboration captures the behind-the-scenes stories of the sometimes chaotic but always exciting creative process of public art in...
  • Article

    What’s your best idea for the arts in St. Paul?

    Published April 7, 2014 by

    St. Paul Knight Arts Challenge from Knight Foundation on Vimeo.  Today, Knight Foundation is opening an opportunity for everyone—and we mean everyone—in St. Paul with a great idea for the arts. The Knight Arts Challenge is officially accepting applications. Now through May 5, we will be looking for the most innovative arts ideas to share $1.5 million in funding. You can submit them here at KnightArts.org. The first thing you need to know about the challenge is that submitting an idea isn’t like filling out a regular grant application. This is an ideas contest. We’re looking for projects that make us think differently about the arts and this community. And we believe those ideas should come from people like you who are already shaping this city through the arts. Applying is easy – it’s a 150-word max application. It’s open to everyone: you don’t have to be a non-profit. You can be an individual artist or even a business. We recognize that good ideas come from everywhere, and look for the challenge to draw them in. Your project needs to follow just three rules: Your idea must be about the arts. Your project must take place in or benefit St. Paul. And if selected, you must find funding to match the Knight Foundation grant. Remember that first rule especially when you think about your application. A panel of local readers reviews each one, and helps us ensure that winning ideas reflect the high level of artistic excellence for which this city is known.
  • Article

    FLA-FRA comes to the edge

    Published April 7, 2014 by

    Last weekend, Tigertail's month-long FLA-FRA (Florida-France Festival) produced “Come to the Edge,” a 12-hour reading of the works of famed French writer Apollinaire at the ArtCenter/South Florida on South Beach. I was given the opportunity, along with 23 volunteers, to read from his collected works in a semi-cozy, unused artist...
  • Article

    What’s your best idea for the arts in St. Paul?

    Published April 4, 2014 by

    Today, Knight Foundation is opening an opportunity for everyone—and we mean everyone—in St. Paul with a great idea for the arts. The Knight Arts Challenge is officially accepting applications. Now through May 5, we will be looking for the most innovative arts ideas to share $1.5 million in funding. You...
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    2014 Challenge Fund winners: Experiments for maximum community impact

    Published April 4, 2014 by

    The following blog post, written by ONA Executive Director Jane McDonnell, is cross-posted from journalists.org. Photo credit: Flickr user David Moreau. When we put out the call to J-school educators for the first round of experiments to #hackcurriculum for the Challenge Fund for Innovation in Journalism Education, we already knew we were hitting a rich vein just waiting to be mined. We saw the momentum in our Facebook Educators group, where a virtual cohort of nearly 600 digitally hungry and committed academics exchange rapid-fire ideas on favorite tools, curriculum tips, job openings, how-tos and student motivation. We heard it in the halls of our annual conference, where academic attendance is climbing and more and more mentors compete to work with the best and brightest in the Student Newsroom. And we hear it in the frustration of committed, multitasking teachers who are searching for the means to creatively engage their students in the community and work with local media. The four foundations supporting the Challenge Fund — the Democracy Fund, Ethics & Excellence in Journalism, Knight and McCormick — had long been on the same wavelength. The time was overdue to provide some space and support, up to $1 million worth, for experimentation in the academic and media ecosystem.
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    Hamtramck Free School: bringing higher minds to free education

    Published April 4, 2014 by

    Freedom makes for great education. That’s the foundational principle of the Hamtramck Free School, a groundbreaking educational organization that has been offering materials and learning opportunities to anyone who shows up with a desire to learn, or teach. Co-founded by Michael Brown, a philosopher and Michigan State University Ph.D candidate;...
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    Knight Foundation receives Murrow Award

    Published April 4, 2014 by

    Welcome to Knight Foundation from Knight Foundation on Vimeo. Knight Foundation received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University Thursday night. College officials said the award recognizes Knight “for its continued excellence in support of journalism and journalism education.” Eric Newton, senior adviser to the president at Knight Foundation, accepted the award. He delivered the following remarks: On behalf of Knight Foundation, thank you to Dean Larry Pintak and all here at the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University. This honor is singular. We will treasure it. We are humbled by the company of legends you would have us join. Mostly we are awed by Murrow himself, the quintessential journalist, his move from radio to television a perfect example of how we must rise to the task when new forms of media emerge. Knight Foundation exists because of the generosity of two brothers, Jack and Jim Knight, and their mother, Clara. Together the Knights endowed the foundation with their personal fortunes, earned by building what was in Murrow’s day America’s largest newspaper group. We grow their money. We recycle it back into communities where they made it, and into journalism and media innovation, which is how they made it. The foundation supports journalism excellence in the digital age, hoping to find out what in the 21st Century will inform and engage communities the way Knight newspapers did in the 20th.