The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage
From the Executive Director
Welcome to The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage Web site. The Center, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, is a multidisciplinary grantmaker, funding in seven areas: dance, exhibitions, heritage, fellowships, management, music, and theater. In 2011, the Center's Initiatives together awarded just over $6.3 million to artists and organizations in the five-county Southeastern Pennsylvania region whose work is distinguished by excellence, imagination, and courage. These grantee projects, about which you can learn more by familiarizing yourself with the Grants Awarded section of each of the Initiatives, engage a full spectrum of audiences, greatly enriching the cultural life of the greater Philadelphia area and beyond.
SLIDESHOW: Click image for a slideshow of recent Center-funded events and grantee projects. 
We begin 2012 on a high note, as we look back at Center-funded projects that broke down boundaries, both programmatic and organizational, while stirring conversation across the region. The American Philosophical Society Museum garnered new audiences with The Greenhouse Projects—five innovative public programs centered on an eco-conscious greenhouse designed by 2010 Pew Fellow and 2011 United States Artist grant recipient Jenny Sabin. Pig Iron Theatre Company launched its highly anticipated School for Advanced Performance Training, with its very first class of theater artists beginning lessons early this fall, and the Quay Brothers unveiled Through the Weeping Glass, a short film inspired by the macabre collections of the Mütter Museum that premiered at venues throughout the country. The Philadelphia Live Arts Festival brought us a number of groundbreaking performances, including cross-cultural investigations of dance and movement in the festival spotlight series, At Home, Elsewhere, and an unconventional exhibition of floating, DIY sculptures by The Miss Rockaway Armada on the Schuylkill River, which were seen and navigated by crowds of all ages.
In addition to our grantmaking, the Center has also taken significant strides in its work as a cultural thought leader, as we consider questions related to artistic practice through publications and professional development activities for visionaries in Philadelphia and beyond. This past year alone, Center constituents took eye-opening trips to Prague and Cuba, the impact of which will manifest in immediate and long-term ways, and which will surely translate into exceptional cultural experiences for Philadelphia-area audiences. A group of Pew Fellows from the past three years are also off to California, Wyoming, and Alberta, Canada next year, thanks to a new partnership between the Center, the Alliance of Artists Communities, and several artist residency programs throughout North America. Here at the Center, we’ve found ways to open our own doors to artists and their creativity. Our cross-disciplinary Shelf Life project has activated our Exhibitions library, as outside curators—a designer, a historian, a tap dancer, and others—find fresh ways to interpret its collection. Stay tuned for the White Box Residencies, a series of creative investigations of the Center’s space, conceived by our current visiting artist, three-time Obie Award winner Ain Gordon. In addition, our latest Center publication, Letting Go?, examines path-breaking trends in public history practice, and questions future possibilities for museums and historical institutions.
It only gets better from here, and you don’t want to miss out in 2012. We invite you to like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our newsletter for up-to-date news on all of our upcoming events and activities.
Paula Marincola, Executive Director
Top: Zoe Strauss (Pew Fellow, 2005), I-95, detail, 2000-2009, color photograph, 11” x 7.3” each. Image courtesy of the artist and Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York.
