Mapping Detroit Microgrants

Hosted by the Post Center Art Center and PLAYGROUND DETROIT-

For thousands of years, Detroit has been core to Michigan’s cultural industry—a $15.4 billion and 100,000 job industry across the state (larger than transportation ($13 billion) or utilities ($10 billion)). Yet since the COVID-19 pandemic (2020), access to microgrants (under $10,000), space, and mentorship for early professional artists in Detroit plummeted. Several Detroit-centered foundations, for example, redirected resources to other industries with no indication that their critical investment to the cultural industry will return.

Without these resources, cultural workers across art, music, dance, dance, film, entertainment, and photography will leave for other cities, threatening the future of our city’s cultural ecosystem.

This community conversation and workshop will collectively map the microgrant opportunities Detroit has offered to cultural workers before and after 2020.

Attendees will walk away with an actionable network for new and/or forgotten funding resources, and takeaways will be published online to re-invigorate funders to offer microgrants in the city.

About the hosts:The Post Center Art Center (PCAC) identifies, connects, and resources the art spaces in the United States outside of New York City and Los Angeles. Founded in 2022 by Detroit-based artist Daniel Sharp, PCAC’s first initiative is to build an accessible, searchable map of 1,000 art spaces across the Midwest, South, West, Noncontiguous, Native Nations, and U.S. Territories.

PLAYGROUND DETROIT is a Contemporary Art Gallery and Creative Talent Agency in Detroit, Michigan, located at 2845 Gratiot Avenue.

Image copyright: Common Field, What Now? Towards Artist Led Movements, 2022.