Washington Project for the Arts

WPA supports artist-driven projects, advocacy, and dialogue so that artists can live, work and flourish.  WPA invites artists to conceive of programs that showcase the work or ideas of other artists (or creative thinkers, scholars, activists, etc.) and then supports them with money, introductions/connections, idea-development, planning & production, communications, marketing and promotion. In our view, artist-driven programming combines the best of two existing models—“artist-run” and “artist-centered”. It is closer in intent to the former than the latter because artists are curating everything—exhibitions, performances, talks, workshops, screenings, platforms, etc. Yet it provides a degree of professional support and organizational stability that an “artist-run” organization might not.