SHARING SACRED SPACES WINS 
NATIONAL ENDOWMENT OF THE ARTS - “OUR TOWN” GRANT
 

On May 15, 2024, Sharing Sacred Spaces was awarded a 2024 Our Town grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The $50,000 grant will go toward Sharing Sacred Spaces' public art initiative to heal divides and create unity across the city of Dallas, Texas.

 

Entitled Who Are Our Neighbors?, the art initiative will invite eight local artists to create works that will uplift and highlight an exemplary community or community member(s) who have crossed lines of difference and served to better the greater Dallas community. The public art display will invite Dallas residents into creative visions of a healthier, more connected future based on kindness, caring, commitment to one another, and common humanity.

 

The greater Dallas community is diverse, but like many large cities, is geographically divided. The north-south divide artificially imposed by Interstate 30 reflects the legacy of redlining and continued sharp racial, social, and economic differences.

 

Based on community-building success in five previous cities, Sharing Sacred Spaces was invited to Dallas to put their bridging and unifying skills to work within the city. Working through religious congregations, Sharing Sacred Spaces will run its hallmark Interreligious Communities Project (ICP) focused on north-south relationships, communal and individual story-sharing, and hospitality and welcome across divides. 

 

Who Are Our Neighbors? is being done in cooperation with the wide array of Dallas partners already joined with Sharing Sacred Spaces, and as a connected program.

 

In June 2025, the final artworks will be introduced at a public ceremony at Thanks-Giving Square in downtown Dallas in conjunction with the ICP graduation celebration. Following this, we will distribute the artworks to distinct locations across north and south Dallas, and offer a short run of trolley tours with accompanying lectures, activities, and dialogues. The artworks will then be installed in their permanent homes across Dallas as beacons of hope to combat loneliness and division, and as inspiration and reasons for ongoing tours and gatherings.