On April 6, 2026, Cambridge Arts and the City of Cambridge announced $67,500 in Art for Social Justice Grants for nine local projects. Now in its fifth year, the program awards $7,500 to each recipient to support cultural work that brings social justice themes to the Cambridge public. The 2026 grants are part of a larger $369,715 distribution to more than 67 artists and organizations across three Cambridge Arts funding programs.
Nine Projects, Nine Approaches
The funded projects span a wide range of art forms and communities. Abilities Dance will premiere Intersections v5 on April 17 and 18, 2026 — a performance honoring queer, BIPOC, and disabled trailblazers, created and led by an artistic team that shares those identities. The show uses audio descriptions and universal design principles so that blind and low-vision audiences can follow along.
The Cambridge Hip-Hop Collective will continue its Bridgeside Cyphers series, a monthly public freestyling event running since 2017. Open to performers of all backgrounds and skill levels, the cyphers began in Graffiti Alley and have since expanded to venues across the city.
Boston Public Quartet will present two concert programs at the Multicultural Arts Center. Music of Revolution, part of the Boston 250 event roster, features works written during the French Revolution, World War II, and the period surrounding the George Floyd protests. Music of Migration, programmed for Spring 2027, centers stories of immigration and cultural exchange, with each concert including a commissioned premiere and a conversation with a contemporary composer.
Mutual Aid, Storytelling, and Preschool Art
Bean & Barter Market, run by artist Sharon Amuguni, operates as a mutual aid market where community members can access toiletries, books, and art, and barter with local artisans. The project frames itself as a response to cuts in federal funding and as an exploration of non-monetary exchange rooted in the creative community.
Cambridge Community Television will host a series of four public readings in 2026, building on a July 2025 event that featured Frederick Douglass’s What to the Slave is the 4th of July. The readings take place in CCTV’s public-facing lobby on Massachusetts Avenue and in its studio, which holds up to 45 people.
MIPSTERZ, a Cambridge-based arts and culture nonprofit, will run MINARA — a six-month series of storytelling nights, film screenings, grief circles, and participatory installations exploring what justice looks and feels like in everyday life. The project name means “beacon of light” in Arabic.
Alewife Preschool will embed arts programming around identity and belonging into its classrooms, serving children ages 3 to 5, of whom 90% come from underrepresented backgrounds. Black History in Action will bring youth and elders together for multi-modal art-making workshops under its CircuStations project. Cambridge Carnival, a BIPOC-led institution, received a grant ahead of its 2026 edition, following a record-breaking 2025 parade that drew the highest number of groups in the event’s 31-year history.
What the Program Supports
Cambridge Arts defines social justice broadly, covering health, housing, education, environmental conditions, and civic participation. The program prioritizes projects led by or serving communities that have historically been underrepresented, including Black, Indigenous, Asian American, Pacific Islander, and disabled communities. Applications are reviewed by panels made up of artists, arts professionals, and Cambridge residents, with the annual deadline falling in mid-October.
