Instagram and Brooklyn Museum Debut 2022 #BlackVisionaries Program With $650,000 in Grants

To empower, center and invest in aspiring Black voices within art and design, we are debuting the 2022 #BlackVisionaries program together with the Brooklyn Museum. As part of this debut, we are awarding $650,000 in grants to Black artists, Black designers and Black small businesses.

For the last three years, we’ve collaborated with the Brooklyn Museum and Antwaun Sargent (writer, curator & #BlackVisionaries Creative Chair) to uplift and support historically excluded creative voices. And today we work together to uplift, center and invest in Black voices and organizations working in art and design.

Last year, the #BlackVisionaries program awarded five Black designers, including a Black-led small design business, $205,000 in grants. This year, we will award 10 #BlackVisionaries grants in partnership with the Brooklyn Museum. This includes five $100,000 Visionary Small Business Grants for Black-led organizations in the US focused on design.

With the support of Meta Open Arts, we’re also awarding five $30,000 Emerging Visionary Grants for individuals focused on art and design based in the U.S.

Applications for this year’s #BlackVisionaries program open on June 28 and close on July 29, and you can apply here.

Instagram and the Brooklyn Museum will also award mentorship to each grant recipient together with Mobile Makers, a nonprofit organization that offers youth design and skill-building workshops in Chicago and Boston communities.

Grant recipients will be selected by a committee of artists and designers led by Antwaun Sargent, including Elle Decor Editor-in-Chief Asad Syrkett, Academy Award-winning costume designer Ruth Carter and Head of Design at Instagram Ian Spalter.

“Most folks who don’t have traditional pathways into spaces like the arts and design just need opportunity,” says Sargent. “A grant like this could mean a world of opportunity.”

Apply to the 2022 #BlackVisionaries program today.