McKnight Culture Bearers Fellowship Grant

The McKnight Culture Bearers Fellowship, a collaboration between the McKnight Foundation and Indigenous Roots Cultural Arts Center, aims to support three culture bearers dedicated to preserving sacred and healing lifeways. Recipients will receive a $25,000 unrestricted award, professional development, and access to resources. This fellowship recognizes the vital role of culture bearers in sustaining intergenerational cultural practices and knowledge, ensuring the transmission of ancestral wisdom while fostering community connections.

The McKnight Foundation and the Indigenous Roots Cultural Arts Center of St. Paul have partnered to launch the first-ever McKnight Artist Fellowship for culture bearers. The McKnight Culture Bearers Fellowship will support three culture bearers who practice sacred and healing lifeways and share cultural art practices across generations. Fellows will receive a $25,000 unrestricted award and public recognition in support of their cultural practice.
Additionally, fellows receive:

• Professional development support, including a stipend to honor mentors/teachers
• Participate in a network of culture bearers in Minnesota
• Access to Indigenous Roots facilities and resources
• Honored and recognized at gathering ceremony
• What is a culture bearer?

Culture Bearers practice intergenerational lifeways and living, evolving cultural art practices that educate, exchange, and share in order to preserve ancestral knowledge. In this work, Culture Bearers hold a direct throughline from ancestors and teachers and center sharing their practice with youth. The role of culture bearer is particularly important within ancestral cultures undergoing transition or experiencing threat from outside and dominizing culture(s).
Culture Bearers accept a responsibility to share ancestral and cultural knowledge. The practice of being a Culture Bearer is distinct from other individual art practices because the practice is a full life tradition (not separate) and includes intergenerational transmission of learning.
What Are Some Culture Bearer Disciplines?
Culture Bearers’ art forms and cultural traditions include healing practices that connect to earth and to others.
They can be:

• Healers
• Storytellers
• Dancers - (ancestral to hip hop)Makers - (Instruments, print, textiles, mixed media)LanguageDrummersand more.

Eligibility

Eligibility Requirements For Culture Bearers Fellowship:You have or maintain Minnesota residency for one year prior to submission and for the duration of the fellowship year.
You have practiced and passed down knowledge for the past 20 years and can demonstrate a sustained body of work that shows commitment to tradition, to sharing knowledge, and artistic excellence.
You have applied to only one McKnight-supported Artist Fellowship within the year.
You have not been a recipient of a McKnight Artist Fellowship in the last five years. If it has been over five years you will be asked to demonstrate growth since your McKnight supported Artist Fellowship.
You are not staff, board, or immediate family of the McKnight Foundation or Indigenous Roots.
Please let us know if you are enrolled in a full-time academic program.