The R&D Fellowship
The R&D (Research and Develop) Fellowship, supported by The Rockefeller Foundation’s Artist Impact Initiative, recognizes New York City-based artists who have demonstrated excellence in socially engaged art. The R&D Fellowship highlights artists who push the boundaries of public art, challenging social norms and exploring political action through innovative methods. Creative Time partners with artists to facilitate interdisciplinary research and collaborations, nurturing projects that address critical social issues and community needs.
For the second iteration of the 2025 R&D Fellowship, the focus is on addressing the climate crisis, a multifaceted and intersectional issue that spans from climate mitigation and adaptation technologies to migration, displacement, and environmental justice. The 2025 R&D Fellows—Alicia Grullón, Ania Freer, Canal Street Research Association, mayfield brooks, and Mary Mattingly—will explore community-centered approaches to climate solutions. These artists will reflect on how their work intersects with urgent climate challenges, emphasizing collective action and creative problem-solving within a changing world.
This year, the R&D Fellowship focuses on the climate crisis, understood as multi-faceted, intersectional crises connected to climate mitigation and adaptation technologies, migration, displacement and gentrification, food systems, fossil fuels, anti-war movements, equitable access to clean water and public health resources, class and racial politics of pollution, and indigenous land rights, among other areas of inquiry. The Fellows are prompted to reflect on the question: how can artists engage community-centered approaches to climate solutions?
The R&D Fellows are nominated by a group of respected curators, public programmers, and educators, all of whom recognize their commitment to pushing artistic boundaries and engaging with critical societal topics. This year’s R&D Fellowship supports these artists with a financial award of $50,000, production support, and access to Creative Time’s programming space, CTHQ.
In addition to the financial support, the R&D Fellows will benefit from guidance and collaboration with experts beyond the art world, including access to The Rockefeller Foundation’s international network of specialists. They will also receive ongoing support from Creative Time’s curatorial and production teams, led by Curator Diya Vij and Artist Research Manager Gervais Marsh. Creative Time’s CTHQ space will provide a versatile environment for the R&D Fellows to engage in quiet work, collaborative meetings, and host programming like roundtables, reading groups, and film screenings, fostering cross-disciplinary dialogue.
Artist Impact Initiative
Launched through The Rockefeller Foundation’s Artist Impact Initiative, in tandem with Pioneer Works’ new Working Artist Fellowship, together the Fellowships represent exciting new channels of support to New York City-based artists, and the advancement of ambitious projects that respond to and address the needs of the city’s people and communities, driving collective action and positive social change.
With this initiative, it is the shared ambition of The Rockefeller Foundation, Creative Time, and Pioneer Works to position artists as leaders in processes of social change, recognizing art-based initiatives as an innovative and highly effective means of elevating dialogue and fostering collective action to address the most pressing issues of the 21st century.
Image: Project EATS convening organized with R&D Fellow Linda Goode Bryant