Seize the Moment, a collaboration with the Humanities Lab, the Leonardo-ASU Initiative, and the Global Futures Lab, is excited to announce our first round of seed grant recipients to demonstrate the power of the arts and humanities to understand and address intersecting crises in the global community. 

For the first cycle, we received 33 pitches for a total funding request of almost $275,000. With a limited funding pool of $20,000, Seize the Moment is honored to support the following three applied research projects:

• Anthropocene is a multi-year transdisciplinary project combining innovative multimedia projection design, an original musical score, dance, and performance into a single endeavor bringing together ASU’s School of Music, Dance and Theatre, Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, School of Sustainability, and Global Futures Laboratory to premiere at ASU in fall 2023. Seed Grant Awardees: Rachel Bowditch, Steven Beschloss and Karen Jean Martinson.


• ---

  Women’s Care - Labor Testimonios engages Black and Latina women in the Phoenix metro area in composing testimonios, or first-person narratives, to document their experiences of negotiating care labor and paid employment during the pandemic. Participant testimonios will appear in a public digital archive hosted by ASU. The archive will serve as a site of research for scholars, community practitioners, and policy makers to help inform future policy decisions and resource provisions. Seed Grant Awardees: Michelle Stuckey and Stephanie Lechuga-Peña.


• ---

  The Turn It Around initiative focuses on the role of education in turning around the environmental catastrophe. At the center of the initiative is a basic learning tool—a deck of flashcards— designed by youth for decision-makers at all levels to challenge them to think, see, and act in new ways. The “Turn It Around!” deck features cards displaying climate-crisis-inspired artwork created by youth on one side, and motives, actions, and facts for policy makers to guide their decisions about climate futures on the other. Seed Grant Awardees: Adriene Jenik, Andrew Freiband, Ann Nielsen, and Iveta Silova.

Learn more about Seize the Moment
Learn more about the Humanities Lab
Learn more about the Leonardo-ASU Initiative
Learn more about the Global Future Labs