Mellon Foundation Awards $1.5 Million to Newark’s Project for Empty Space

Project For Empty Space (PES), the New Jersey-based arts organization that supports socially-aware artists, has tripled their operating budget thanks to a $1.5 million grant from the Mellon Foundation’s Grant in Arts and Culture. 

With this windfall, which will flow into the PES coffers through 2024, the organization will be able to expand its hub in Newark, double the number of artists who can participate in its residency program, and hire much needed staff.

“There are so many ways that this funding allows us to realize many of our long-standing goals,” the PES co-directors Jasmine Wahi and Rebecca Pauline Jampol told ARTnews via email.

PES is rooted in art tied to social discourse and activism and the directors say that besides the obvious benefits of expansion, the Mellon Grant money will help them encourage artists in PES programs “to really flex their imaginations during their times with us.”

Like many small non-profits, PES runs with a relatively small crew. The Grant money will also allow Wahi and Jampol to bolster their staff starting with the addition of a Residency Manager and a Director of Development, who will help with PES’s expansion plans and influx of artists.

The Newark expansion will include new studios for the increased number of artists in residency and a new gallery with space for outdoor public art projects that is surrounded by a city park. In Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where PES first began in 2010, the organization will open a hybridized residency program and exhibition space. Another downtown Manhattan space will open in the fall.