The Ringling to Receive Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts

May 14, 2021 – Sarasota

The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art has been approved for a $30,000 Grants for Arts Projects award to support Metadata: Rethinking Photography from the 21st Century. This project is an exhibition that explores new paradigms for understanding the ecology of the photographic image. The Ringling’s project is among the more than 1,100 projects across America totaling nearly $27 million that were selected during this second round of Grants for Arts Projects fiscal year 2021 funding. 

“As the country and the arts sector begin to imagine returning to a post-pandemic world, the National Endowment for the Arts is proud to announce funding that will help arts organizations such as The Ringling reengage fully with partners and audiences,” said NEA Acting chairperson Ann Eilers. “Although the arts have sustained many during the pandemic, the chance to gather with one another and share arts experiences is its own necessity and pleasure.”

“The generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts allows The Ringling to engage in projects that allow us to stretch and bend in new and exciting ways,” said Steven High, The Ringling’s Executive Director. “We look forward to sharing this intriguing exhibition with diverse audiences as visitors return to the museum and once again experience the joy of art in person.”

The term “metadata” is used to describe the information that travels with a digital image file but is unseen within the image itself. This data includes the details about the digital photograph’s creation, its ownership, and how it is situated within structures of order. In our networked digital environment, metadata is accessed by both human users and artificial intelligences. Software algorithms orchestrate what images we see and exchange while collecting the valuable data generated by our interactions. In our moment, dominated by image-based social media and surveillance, we are becoming increasingly aware that understanding the information that circulates unseen around photographic images is just as important as seeing what they represent. 

The exhibition features work from the past decade by an international selection of artists and visual activists that are working to make palpable the unseen information, or metadata that undergirds the image regime. This includes not just the tags or descriptors attached to image files, but the power relationships, biases, and economic interests that are not always visible in the image itself. The exhibition emphasizes an expanded concept of photographic practice that intersects with research-based projects, installation, and social engagement.  

The exhibition, curated by Christopher Jones, Stanton B. and Nancy W. Kaplan Curator of Photography and Media Art, will run March 6 through Aug. 28, 2022. 

For more information on the projects included in the Arts Endowment grant announcement, visit arts.gov/news.