American-Scandinavian Foundation Announces 2024–25 Grantees of Its Folk Arts & Cultural Traditions Program

The American-Scandinavian Foundation (ASF) established its Scandinavian Folk Arts and Cultural Traditions program in 2017. This program helps to nurture the rich Scandinavian folk art traditions in the Upper Midwest (North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan). ASF is committed to celebrating and preserving Nordic (Denmark, Greenland, Faroe Islands, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sápmi, Sweden) cultures throughout the United States. By supporting folk arts and traditional cultures in the Upper Midwest in particular, ASF recognizes and celebrates the mastery of individual artists or practitioners, facilitates the cultivation of skills and understanding among younger generations, brings greater visibility to living Scandinavian arts and traditions, and highlights the centrality of cultural expression to all of our lives.

Two kinds of awards are available – fellowships for artists/practitioners of traditional skills and grants for public programs and community projects. All of the ASF grants encourage both the practice of folk arts and cultures and the presentation of these arts to public audiences.

The 2024–25 cohort is a group of worthy individuals and organizations whose dedication to traditional Scandinavian arts and skills is an inspiration to us all. ASF looks forward to seeing their projects unfold while the Foundation itself marvels over innovative ways that its grantees from previous years have carried out projects and shared folk-art traditions with their local communities.