The National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC) announces the selected 2025 NALAC Fund for the Arts: Catalyst for Change (CFC) Fellows. The 2025 fellowship highlights five Latinx/é arts and culture leaders from across the U.S., including Puerto Rico, whose work is intended to catalyze community-based and artist-produced visions for creative solutions to social injustices.
“The Catalyst for Change Fellowship is a unique opportunity for community-based artists to deepen and expand the critical work they are already doing in their communities. We are thrilled to support this group of innovative and creative change makers,” shared NALAC CEO and President Mari Hernandez. “This program is rooted in NALAC’s commitment to social justice, aligning with our core values of advocacy, empowerment, and equality.”
The Catalyst for Change (CFC) Fellowship is a collaboration between NALAC and the Surdna Foundation and focuses on radical imagination as a key component of pursuing racial justice. The fellowship aims to uplift the work of Latinx/é culture workers who use community-informed artmaking to increase civic engagement and activism, creating systemic change through artistic interventions. Projects are guided by meaningful engagement with community members and designed to foster community relationships through the arts and culture.
The Catalyst for Change (CFC) fellowship program began in 2020 and expanded in 2023. To date, the program reflects an investment of approximately $1 million to support artists from diverse artistic disciplines whose projects aim to address systems of injustice within their own communities. Previous projects have addressed social justice issues, such as immigration, healthcare, incarceration, and education, through a variety of media, including visual art, performance art, and creative writing.
Meet the 2025 Catalyst for Change Fellows:
Eric J. Garcia
Sarita Hernández
Alan Pelaez Lopez
Mildred Beltre Martinez
Diógenes Ballester Rodríguez