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Media Contact
Jenea Sanchez, Communications Director
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2025 SaludArte: Request for Qualifications – Now Accepting Applications
TUCSON, AZ – The Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona, in partnership with the Pima County Health Department, is excited to announce a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for the 2025 SaludArte Project. This opportunity invites artists and artist teams to create temporary public art installations that challenge stigma surrounding substance use in Pima County. The project will culminate in an exhibition at the Tucson Museum of Art in late Fall 2025.
“SaludArte highlights the power of bridging art and community health,” says Sadie Shaw, Public Art & Community Design Administrator. “By bringing together artists, health professionals, and people with lived experience, the 2025 SaludArte program aims to reduce stigma around substance use disorders and improve health outcomes when people seek services.”
With an all-inclusive $40,000 budget, SaludArte aims to bridge public health and the arts, using creative expression to foster connection, understanding, and dialogue within the community. The selected artist(s) will work closely with individuals with lived experience, ensuring that their perspectives shape the project’s themes and artistic direction.
“One of public health’s biggest challenges in addressing the opioid epidemic is communicating the impact of stigma on people who use drugs,” said Brian Eller, Division Manager at Pima County Health Department. “Art communicates to us at a level that transcends words, and that’s the larger objective of this iteration of SaludArte—to translate the impact of substance use, trauma, stigma, beauty, and the weight of what people carry—for those willing to engage with it.”
Eligibility & How to Apply
This public art opportunity is open to all professional artists and artist teams. Artists are selected through a fair and equitable selection process by a Panel comprised of project participants, stakeholders and members of the community. The community panel will review and assess all artist submissions based on published criteria, and participate in two meetings to deliberate, interview, and select the recommended artist for this project. Applicants will be asked to submit an artist statement, resume, and work samples.
Application Deadline: Thursday, March 20, 2025, by 11:59 PM (Arizona Time)
The Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona is a 501(c)3 nonprofit and funding agency with a mission to advance the artistic expression, civic participation, and equitable economic growth of our diverse communities. Through forward-thinking, accountable leadership, the Arts Foundation works to affect systemic change that fosters an accessible, diverse, inclusive, and equitable local arts community.
As the designated local arts agency, the Arts Foundation provides arts and cultural development across Southern Arizona for individual working artists, artist collectives, ensembles, and nonprofit organizations through grant programs, professional development opportunities and public art program management for the City of Tucson.
The work of the Arts Foundation is made possible through generous support from the City of Tucson, Pima County, Arizona Commission on the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, and individual donors. Our service area includes all counties and native sovereign nations South of the Gila River, including 372 miles along the US-Mexico international border in the South and along the 590 mile stretch of the Gila River, which flows west from the New Mexico border to the Colorado River
