Grantmakers in the Arts is delighted to welcome you to Memphis–one of the South's Mississippi River cities, alive with cultural brilliance. Memphis is a majority-Black city whose creativity has shaped the nation’s music, movements, and imagination. Here, we don’t just gather; we learn. Memphis is not simply our host – it is our living textbook.

At a time when arts ecosystems across the country are navigating politicization, instability, and inequitable investment patterns, we gather in a place that has long confronted these conditions with coordination, ingenuity, and collective care. Memphis sits within the Deep South freedom corridor – connected historically and culturally to Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana – where music, civil rights organizing, and cultural production have always been intertwined.

This conference invites us to examine how national funding logics show up locally, how cultural infrastructure is built and sustained under uneven conditions, and how value moves through sound, migration, ownership, and narrative. Through artist-led dialogue, site visits, and interactive sessions, we will learn from what is working, interrogate biased systems, and clarify what shared responsibility requires.

The Mississippi River has carried culture outward from this city for generations. The question before us now is: What flows back – and how do we move differently, together?

Join GIA members, colleagues, and partners October 18-21, 2026, in Memphis, where music travels, movements converge, and collective power takes root – realigning the future of cultural funding