The LUNArt Fund

USING ART AS A BARRIER BREAKER AND A CULTURE BRIDGE

The Luna Art Fund ("LunArt") is a non-profit venture established in New York and Tel Aviv in 2008, dedicated to fostering cross-cultural understanding through the medium of visual arts among the increasingly diverse Arab-Palestinian and Jewish communities in Israel.

LunArt strongly believes that collaborative art projects and joint art education programs can provide a highly effective tool for a heightened awareness and deeper understanding of the issues facing the Arab Israeli minorities. Furthermore, it is our credo that the Third Sector programs for a shared society and social justice in Israel should include artists and art based programs as agents for social change and use communication via the medium of art as an educational tool for tolerance and cross-cultural discourse.

LunArt will initiate, promote and/or support art based cross-cultural projects in partnership with other organizations working in the field of Arab-Jewish coexistence and social justice. In addition to its own seed money, LunArt will seek funding for its programs by applying for grants from private foundations and organizing an annual exhibition and sale of art works donated by prominent and emerging Arab and Jewish Israeli artists.

In its first three years of operation LunArt initiated and co-funded a pilot project that provides a tuition-free pre-academic prep course for gifted Arab Israeli high school graduates aspiring for admission to academic programs in Art, Film, Architecture and Fashion Design but lacking the necessary educational, financial and social support required for entry. This project, held at Minshar for Art School in Tel Aviv, will enter its fourth year of operation in November 2011 and already boasts over 40 graduates, 28 of which were admitted to academic art and design programs in Israel. LunArt considers those students who completed the program without academic admission as potential "art ambassadors" in their communities. LunArt was also instrumental in bringing an Arab Jewish Photography exhibition (titled "Jaffa Mosaic") to the United States by partnering with the Inter Agency Task Force on Arab Israeli Issues of which LunArt is an active member.

LunArt is currently involved in its newest project - sponsoring and co-funding an interactive online resource for information on Palestinian-Israeli Art in collaboration with the Um-El Fahem Art Gallery.