New York City nonprofit Artists & Mothers has named the 2026 recipients of its $25,000 childcare grant for artists who identify as mothers. The four awardees—Sara Cwynar, Nickola Pottinger, Trisha Baga, and Mimi Ọnụọha—work across photography, sculpture, collage, video, and multimedia installation. The grant covers nine months of childcare for emerging and mid-career artists raising a child under three, and this is the program's third cycle.
The grant addresses a critical structural gap in the art world: the lack of affordable childcare for working artist-mothers. Recipients emphasized that such support is "truly rare" and a "game changer," allowing them to sustain their practices alongside motherhood. By directly funding childcare, Artists & Mothers challenges systemic inequities that disproportionately sideline women and nonbinary caregivers from artistic careers, making this initiative both a practical lifeline and a model for institutional change.