Social Practice City University of New York (SPCUNY), an artist-led initiative supporting social justice-minded art across the CUNY system, will cease operations in February 2027. Founded in 2021 by artists Chloë Bass and Gregory Sholette with support from the Mellon Foundation, the program distributed over $535,000 in fellowships to 129 faculty and student fellows. The closure is prompted by the departure of both co-directors from their academic positions at Queens College, leaving the independent project without a clear institutional pathway for leadership transition.
The dissolution of SPCUNY marks the end of a significant experiment in reimagining public higher education as a site for critical, community-engaged art. By operating as an artist-run project within a massive university system, it bypassed traditional bureaucratic hurdles to fund work addressing climate change, racial inequality, and immigration. Its departure highlights the precarious nature of social practice programs that rely on specific faculty leadership and external foundation funding rather than formal institutional integration.