The Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy at Vanderbilt has awarded nearly $80,000 over the past academic year to undergraduates, graduate students, faculty and staff pursuing community-facing arts-based projects. This is triple the impact of previous iterations of this program, spurred by new application procedures, outreach and project development methods. Creative Inquiry Grants, named for the Curb Center’s goal of elevating art as a mode of inquiry, award up to $2,500 per applicant and the use of Curb Center space and resources to the stewards of a variety of important projects.
Creative Inquiry Grant projects have involved musical performances, original films, festivals, exhibitions, publications and artmaking workshops, with a total of 37 unique projects that have impacted nearly 6,000 members of the Vanderbilt and greater Nashville communities. One such project, headed by senior lecturer in communication studies Max Dosser, involved the creation of Tipping Point: Ecofiction for Tomorrow’s World.
This anthology includes the work of 12 authors associated with Vanderbilt and the local community and contains stories that imagine a myriad of futures shaped by climate change. “The biggest thanks goes to the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy at Vanderbilt,” Dosser says in the afterword of the publication. “[…] If not for the Curb Center’s generous Creative Inquiry Grants, this anthology would never have happened.”
Last summer, the Curb Center supported the Vanderbilt Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries to collaborate with the Nashville Public Library on the inaugural Nashville Comic Arts Festival. More than 40 artists, presses and publishers exhibited their work in the Central Library. “We hope to highlight these talented creators and show off their wide range of voices, diverse backgrounds and unique storytelling—which ranges from fantasy, to funny or whimsical, to more serious, slice-of-life comics,” said grant recipient Ryan King in an article for Library News Online.
As the festival gears up for a second iteration, King says more than 100 local comic book creators have applied to exhibit at NCAF 2025. “That’s double the number of our inaugural applicants,” King says. “I see this as a true testament as to why this festival exists. If there is such a large demand amongst creators, then surely comics readers in Nashville are just as hungry. This is the whole reason we created NCAF—to spotlight the comics medium and bring comics fans, both new and old, together to build a more visible comics community in the U.S. South.”
The second Nashville Comic Arts Festival will be Oct. 4 in Vanderbilt Central Library. More information can be found on their website or on Instagram at @nashvillecomicartsfestival.
Some projects that were started with previous Curb Center funding have continued, such as ayu: A Narrative Medical Journal. “This uncertainty [of the current political moment] is scary. But this uncertainty isn’t new. Our unhoused neighbors contend with it on a daily basis, whether looking for their next meal, shower or shelter,” said grant recipient Brina Ratangee in the letter from the editor in volume I, issue III, of the journal. “Our clinicians, community workers and other advocates contend with it, too: When an encampment is swept, how do we find the residents we’d been serving, those with whom we’d built relationships? How do we use our limited resources to meet everyone’s unique needs?”
ayu (pronounced “i-you”) publishes narrative writing, poetry and comics created by those who have experienced homelessness or by professionals working in street medicine. Pieces published in ayu have explored barriers to receiving Medicaid; the label of “frequent flyer” in MICUs; and the experience of being cycled through shelters, hospitals and unstable rental situations. “So, let’s show up,” writes contributor Daniel Lee in his piece, “When Walls Fall: Street Medicine and the Bonds of Shared Humanity.” “Let’s listen. Let’s connect. Not because it’s easy, but because it matters.”
Volume IV of ayu will be themed around “defining progress.” Information about submission windows can be found on their Instagram at @ayustreetmed or on their website, ayunarrativemed.wixsite.com.
These projects are a small selection of the multitudes of arts-based projects serving the Vanderbilt and Nashville communities that have been supported by the Curb Center’s Creative Inquiry Grants. The program is currently accepting applications from Vanderbilt undergraduates, graduate students, faculty and staff, with the first deadline on Aug. 1. Applications are accepted monthly until February 2026. More details about the program, along with instructions for applying, can be found online.
