Overview

The Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program (CCHAP) serves as the state’s official folk and traditional arts initiative.  CCHAP encourages and promotes traditional artists and their communities through an active process of documentation, technical assistance, and public presentation to bring their work and the history of their communities to new audiences. The fieldwork-based program is unique in Connecticut, employing original research in partnership with artists and communities to strengthen community-based resources. CCHAP documents tradition bearers across the state whose work would otherwise remain unknown or under-represented, collecting this material into a valuable archive of Connecticut traditions that is open to researchers and the public by appointment at the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History.

Folk & Traditional Arts Community Impact Coordinator

The Connecticut Office of the Arts (COA), the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History (CMCH), and the Cultural Coalition (CC) are seeking a Folk & Traditional Arts Community Impact Coordinator to join CMCH and to serve as an engagement leader with a focus on connecting to folk and traditional artists and communities across eastern Connecticut (the towns served by CC). Learn more about the opportunity and the application process. 

History

Connecticut's Folk & Traditional Arts program began in 1991, when the Institute for Community Research (ICR) established the state folk arts program with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. After being supported by ICR for 24 years, the Cultural Heritage Arts Program moved to the Connecticut Historical Society (CHS) in 2015, and in 2023 CHS rebranded as the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History.  Funding partners have included National Foundation for the Arts, the Connecticut Office of the Arts, the Greater Hartford Arts Council, Connecticut Humanities, the City of Hartford, the Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Community Folklife Program, the Edward C. and Ann T. Roberts Foundation, the Ensworth Charitable Foundation, the Knox Foundation, the Aurora Foundation for Women and Girls, and several other foundations and donors.