Eleanor Savage

Eleanor Savage is the Senior Program Officer at the Jerome Foundation, an independent foundation that supports emerging artists in the creation and development of new work.  

She previously was the Associate Director of Event and Media Production at the Walker Art Center for sixteen years. Savage is on the Social Change Fund Grants Committee for the Headwaters Foundation for Social Justice, a member of Minnesota Council on Foundations’ Diversity, Inclusivity, and Equity Committee; and a member of Grantmakers in the Arts Racial Equity Thought Leader Forum. She has served on many panels, most recently the Doris Duke Foundation’s Performing Artist Award panel, Surdna Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts ArtPlace, and the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project Presentation Grant. Savage maintains an ongoing connection with Alternate Roots and has presented several workshops at the annual conference. 

Her work in non-profit arts is consistently framed by advocacy for social justice and a belief in the power of art to bridge understanding across cultural differences. Savage recently participated in the Shannon Leadership Institute at Wilder Institute. Savage is also a media and installation artist, and activist. She most recently collaborated with Lisa D’amour and Katie Pearl on an interactive web design for their Sky Over Milton project and created book trailers for authors Barrie Jean Borich and Judith Katz. Savage has instigated many community-focused/artist-centered events in the Twin Cities:  Naked Stages, a year-long mentorship program for emerging performance artists; Forbidden Fruit Radio, a weekly queer artist/activist interview-format radio show at KFAI community radio station; Vulva Riot, a monthly performance cabaret for queer women artists and activists; Dyke Night, an annual performance event produced at the Walker Art Center; and curator of many exhibitions bringing together communities through arts. 

She is a civic-minded media artist and has produced video work with many Minneapolis and New York performers and choreographers, including Cheryl Dunye, Christian Marclay, Bill T. Jones, Morgan Thorson, Hijack, Shawn McConneloug, Pauline Oliveros, Holly Hughes, and Split Britches. Savage has also taught Women in the Arts and Queer Visual Culture classes at the University of Minnesota. Savage has a life-long commitment toward promoting human rights as a guiding force and actively works as a white, queer, butch against racism and all the other intersecting oppressions.  She has 20 years of experience organizing multi-disciplinary, multi-generational, multi-community art events around social and racial justice values.