San José Museum of Art is pleased to announce it has been approved by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for a Grants for Arts Projects award of $50,000. This grant will support the exhibition and catalog for The Imaginative Landscape: Pao Houa Her. The NEA will award 1,127 Grants for Arts Projects awards nationwide totaling more than $31.8 million as part of the recent announcement of fiscal year 2025 grants.  

“The NEA is proud to continue our nearly 60 years of supporting the efforts of organizations and artists that help to shape our country’s vibrant arts sector and communities of all types across our nation,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “It is inspiring to see the wide range of creative projects taking place, including SJMA’s presentation of The Imaginative Landscape: Pao Houa Her.” 

“We are deeply honored to receive this grant from the NEA to support The Imaginative Landscape, the first comprehensive survey of Pao Houa Her’s work,” said S. Sayre Batton, Oshman Executive Director at SJMA. “This funding highlights SJMA’s commitment to presenting socially relevant contemporary art that resonates with our diverse communities.”

Pao Houa Her is a groundbreaking artist whose work explores the legacies and evolving traditions of landscape and portrait photography. Her’s art examines the interplay of desire, homeland, and artifice within her Hmong American community. Using a rigorously formal approach to photography, Her captures the intricate layers of meaning embedded in dreams of homeland and the constructed realities tied to them. 

The Imaginative Landscape is co-organized by SJMA in California and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Wisconsin. The exhibition will be presented at both venues this spring, emphasizing the diverse contexts in which Hmong communities in the U.S. have adapted and reimagined homelands. California boasts the largest Hmong population by state, while the Twin Cities, near Sheboygan, Wisconsin, host the highest concentration of Hmong Americans.  

For more information on other projects included in the NEA’s grant announcement, visit arts.gov/news.

SAN JOSE MUSEUM OF ART 

The San José Museum of Art (SJMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum dedicated to inclusivity, new thinking, and visionary ideas. Founded in 1969 by artists and community leaders, its dynamic exhibitions, collection, and programs resonate with defining characteristics of San José and the Silicon Valley—from its rich diversity to its hallmark innovative ethos. The Museum offers lifelong learning for school children and their educators, multigenerational families, creative adults, university students and faculty, and community groups. SJMA is committed to being a borderless museum, essential to creative life throughout the diverse communities of San José and beyond.  

SJMA is located on Plaza de Cesar Chavez at 110 South Market Street in downtown San José, California. The Museum is open Thursday 4–9pm; Friday 11am–9pm; Saturday–Sunday 11am–6pm. Admission is $20 for adults, $15 for seniors, and free to members, college students, youth and children ages 17 and under, and school teachers (with valid ID). Admission is free from 6–9pm on the first Friday of every month. For up-to-date information, call 408.271.6840 or visit SanJoseMuseumofArt.org.