2025 State Arts Awards Program

2025 State Arts Awards Program is sponsored by Nebraska Arts Council. Recognizes outstanding achievements in the arts within Nebraska.

2025 Nebraska State Arts Awards - Nebraska Arts Council 2025 Nebraska State Arts Awards The biennial awards program is Nebraska’s premier event in recognizing individuals and organizations that shape our state’s artistic landscape. The impact of the arts, and these honorees, is felt in the classroom, the economy, and the community.

The awards ceremony will be held in the Lancaster Room at the Cornhusker Hotel (333 South 13th Street, Lincoln, NE) on October 10th, 2025. Please arrive by 12:30 pm for check in . The awards presentation will begin at 1:00 pm, followed by a reception at 3 pm .

Both the ceremony and reception are free and open to the public. The dress code is business casual, with snacks and beverages provided during the reception. If you or a loved one is unable to attend the event, we will be livestreaming the event via Zoom.

In addition, artist Hannah Demma will be available as the artist in residence at the Cornhusker. Her studio is located in the first floor lobby and will be open from 9 am to 4 pm. The artwork for this year’s award was created by Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez.

RSVPs are now closed, but the event is still open to the public. An individual, business, or community organization leading the cause of outreach and inclusion in the arts. Ruth Davidson Hahn, Lincoln Excellence in Arts Education An educator, arts education program, or community organization that has made a long-term, outstanding contribution to arts education in Nebraska.

An individual artist, arts administrator or patron who has made a significant impact on the arts in Nebraska. An individual, group or organization that exemplifies excellence within a cultural tradition. Whiteclay Makerspace , Whiteclay Bluebird Cultural Initiative , Omaha Organizational Achievement An arts organization that demonstrates achievements at a consistently high level of excellence in programming and outreach.

International Quilt Museum , Lincoln Bone Creek Museum of Agrarian Art , David City An individual artist practicing in any discipline whose work or career has made a significant contribution to their art form and to the state of Nebraska. Daniel Martinez , Lincoln Thomas C.

Woods III Partner in the Arts Awarded to an individual, business, or community organization that has shown outstanding commitment by its continued support of the arts through time, energy, expertise and/or financial support. Mid-America Arts Alliance , Kansas City, MO The Leonard Thiessen Award Awarded by the board of the Nebraska Arts Council for extraordinary contributions to the arts for the state of Nebraska.

Click here for the digital program Public parking garages are available on L St. (Cornhusker Square Garage, Carriage Park Garage) and M St. (1318 M Street Garage).

There is also some street parking on L St between 12th and 13th St. on the south side of the street. Commissioned Award Artist Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez is a Colombo-American artist with an interdisciplinary practice.

Her work investigates the complex intersections of migration, identity, gender, cultural memory, and the effects of colonization. She is creating an intersectional feminist visual novel that is a multifaceted project comprised of paintings, sculptures, objects, and mixed media that together—and in different voices—weave a synchronicity of narratives about hybridity and cultural ownership.

She is in the Elisabeth Sackler Feminist Art Base at the Brooklyn Museum and represented Colombia at the 20 Congreso Internacional: La Experiencia Intelectual de las Mujeres en el Siglo XXI in 2012 in Mexico City.

Exhibition highlights include: the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Salt Lake City, UT; the Nerman Museum of Art, Overland Park, KS; the Miami Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL; Blue Star Contemporary, San Antonio, TX; the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha, NE; La Bienal de Cuenca, Ecuador; the Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, NE; the Joslyn Museum of Art, Omaha, NE; the Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR; El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY; the Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York, NY; and the Harvard Museums of Science and Culture at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

She has been awarded U.S. Latinx Fellowship, the Catherine Doctorow Prize for Contemporary Painting, a Nebraska Arts Council Fellowship, a Smithsonian Artist Fellowship, a Puffin grant, a Pollock Krasner grant, and a NALAC grant.

She has held residencies at Banco de la República, Bogotá, Colombia; Art OMI, Ghent, NY; Fountainhead, Miami, FL; the Tamarind Institute, Albuquerque, NM; Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY; Gasworks, London, England; the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE; and the Bronx Museum for the Arts, New York, NY. Nancy co-runs FIENDISH PLOTS an exhibition space in Lincoln, NE with her husband Charley Friedman.