Project Onward is a nonprofit studio and gallery for professional artists with mental and developmental disabilities. Project Onward supports the professional development of artists with exceptional talents and challenges – ranging from autism to mental illness – and provides these artists with workspace, materials, professional guidance, exhibition opportunities and access to markets to sell their work and advance their careers. In opening the studio and gallery to the public and activating the space with free public programs, Project Onward seeks to promote art as a powerful tool for understanding and valuing the real and potential contributions of our national population with disabilities. At Project Onward, art has become a unique medium for comprehensively and constructively discussing mental illness and developmental disabilities and re-framing the discussion around these artists’ abilities.
