Lyn Blumenthal Memorial Fund supports artists and collaborative projects working in the Media Arts. The LBMF reflects Lyn Blumenthal's life and work as an artist.

Before her untimely death in 1988, Lyn Blumenthal was recognized as a leading and innovative experimental feminist media artist and teacher. Her multi-disciplinary body of work included videos, sculpture, drawings and critical essays. Along with Kate Horsfield, she founded the Video Data Bank at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The VDB received international recognition for its innovative interviews of artists. The VDB's video-art distribution network soon became a standard in the field and has been emulated by many other institutions.

The LBMF exists to carry on Lyn's spirit and vision in the field of Media Arts. The Fund reflects her legacy of leadership and innovation in encouraging technical and intellectual risk taking, access for marginal voices, radical politics, analysis of cultural issues and the integration of theory and practice.

Between 1990 and 2000, the LBMF awarded grants for both video production and critical essays through an open submission process. (A complete list of these projects can be found elsewhere in this website). In 1999, after one decade of using the open submission process, the Board of the Lyn Blumenthal Memorial Fund held a retreat to evaluate the funding process and its impact on the field. The outcomes of the retreat led to a revision of the funding process. The Board determined that it would be more cost effective to invite a select number of nominators to recommend artists for funding rather than continue the open submission process. The 'Challenge to the Field Award' is the result of this new funding process

In 2001, the Lyn Blumenthal Memorial Fund announced the 'Challenge to the Field Award'. It is a bi-annual award given to a U.S. based artist, organization, or critic to realize an innovative strategy or project within the field. A number of well-established professionals in the field are invited by the Board to recommend names of artists whose work has challenged and expanded the media arts. The Board of the Lyn Blumenthal Memorial Fund reviews the applications and chooses an individual or group who has proposed a project that continues in the spirit of Lyn Blumenthal's legacy.