Art isn’t money, real estate or objects
Check-in with artist-centered orgs
What did your organization or project do before that feels impossible now? Nothing feels impossible; the issue is being conscientious of when and how to gather in person, and not rush into anything before the risks are reduced again. It feels impossible to go back to old norms.
What felt impossible before that feels possible now? Opportunities to figure out where we need systems and protocols, and when to work case-by-case (or deciding that case-by-case IS the protocol.) Major shifts in organizational structures and budgets.
―S Surface, ARTS at King Street Station, Seattle
Impossible? Before―Gallery Onyx had robust sales and patron visitation. Now, revenue/visitation has dropped to near zero due to the pandemic.
Possible? Nothing felt or feels impossible before as we are a startup business with our dreams and future ahead of us. This situation, in essence, is descriptive of the history of my African American people. We have been faced with seemingly impossible challenges before.... “and still we rise”.
―Earnest Thomas, ONYX Fine Arts Collective, Seattle
Impossible? Build community.
Possible? Quiet reflection.
―Alejandra Salinas and Aeron Bergman, INCA, Portland
Impossible? Nothing permanent; it’s all temporary.
Possible? A hybrid model of online and in-person events for our niche film festivals, and more excitingly, rethinking our structures so that we can push our equity goals further, knowing that we have strong support from our community, staff, and board to center those communities.
―Vivan Hua, Northwest Film Forum, Seattle
Impossible? Welcoming friends and strangers into our home.
Possible? Exploring virtual exhibitions, satellite spaces, and alternative programming.
―Michael Milano and Elisabeth Smith, Seattle Freezer
Impossible? Third Room was founded on the notion of coming together around art as a third-space: a space between work and home where the oppressed can plot their liberation. Now physical distancing restrictions have made us necessarily revisit our mission. What do we need more than space and each other? What are the ways that we can be together while physically apart?
Possible? Prior to the shut-downs and protests, we would have never thought so many people would show up for a cause unless overtly political. Now conversations about systems of oppression, racism, and violence that were previously made in small circles in our space have come out into the public, mainstream field of discourse, and larger institutions are stepping up to do what has previously been in the hands of smaller, diy projects. We are hopeful that this shift in attention means that those with resources will do the work to redistribute, and move our “underground daydreams” into the realm of mobilized possibility.
―Kalaija Mallery, Third Room, Portland
Impossible? At Seattle University Galleries, the gallery spaces, physical exhibition productions, and public events are usually the primary platforms for building programs with artists, curators, and community. The galleries (and most indoor public spaces on SU campus) will be closed for the foreseeable future.
Possible? As programming continues online, it feels possible, and urgent, to challenge academic routines and art exhibition expectations, particularly around scheduling, budgeting, and production. Artists, cultural organizers, and collaborators are already doing so much added labor in this uncertain time. How can we re-direct resources that would usually go into the physical exhibitions (time, energy, and money) to build flexible and meaningful opportunities in the months ahead?
―Molly Mac, Hedreen Gallery, Seattle
Impossible? Physical exhibitions and events.
Possible? Perhaps changes re who holds power at art institutions and who is shown, but there’s a long ways to go before that seems likely.
―Michael Van Horn & Jueqian Fang, Veronica, Seattle
Impossible? In person events, live opening, pop ups etc. It no longer feels feasible to hold onto a brick and mortar location.
Possible? Creating a new business model that is on-line exclusively. Online shop/gallery/events. It’s a more cost effective model also it's undoing an outdated and cost prohibitive use of “retail” space. Especially in a city so antagonistic to small arts businesses.
―Tracy Cilona, Virago Gallery, Seattle
Impossible? Planning residencies a year or more in advance seems impossible and kind of quaint now.
Possible? We are leaving the first three months of 2021 unscheduled to try to move projects from this spring and summer if necessary. We're thinking more about ways artists can use the space when they are not in residence, trying to schedule more pop ups and short engagements in the coming year.
―Ruth Lockwood, Oxbow, Seattle
Impossible? We gathered in real space with 485+ persons from less diverse communities, but from all walks of life, on Pioneer Square First Thursdays. This social physicality is impossible with social distancing and other safe/mandated COVID-19 practices.
Possible? The dizzyingly joyous closeness of brick and mortar, interfered with the needs to consistently review operationalized mission and vision and values. There seemed to be little time to intentionally remove racist platforms masquerading as arts legacy. Now with less physical access during COVID-19 and more adaptive cognitive space, CoCA’s pro-equity arts agenda is being fully vetted for anti-racist decisions and open belonging. The Arts are a human right.
―Alison Post, CoCA, Seattle
Impossible? Right now, an opening reception.
Possible? Avenues for deeply meaningful conversation and action opened up by the global pandemic’s demonstration of our interdependence, and using that interdependence as a strength moving forward.
―Emily Zimmerman, Jacob Lawrence Gallery, Seattle
Impossible? Public exhibitions! Conversations with folks in the gallery! Close encounters with real objects, real spaces and real people! We're an artist-run space, so the lack of financial support/relief has also hit us very hard.
Possible? The pandemic forced us to re-examine our core mission―who are we and what do we stand for? At our core, we want to support artists. Back in late spring, we realized we could leverage our main asset―our physical gallery―to provide artists with a space to experiment and continue their work, despite financial burdens or other constraints exacerbated by C-19. The residencies and IG takeovers we've hosted are a new way of using our platform, and it's been awesome. As a collective, we've also taken a hard look at how we can do a better job centering the work of artists of color and holding ourselves accountable to the changes we want to see in the arts community here in Seattle and nationally.
―Specialist, Seattle
Impossible? Our organization scheduled our new books to be released around major art book fairs, namely LAABF, NYABF, and Short Run – those have been our most successful and most visible fairs, but they have all been canceled this year. Because our operating budget depends so much on our sales from these fairs and the marketing around them, we've had to consolidate our budgets and put off a lot of projects to 2021, with an eye toward putting them off even further down the line.
Possible? We've always struggled with engaging with political work and community engagement. We felt comfortable and complacent to sit on the sidelines and be “just publisher's putting work out,” but now we feel better equipped and better educated to engage directly with political activism and advocacy. We've learned that instead of promoting this as “what we're doing right now,” we've been trying to instill this activism and engagement at every level of our process as publishers and printers.
―Aidan Fitzgerald and Michael Heck, Cold Cube Press, Seattle
we’d like to answer both of your questions in one, as we feel that the measures for “possible” and “impossible” have, since the beginning of this year, radically morphed. in our current state of pandemic, revolution, and cultural uprising, arts practices and institutions are taking the urgent steps back to re-evaluate their place in the conversation and their place in upholding outdated ideologies; homebase included. what feels impossible: hosting open shows, gathering for events, holding receptions, etc. feel like minutiae among the greater shifts occurring in our socio-political structures. instead, what may have once felt impossible: complete restructuring, the abolishment of racist foundations, the defunding of police and incarceral systems, among so much more, feel at their most urgent and most attainable. within that, homebase has taken a necessary pause in programming to assess its place, if any, in this movement and in the world to be reborn after it.
―Ashley Gifford and Luiza Lukova, homebase, Portland