Art.coop’s New Fellowship Supports Six Arts and Culture Groups
Remember the Future
At a time when the future seems more uncertain than ever, many of us will be looking toward artists and the arts to help us imagine a world of liberation, interdependence, and resilience. We at MSC are excited to congratulate our partners at Art.coop, who recently announced the inaugural recipients of their Remember the Future Fellowship (RTF). Six arts and culture groups have been awarded $15,000 each, and access to a technical assistance fund for the year!
Art.coop, an MSC fiscally sponsored project, affirms “culture shapes what we imagine is possible for special movements.” RTF enhances Art.coop’s mission to provide funding, ideas, and tools to artists, co-ops, and collectives who are actively building a Solidarity Economy.
Ebony Gustave is an artist organizer with Art.coop. In addition to her work with Art.coop, Gustave is producer and host of the Cooperative Journal podcast, and a cultural organizer at Creative Wildfire, both of which uplift the stories and art of those working to resist, reimagine, and co-create a regenerative economy. Her work at these three entities positions her to understand the challenges faced by the artists and groups RTF will assist: “As a collective that is at the intersections of the traditional arts world and the solidarity economy, we saw that there was a gap in who received access to arts grants. It is rare that arts grants are inclusive to collectives or cooperatives.”
What’s in a Name?
Art.coop’s website says the “Remember the Future” name is an homage to the practices of cooperation that are “as ancient as culture itself … cultural workers have always been remembering ancestral practices as they build the futures of care that we need.”
The commitment to ensuring the aforementioned ancestral practices of cooperation are brought to our collective consciousness has been at the core of Art.coop’s mission. In 2023, they joined forces with Nonprofit Quarterly to produce “Remember the Future: Culture and Systems Change,” a series featuring queer, trans, and BIPOC artists and culture bearers, and their thoughts on building a Solidarity Economy. In one piece, author B. Vanessa Coleman (they/them) reflects on their personal experiences with cooperatives, likening coops to ancestral technology, and explaining how they’re part of a broader movement connecting art, culture, and history.
When it comes to RTF, Gustave said “these fellows are challenging the narrative that success only lies within the individual artist and embodying ancestral practices of collectivism to shape our current and future art world.”
The six fellows were chosen from a group of thirteen entities nominated by the team of cultural workers at Art.coop. Criteria included working for economic justice; following the Solidarity Economy principles of interdependence, cooperation, and equity; and leadership by diverse people making inspiring art and strengthening social movements.
"It is rare that arts grants are inclusive to collectives or cooperatives.”
Meet the Fellows
MSC sends our biggest congratulations to the six inaugural fellows! Get to know them below, and follow, like, and share their work on social media!
Acres of Ancestry: A multidisciplinary, cooperative nonprofit ecosystem rooted in Black ecocultural traditions and textile arts regenerating custodial landownership, ecological stewardship, and food and fiber economies in the South.
Artisans Cooperative: A cooperative online handmade marketplace promoting creativity, supporting artist livelihoods, generating opportunities for social impact art collectives, and connecting people through an equitable artistic community.
Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Discord | Mastodon | Reddit
Groupmuse: A worker and musician-owned cooperative seeking to uplift artists and strengthen broader community bonds through live, intimate performances of historically-rooted music.
“These fellows are challenging the narrative that success only lies within the individual artist and embodying ancestral practices of collectivism to shape our current and future art world.”
Means TV: A home for worker-owned entertainment seeking to chart an independent path in building a cooperative media organization lasting for generations to come; financed through subscriptions, and free of any advertisements or venture capital.
Facebook | Instagram | X | YouTube | TikTok
Ohketeau: A place for Indigenous scholars and educators to undermine harmful narratives, stereotypes, and biases about Indigenous cultures; and to actively take steps to remove invisibility within mainstream settler society.
Facebook | Instagram | YouTube
Question Culture: Practices transformative justice and cooperative economics; spreading it throughout pop culture through artist management, media production and creative direction.
