Pro Arts Fundraiser

Dear Comrades,

In 2022, Pro Arts shifted its operations from holding space to making space, using the independent art scene as a strategic site for investigating subjects related to immaterial labor in the arts. As a result, we are developing an entirely new infrastructure and experimenting with dynamic and subversive forms of institutional practice that intersect with technology, the law, and the commons.

Despite being near Silicon Valley – the heart of hyper-capitalism - in 2019, Pro Arts formed the first art commons in Oakland, California. The commons, as in a participatory, decentralized, networked, autonomous organization. A body composed of many organs and a polyphony of voices.

Over the past ten years and in our space at Oscar Grant Plaza in downtown Oakland, we pooled and shared material and immaterial resources with collectives and artists who empower the community. We experimented with participatory governance while practicing radical hospitality. We supported programs and projects that advocate for collectivity and universal access as the foundation for an ethical art economy. We hosted residencies, published work, and created heterotopic sites for the production and presentation of art. We asked questions such as: How do we collaborate, value, and organize art labor in the context of an independent art scene?

Over the last few years, artists and social justice organizations have engaged in extensive work on what has and has not worked when decentralizing power and leadership in the arts. This critical and generative work has resulted in reports, new organizational processes, and artworks that offer emerging models, methodologies, and tools for decentralizing institutional power. With our work and service to the field, Pro Arts influences this very discourse.

In 2023, Pro Arts will continue to operate as an umbrella for other projects and collectives, creating at the intersection of aesthetics, economy, and law. With the Teaching Institute for Art & Law, we are developing training sites around the globe, using radical imagination, collective authorship, and commoning as methodologies that counter oppression and alienation in the ranks of art labor. The Institute aims to build commonality in response to our differences and give agency to a broader community of creators.

We ask that you -- the reader of this letter -- invest in the infrastructure of an ethical art economy, a just and fair system for rewarding art labor and mobilizing social capital toward the common good.

We are in the process of developing the D@d@is Americanus DAO. DAOs are Decentralized Autonomous Organizations - member-owned communities built by combining blockchain technology with decentralized and participatory governance. DAOs are defining the terms of new global social contracts that address institutional injustice, oppression, and lack of transparency and accountability.

Commit to us!