Arts Politics COVID-19 Solidarity Fund
There is no society without art and no society without culture. - Kathy Engel, Chair, Dept. of Art and Public Policy, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University
Mission Statement:
The Arts Politics Class of COVID-19 Solidarity Fund is a student-led and -distributed initiative for students of in Arts Politics Graduate program at Tisch School of the Arts. As a community of art politics practitioners, artists, writers, advocates, curators, actors, performers, and scholars—the majority of whom identify as Queer, Black and Latinx people of color—we are accepting monetary donations on behalf of our classmates who have been most impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic and consequent economic collapse.
The COVID-19 pandemic has unmasked the illusion of independence created by a capitalist society. As a cohort, we are aware of how deeply we depend on one another, our families, and our communities. We are also acutely aware of the unfolding repercussions of the pandemic, the implication of which have endangered our family and friends, our physical and mental health, our financial security, housing, and visa statuses. We are especially concerned for the low-income members of our cohort who depend on now-unavailable part-time labor to get by and are facing indefinite unemployment and its consequences in a country where citizens carry the cost of privatized education and medical care for themselves, and in some cases, their family and loved ones.
Please consider donating to ensure that our community is supported, because, in the words of Toni Morrison, “This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal."
-------------------------------
Where your funds go:
100% of these funds will go to students who have lost income due to cancellations and work stoppage due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is emergency funding to help students in need with rent, food, utilities, and medical needs.
How funds will get to students:
We will send funds to the mailing address by money order/check, or Venmo, CashApp, Zelle, and PayPal payments indicated in the application. We will distribute a list of various mutual aid resources to all applicants, and we will share our fund with several mutual aid fund lists.
NYU’s Response:
While NYU has established a university-wide emergency fund, it is capped at $500 per student and is inadequate to meet students’ ongoing needs in light of the pandemic, which has paused many part-time jobs in the arts, education and service industries.
Sustainability:
We are committed to establishing a system of lasting mutual aid. In the words of Queer Indigenous activist Regan De Loggans, “Mutual aid was not born out of survival, its proposed purpose is for communities to thrive.” Marginalized communities have been practicing mutual aid since long before colonialism and capitalism, and we aspire to embody this practice and commit ourselves to community aid and resource sharing beyond crisis. This will not be a one-time reallocation of resources, but rather serve as the foundation for an ongoing network of community care, support, and skill-sharing which we intend to make accessible to the broader Department of Arts and Public Policy and Arts Politics Graduate Program network.
We also hope that you will join us in calling for rent and mortgage moratoriums, universal healthcare, free childcare, and the abolition of the fear programming that tells us that we cannot collectively take care of one another and create a world in which we all live in abundance.
-------------------------------
What is Arts Politics?
It is a program of arts activism, and we take the stance we are agnostic about what we mean by art, and what we mean by politics. The program draws people from all across different kinds of artistic practice and different kinds of genres of engaged arts. It gathers a cohort of students who have been working out in the world and usually have come up against some conceptual or organizational block in getting their work into the world. This is a space where students are rethinking and reimaging what the future of the arts might be, what different modes of activism might be, and what different kinds of sustainability of artistic practice might entail. - Randy Martin, Chair, Art & Public Policy (2008 - 2013)
The Arts Politics Master’s program provides a space for action and reflection. Professors push students to think about their role in a transnational world that must contend with issues around race, class, gender, sexuality, dis/ability, and religion. Students examine histories of political frameworks in the arts, as well as contemporary advocacy strategies and tactics for change and consider how artists make themselves and their worlds, how to create a better community: together we ask, “How do we make the world anew?”
To learn more the Department of Art and Public Policy at NYU visit: https://tisch.nyu.edu/art-public-policy
-------------------------------
This campaign is not an official New York University fundraising campaign nor is it a Tisch School of the Arts-related initiative; it has been created by students, for students, in solidarity.
For questions, please email: [email redacted].
