Help fund a Queer BIPOC private studio in Oakland
I am starting this GoFundme for my partner Aurora Aguirre in hopes that our community of tattooers and patrons will come together and aid them in opening a private studio. The space will de-center the influence of the dominant white supremacist culture by prioritizing the voices and bodies of black, indigenous, queer, and trans folx, women and all persons of color, however those identities choose to radiate outward and overlap. It is their hope that honoring these identities—as well as turning to community youth and elders—will allow the policies of the space to grow, crumble, and reform, again and again, ditching ego in the search for radical kindness and healing inclusivity... and tattoos mixed somewhere in there.
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Aurora is a Queer-Indigenous artist native to Colombia and Chile, residing in Oakland, fresh out of a years long traditional apprenticeship in an established street shop. They are taking on the risk of opening this space with hopes that, in doing so, they will reduce those risks and barriers for more vulnerable and more marginalized peoples in the tattoo community. In this way, their goal is not to diminish the existence of communal tattoo spaces in the Bay Area (there are already spaces owned by BIPOC folx and by queer folx) but to provide safety and access for those who have yet to be included.
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I understand there are many people and communities that need change right now, and funding can help to further that change. One of the most direct ways Aurora can affect change is to do so where they already are: in the tattoo community. If you have the means, please give what you can. I wish I could provide a more concrete ‘business plan’ or mission statement, but the goal is to hold space, not to profit. The location has been found and several QT BIPOC folx have signed on, as many as Covid restrictions will allow. They need your help to ensure the space will last. In order to do this they are asking for help funding the studio while it gets off the ground:
$7,200 (3 months rent for an affordable and sizable studio in the Bay Area)
$300 (3 months utilities)
$500 (supplies)
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