Art.coop is a network of artists and groups who make the Solidarity Economy irresistible.
Our Vision
Artists who are fed up with the current system are connected and know their power. There is a hub where artists get money, ideas, and tools to strengthen their communities. Art.coop is part of the movement to remember future art worlds with community-control at the core.
Our Mission
We are working for a future in which artists closest to the pain of an extractive economy know their power and use it to dismantle the current system. We resource a community of artists committed to building the art worlds we want. Art.coop is located in the U.S. but is rooted in the international Solidarity Economy movement.
Who We Are
Art.coop is a collective that exists to grow an arts/culture movement rooted in solidarity by centering artists and cultural workers making systems-change irresistible. In 2021, we launched with a report and held Study-into-Action with 105 cultural innovators and collaborated with Grantmakers in the Arts for our Move the Money Series. Listen to our podcast and take free online courses. Find us on IG or Twitter.
Announcing
Remember the Future is a pilot fellowship Art.coop is organizing to honor the power of group work in the arts and beyond. Remember the Future awards a community of arts and culture groups with $15,000 each plus technical assistance for the year.
Arts groups around the country are fed up with our current system and are inspiring others with economic practices of shared power and shared wealth. The movement they are part of is called the Solidarity Economy, where cultural practice and redistribution go together.
Meet the Remember the Future Fellows
Land & Housing.
Food & Farming.
Money & Finance.
Fiber Arts.
Cultural Organizing.
Traditional & Ancestral Arts.
Art, Media, & Technology.
Work & Labor.
Craft.
Traditional Arts.
Visual Arts.
Art, Media, & Technology.
Work & Labor.
Music.
Performance Arts.
Means TV is the home for worker-owned entertainment. Financed through subscriptions, and free of any advertisements or venture capital, Means TV seeks to chart an independent path in building a cooperative media organization lasting for generations to come.
Art, Media, & Technology.
Cultural Organizing.
Fashion.
Film.
Music.
Art, Media, & Technology.
Land & Housing.
Cultural Organizing.
Interdisciplinary Arts.
Traditional Arts.
Art, Media, & Technology.
Work & Labor.
Cultural Organizing.
Digital Arts.
Film.
Journalism & Literature.
Why Remember the Future ?
We know that practices of cooperation are as ancient as culture itself, and that cultural workers have always been remembering ancestral practices as they build the futures of care that we need. This is why we call the fellowship, Remember the Future.
Art.coop’s mission is to redistribute resources, connections and tools to arts & culture groups who are challenging dominant paradigms in the economy.
We believe that the result of the Fellowship will be increased capacity and stronger connections across collectives, co-operatives, and other members of the Solidarity Economy movement. We affirm that culture shapes what we imagine is possible for social movements, and that movements strengthen the arts. We aim to demonstrate the interdependence between arts & culture and the Solidarity Economy movement.
How were the Fellows selected?
Each of the Remember the Future fellows were nominated through a democratic process with the team of cultural workers at Art.coop. Thirteen groups were nominated, from which six were selected.
The Remember the Future fellowship resources arts and culture initiatives that are:
based in the lands colonially known as the United States;
a group (2+ people with the intention to grow);
2+ years or older;
working for economic justice (i.e. fighting for better wages, equitable housing, systems change, getting resources for their communities, etc.);
trying to live their values by following Solidarity Economy principles such as interdependence, cooperation, equity, and pluralism;
reaching a wide audience, making inspiring art, and/or strengthening social movement(s); and
led by a diverse group of people.
Want to fund the #ArtWorldsWeWant?
Write to Stephanie Imah, Gabrielle Chapman, and Caroline Woolard via rff@movementstrategy.org.
We provide artists working on economic justice with resources, money, ideas, and tools.
Podcast
We produced a a pilot season podcast about the Solidarity Economy and the artists and culture workers who are building it in their communities.
Listen to the podcast here.
Courses
Creatives around the world are working together, placing people and the planet over profit to create thriving homes, businesses, investments, and creative work. You can too.
Take our online courses for free right here.
If you would like to learn about the solidarity economy right now, we suggest that everyone reads these texts and attends Economics for Emancipation.
The cultural economy we want already exists - and can be strengthened with intention.
Solidarity Economy & Culture Models
Here are a few examples of arts and culture groups and initiatives in the Solidarity Economy. As shown throughout the report, all networks and infrastructure in the Solidarity Economy—regardless of their emphasis on arts and culture—will support artists and culture-bearers. See the list below and add yourself to our internal Directory.
Land & Housing
Cooperative Co-working Space: Soft Surplus*
Cooperative Venue: Hex House
Cooperative Store / Gallery: AIR Gallery, and internationally, Aarhus Makers*, Ulična galerija
Cooperative Studios: Adaept, Clay Art Pottery Co-op
Cohousing and Intentional Communities: Convent Arts Community
Cooperative Darkrooms: Lone Star Darkroom, Bushwick Community Darkroom
Cooperative Co-working, Retreat, Residency, or Landback Network: ZEAL_, Activation Residency
_ = majority BIPOC membership, * = inactive
Work & Labor
Worker Cooperatives, Craft: Adams & Chittenden Scientific Glass, and so many more, including over 300 craft cooperatives.
Worker Cooperatives, Beauty: Brown Beauty Co-op*_
Worker Cooperatives, Film + VR + Tech + Audio + Video Games: CRUX_
Worker Cooperatives, Graphic Design: Story2Designs*_, Surplus Plus_, Justseeds
Worker Cooperatives, Music, Dance, Theatre: the COOP*, Double Edge Theatre_
Worker Cooperatives, Orchestra: Orpheus Chamber Orchestra,
Multi-stakeholder Cooperatives: Happy Family Night Market*_
Barter Systems and Non-Monetary Exchange: O+ Festival
_ = majority BIPOC membership, * = inactive
Money & Finance
Community currencies: Circles
Community Loan Funds and Grants: Boston Ujima Project_, Black Farmer Fund_, NDN Collective_, Runway, First People’s Fund_, Black Artist Fund_
Cooperative Billing and Accounting: Guilded Freelancers Cooperative*, Open Collective, A Bookkeeping Cooperative
Cooperative Marketing: BlacSpace Cooperative_
Patronage Cooperatives: Ampled*
UBI / UBA / GBI: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts UBI, Creatives Rebuild New York
_ = majority BIPOC membership, * = inactive
Food & Farming
Community Gardens: All community gardens!
Community Supported Agriculture: All CSAs!
Food and Farm Co-ops: Soul Fire Farm_, Cooperative Food Empowerment Directive (CoFED), Acres of Ancestry_
Community Fridges: All Community fridges!
_ = majority BIPOC membership, * = inactive
Media & Technology
Worker-Owned News Media: Media Reparations, Associated Press, Devil Strip
Platform Cooperatives: Ampled*, and internationally Stocksy in Canada,
Cooperative and Collective Study Groups: Dark Matter University_, Anticapitalism for Artists_, Artists Dismantling Capitalism, New Economy Coalition’s Arts, Culture, and Care in the Solidarity Economy Working Group_, TradeSchool.coop*, and so many more
_ = majority BIPOC membership, * = inactive
We provide resources and events for grantmakers working on economic justice in the arts.
Solidarity, Not Charity
This report, commissioned by Grantmakers in the Arts, is about the ways that arts and culture grantmakers can engage in systems-change work. The cultural sector is actively seeking alternatives to business-as-usual to create economic and racial justice in the sector and beyond. Grantmakers can play a role in the transformation of the sector by following the lead of Black, Indigenous, People of Color, disabled, queer, trans, and working class creatives who are innovating models for self-determination and community wealth. For specific suggestions, see the full report.
Move the Money
How can arts & culture grantmaking engage in systems-change work that addresses root causes rather than symptoms of inequity? Grantmakers can play a role in the transformation of the sector by following the lead of BIPOC creatives who are innovating models for self-determination and community wealth.
Watch “Move the Money,” a series of funder discussions where presenters and movement organizers share example of projects that make tangible the principles laid out in the GIA-commissioned report, Solidarity Not Charity: Arts & Culture Grantmaking in the Solidarity Economy, by Nati Linares & Caroline Woolard from Art.Coop. Watch the series here.
Art.coop continues to work with GIA on a “Move the Money” webinar series. Learn more here.
Introduction to the Solidarity Economy
Let's connect!
Marina Lopez, Core Organizer
Nati Linares, Core Organizer
Ebony Gustave, Core Organizer
Gabrielle Chapman, Core Organizer
Ethan Heitner, Core Organizer
Lydia Blankenship, Organizing Lead
Caroline Woolard, Organizing Lead
Robin Bean Crane, Organizing Lead
Sruti Suryanarayanan, Organizing Lead
Write to us all via team@art.coop!
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Art.coop is a fiscally sponsored project of Movement Strategy Center. Support comes from individual contributors like you as well as Barr Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, Mellon Foundation, Ruth Arts, Surdna Foundation, and Good Chaos.
We know that the financial support we’ve received can be contradictory to fully embodying the solidarity economy but we are in a time of collapse. We hope we will not be dependent upon philanthropy but while it still exists and in this transitory moment, Art.coop composts capital in its current form to build the solidarity economy.
This is a website for Art.coop which exists to grow the Solidarity Economy movement by centering creatives making systems-change.
Fellowship branding by Cierra Peters. Report design by Surplus+ (Shea Fitzpatrick and Lucy Siyao Liu). Website by Cole Krumbholz, Julian Boilen, Or Zubalsky, and Sruti Suryanarayanan.