Future

Studies

Future Studies is dedicated to cultural organizers and organizations who are invested in in-depth research and critical action—those who are thoughtfully building new structures to cultivate and uplift their communities. The program is inspired by the Foundation’s namesake Ruth DeYoung Kohler II, who believed that art had the ability to change lives, pointing to both the future possibility of creativity and the understanding that art, when fostered and supported, could contribute to fundamental change.

In this way, this multi-year program is ambitious and outward looking, highlighting those who are at a transformational moment in their own development and ready to work on a more impactful scale. In the process of doing, they are reimagining our institutions, awakening possibilities, and locating the models and practices that can lead us there.

The cultural practitioners in this program have worked within traditional structures and systems and want to envision other ways of operating that are in service of artists and their communities. They are at a stage in their careers where they have acquired a wide range of knowledge, experiences, and skills and are now looking to give back, to embark on initiatives that could create long-term impact on a broader scale.

With a deep investment in our collective futures, these organizations are creating more equitable art spaces, building new forms of connectivity and learning, and providing alternative ways to transform the art world.

IMAGE: RELATED TACTICS, THICK SOLIDARITY

The Black Embodiments Studio*

Seattle, Washington

The Black Embodiments Studio is an arts writing incubator, public programming initiative, and publishing platform dedicated to building discourse around contemporary black art. They focus on creative alliances meant to build sustainable peer-support networks, commissioning new work from artists and writers, and developing ethical public programming practices that do not exploit their labor.

Burnaway

Atlanta, Georgia

Burnaway is an Atlanta-based, non-profit magazine of contemporary art and criticism from the American South, published online weekly and in print annually. Through its editorial program and cultivation of emerging arts writers and journalists, Burnaway connects the region’s diverse creative communities and develops exchange between Southern art, and the national and international art audiences.

BUSH Gallery*

Secwépemc Nation

BUSH Gallery is a space for dialogue, experimental practice and community engaged work that contributes to an understanding of how gallery systems and art mediums might be transfigured, translated, and transformed by Indigenous knowledges, traditions, aesthetics, performance and land use systems. This model of decolonial, non-institutional ways to engage with and value Indigenous knowledge and Indigenous creative production is at the heart of BUSH GALLERY.

New Crits*

virtual

New Crits provides one-on-one studio visits, portfolio reviews, and mentorship with some of the world’s most visionary artists. Their online platform is accessible to all artists at every level of their career, creating an inclusive critique experience outside the traditional arts education system. Their mission is to democratize access to arts education and grow a healthier arts education ecosystem worldwide.

Related Tactics*

Bay Area, California/Washington, DC

Related Tactics is an artistic collaboration between artists and cultural workers Michele Carlson, Weston Teruya, and Nathan Watson. Their projects are made at the intersection of race and culture, exploring the connections between art, movements for social justice, and the public through trans-disciplinary exchanges, collective making, and dialogue.

* denotes fiscal sponsorship. The Black Embodiments Studio is fiscally sponsored by Social Good Fund. BUSH Gallery is fiscally sponsored by The Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples, as WUMEC Language Society. New Crits is fiscally sponsored by Fractured Atlas. Related Tactics is fiscally sponsored by SOMArts.