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November 2024 News

November 27, 2024  •  5 minute read

Relief & Recovery Fund for Southern Artists

White text over a red field. The text reads, “Financial Support for Artists impacted by storms,” followed by, “Southern Arts Relief & Recovery Fund.”

Applications are open for the Southern Arts Relief & Recovery Fund, providing financial support to artists residing in the FEMA disaster areas of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia who have been impacted by Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Artists in North Carolina can apply now for support through Arts AVL.

Artists are eligible for $500 in relief stipends, administered by SouthArts and Arts AVL.

NPN, Alternate ROOTS, Mid Atlantic Arts, and the North Carolina Arts Council have partnered with SouthArts and Arts AVL to develop the fund, with significant support from the Educational Foundation of America, the Gobioff Foundation, and the Windgate Foundation. “We know inequities are amplified in times of crisis”, says NPN President & CEO Caitlin Strokosch, “and many relief funds supporting artists organizations are not available to individual artists.” We encourage artists impacted by the storms to complete a damage assessment form from the Heritage Emergency National Task Force so advocates and relief agencies have better information on artists’ needs.

Learn more about donating or applying to the Southern Arts Relief & Recovery Fund

“Artist Pay Project” Addresses Inequities

A small group of 7 people sit together. Most are in profile from behind. They sit against a colorful wall with a large butterfly painting. At the center, facing the camera, is a Black woman smiling, wearing a red blazer and white t-shirt.
In 2023, Makeda organized a performance and panel conversation about pay equity with local artists in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Photo credit: Jarrad Henderson.

A new, immersive exhibition and resource site aims to shed light on the financial challenges and wage inequities faced by artists. Led by Makeda Easter, a Chicago-based journalist and 2022-2023 Knight-Wallace Fellow, The Artist Pay Project is catalyzing conversations about compensation, transparency, and sustainability in the arts.

With project support from the University of Michigan Wallace House Center for Journalists and the Ford School’s Center for Racial Justice, Easter’s research reveals clear insights into the financial struggles and survival strategies of modern artists and emphasizes how racial justice and pay equity are deeply intertwined. “The issues surrounding labor and compensation in the arts reflect broader systemic inequalities,” she explains.

Under her umbrella project the art rebellion, Easter has created a guide to fair pay in the arts that catalogs research and resources for artists. Among them are many of NPN’s partners in our work to advance artist wage and labor justice, including W.A.G.E. Easter recently received a grant from the City of Chicago to continue her research, with plans to create zines to share findings with a wider audience. “I want to open people’s minds to the challenges artists face and foster a sense of community among creatives,” she says.

NPN Announces New Board Leadership

A composite of two smaller square photos stacked vertically on the left, and a larger rectangular photo on the right. The top left photo is a headshot of Salome Asega. The bottom left photo is a headshot of Anne Ishii. The right photo is a casual group photo of the 25 people who represent the staff and board of NPN as of November, 2024.
Left top: Salome Asega. Left bottom: Anne Ishii. Right: NPN’s staff and board in New Orleans, November 2024.

In November, NPN’s Board of Directors adopted a new co-chair leadership model and elected Salome Asega and Anne Ishii as Co-Chairs. Joining them in the board’s leadership circle are Edgar Miramontes as Vice-Chair and Secretary, and Louise Martorano as Treasurer. “Shared leadership is an affirmation that we need each other to expand and challenge our thinking, to fill in gaps, and to take turns stepping back when we need to,” writes NPN President & CEO Caitlin Strokosch. “I’m thrilled to work with this extraordinary group to guide NPN’s vision in the months and years ahead.”

Salome Asega is an artist, researcher, and Director of NEW INC at the New Museum (NYC). Anne Ishii, formerly Executive Director of Asian Arts Initiative in Philadelphia and now Program Director at United States Artists, brings deep expertise in arts advocacy. Edgar Miramontes is the Executive and Artistic Director of UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance (Los Angeles) and Louise Martorano serves as Executive Director of RedLine (Denver).

NPN expresses profound gratitude to outgoing Board Chair Marlène Ramírez-Cancio (Brooklyn), who guided the board with care and vision over the last two years. “It’s been an honor to serve as Board Chair for NPN, an organization that uplifts artists and cultural workers at the forefront of racial justice and cultural equity,” Ramírez-Cancio shared. “I’m thrilled to see Salome and Anne bring dynamic, collaborative leadership to this vital work—and I look forward to continuing my Board service under their guidance.” We also offer a huge thank-you to artists Eyenga Bokamba (Minneapolis) and Jorge Rojas (Salt Lake City), and cultural strategist Dafina Toussainté McMillan (Albuquerque), whose board terms are ending this year.

Meet the board

Opportunities

Creative Disruptors Launches “Designing Regeneration”

A group of over a dozen BIPOC leaders sit facing each other at a long conference table in a sunny boardroom. They each have a laptop open before them, and they are smiling and talking amongst themselves.
Designing Regeneration: Cohort Learning Opportunity for Grantmakers & Movement Leaders

Creative Disruptors is an online collaborative that provides journeys and resources for arts and culture leaders of the global majority seeking to create positive social impact through their work. “Creative Disruptors is more than a learning platform—it’s a movement,” says founder Quanice Floyd. “Our mission is to champion and embolden arts and culture leaders of the global majority with the tools, knowledge, and network necessary to forge profound social change through their work.”

Registration is now open for “Designing Regeneration”, a 16-week cohort learning opportunity for BIPOC grantmakers and movement leaders beginning in January. Led by F. Javier Torres-Campos and Sage Crump, this curriculum fosters community-centered strategies for reshaping philanthropy, cultivating regenerative cultural ecosystems, and shifting culture through power building, abolitionist organizing, legal frameworks, and narrative.

Learn more

Creation Fund Activities to Enjoy this December

ANTARANGA: Between You and Me, Ananya Dance Theatre (ADT)

December 6th, 7:00 pm
Links Hall (Chicago, IL)

ANTARANGA: Between You and Me is set in a world in deep crisis (much like our own) where most people have lost their ability to connect with each other. A few humsafar (Urdu for “fellow travelers”) remain, blessed with super-connecting and heart-opening powers. ANTARANGA is the first work in a duology, and explores themes of intimacy, connection, trust, and community among BIPOC women/femmes.

Learn more about Antaranga

On a dark stage, a female dancer poses with her arms out, with eight other female dancers spread out evenly behind her. All are wearing dance costumes that incorporate clothing designs of traditional Urdu culture from South Asia. The dancers are lit dramatically from the sides with a warm light that casts deep shadows across their bodies.
ANTARANGA: Between You and Me ensemble, Ananya Dance Theatre.

Apollo: In-Progress Performance with Discussion, Pioneer Winter Collective

December 14th, 7:00 pm
Lightbox at Miami Theater Center (Miami, FL)

Apollo is a dance-theater work exploring intergenerational queer dynamics, memory, HIV/AIDS, and legacy. This work unites a younger queer dancer with three queer elders: each of them former, different iterations of the god Apollo. This in-studio work-in-progress performance of Apollo will be followed by conversation between the artists and audience. RSVP is gently preferred but not required—please email .

Learn more about Apollo

A black and white photo of four male dancers intertwined and bound together by a long bolt of what appears to be mylar or other similarly reflective silver fabric.
Performance photo of Apollo by Pioneer Winter Collective.

The Magic Bullet: A Work-in-progress Sharing, LubDub Theatre Co

December 22nd, 6:30 pm
Downtown Manhattan (New York City, NY)

A genocidal colonial occupation. Fierce indigenous resistance led by mystic rebels. An imperial magic show by Europe’s top illusionist. The Magic Bullet is a transdisciplinary exploration of colonialism, indigeneity and magic stretching from 1850s Algeria to the present day. Weaving personal stories, archival sources, ritual, stage magic, and documentary filmmaking, The Magic Bullet is an uncanny confrontation between the power of illusion and the illusions of power.

Learn more about The Magic Bullet

A close-up from the side of four actors standing in a line and reading from manuscripts as they perform. The background is dark and they're brightly lit as if on a stage. In the extreme foreground is the out-of-focus silhouette of the first actor, a man, who is gesturing with both hands. In the middle-ground in sharp focus is a female actor wearing a black and white plaid scarf. She is smiling as she looks down at her manuscript. Behind her in the background, both out-of-focus, is another female actor looking down and a male actor with his hand raised as he performs.
Members of LubDub Theatre Co give a work-in-progress performance of The Magic Bullet.