New York, NY, May 13, 2013—We believe arts and cultural expression is a necessary and extraordinary tool for social change. This month, we launch our new Global Arts Fund with the goal to support, showcase, and connect impactful art by LGBTQI people and organizations with limited access to resources, who use art as a tool for social transformation. In an endeavor to support the arts across mediums and disciplines, the fund will consider submissions in all artistic expressions: video, film, poetry, fictional prose, photography, painting, performance, dance, theater, music and any interdisciplinary expressions.

Over the past year, freeDimensional has been further developing its Creative Resistance Fund as a conduit by which likeminded partners and funders can support individuals using creativity to fight injustice.  A 2012 grant from the Cultures of Resistance Network enables freeDimensional’s participation and technical support to the Freemuse event, a World Conference on Artistic Freedom of Expression. In particular, this support will enable two exiled artists to attend the Conference in Oslo by covering their travel costs.  Freemuse advocates and defends freedom of expression for musicians and composers. Initiating the first ever World Conference on Artistic Freedom of Expression and launching a global network, artsfex, for the protection of artistic freedom, Freemuse aims to set a new agenda for artists’ rights worldwide.

On July 23, 2011, Detroit lost an award-winning, multi-faceted artist: singer-songwriter, poet, writer, performer, musician, community activist and teacher David Blair. While Blair performed all over the world and has friends on almost every continent, Detroit was his home. As Metro Times writer Travis Wright wrote, “ He loved this city and that love was reciprocated. They had claimed each other more than a decade ago. “

The Detroit community recognizes how much he created in its name, and will honor his legacy with the First Annual Blair’s Crowded House, an homage to the Crowded House show Blair created and hosted yearly in an effort to expose the Detroit community to a variety of its homegrown artists. “Crowded House originated from Blair’s incredible ability to bring artists from many different backgrounds together in the interests of building community and advancing social justice,” said Invincible, a Detroit hip-hop artist, activist, and the event’s co-organizer. “Our goal is to organize this event every year around Blair’s birthday.”  Blair’s Crowded House will include such acts as The Boyfriends, Alison Lewis, Monica Blaire, Jamaal Versiz May, Airea Dee Matthews, Khary Kimani Turner, Mike E, and Invincible. A gallery view of video footage and photography of his performances and travels, and a writing workshop to give those who were inspired by him the space to create their own tributes will also commence. All proceeds from the event will go toward the David Blair Memorial, a fund created to assist Detroit artists with their needs in times of crisis. Learn more about the event here.

For the last 10 years the government of Malaysia has been seeking to silence one of the more popular political cartoonists in Kuala Lumpur: Zulkiflee Anwar Ulhaque, better known as Zunar. In the past two years he has been arrested and detained, his office has been raided, his cartoons books have been seized, and his publishers and editors have been prevented from publishing his cartoons. Zunar recently took the government to court appealing last year’s decision to ban his books. On 14 July 2011, the High Court in Kuala Lumpur decided to uphold last year’s banning of his political cartoon books and dismissed his appeal.

The Khami Prison outside Bulawayo hosted a competitive Arts Festival on 6 July 2010. The participants were drawn from all the prison complex units. The festival was organised by Amakhosi Theatre in collaboration with Khami Prison. Amakhosi has been running workshops with the inmates for the past three years and the project seeks to provide recreation, entertainment and life skills.  A total of 16 groups performed theatre, music, poetry and dance. There was also an exhibition of knitwear and wood craft. The festival had a total audience of 700 inmates of which about 160 performed. William Nyandoro of the Arts Council in Bulawayo and Josh Nyapimbi (BAF) and 2 prison officers adjudicated the performances. Cont Mhlanga of Amakhosi Theatre was the guest speaker.  The theme of the festival was the ‘Zimbabwe’s Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act’ (IEEA), which came into force in March 2011. The IEEA seeks to enforce that local Zimbabweans are entitled to own 51 percent ownership in all foreign-owned companies.  The majority of performances, particularly poetry and music were aesthetically good (presumably due to training by Amakhosi and a huge population of artists at Khami prison), however, the absence of performances that explored and challenged negative implications of the IEEA and the horrendous prison conditions and gross rights violations in prison was discomforting though expected given that there is a censorship office at Khami prison.  The value of the art in prison cannot be overemphasised. However, there is need to promote the status of the artist in prison beyond training. There is an apparent need for advocacy and lobbying on the status of the artist in prison as well.  The lobbying would need to also target UNESCO because the Recommendation concerning the Status of the Artist does not specifically provide for the artist in prison. The artist in prison has particular needs, which require tailored interventions.

Launched in 2007, the Freedom to Create Prize is a celebration of the courage and creativity of artists, and the positive influence of their work to promote social justice and inspire the human spirit. The Prize is open to all forms of art, in any creative field and any individual or group of any gender, religion or nationality.  In 2011, a total prize fund of US$100,000 will be awarded to the winning artists and their nominated advocacy organisations to further the cause their artwork has highlighted.  The Prize has two categories: the Main Prize, open to individuals or artistic groups in all creative fields over the age of 16 and the Imprisoned Artist Prize, focusing on artists who are currently imprisoned for their artwork. The 2011 Freedom to Create Prize is now open for entries via our website until 30 July 2011 (deadline extended). Please see here for further information on how to enter the prize.

I few weeks ago, the Rory Peck Trust asked freeDimensional to host a documentary filmmaker from a neighboring country.  The filmmaker’s work as a freelance journalist had placed him in harms way and together our organizations took steps to assure his safety.  As freeDimensional transitions to become the Creative Resistance Fund, we are encouraging our art space partners to apply for funding to do the critical hosting work we have designed and road-tested together.  The Atelier Moustapha Dime (named after a famous Senegalese sculptor and managed by one of his former students) offered one of its bedrooms to the filmmaker.  And, this is not the first time that a culture worker in distress has found refuge at Atelier Moustapha Dime.

A few weeks ago the freeDimensional site carried a post entitled February 18 Elections in Uganda // Honoring slain school teacher & LGBT activist David Kato. The very next post was about the death of a 24 year old artist, Victor Leiva, killed in Guatemala City. From the viewpoint of freeDimensional & the Creative Resistance Fund, there was a common condition that allowed both of these heinous acts to happen … a lack of support and protection!  Many times, I am asked to provide a formula for how or why an artist gets into life-risking danger.  Of course there are stylistic forms of censorship and suppression that are different from one region to another and when levied across diverse demographics, but I suppose there is a sort of countdown or sequence of events that is discernible:  When the rule of law erodes (or has never formed) and the protective layers of civil society are stripped away due to contested elections, civil war, cross-border conflict, etc; when we know that journalists are fearful to give literal accounts of the impunity faced by their communities, then we also know that artists who bear witness to the societal condition will face danger.  The outcome is the same for a artist in Guatemala and an LGBT activist in Uganda.  Conversely, I would argue that to improve conditions for culture workers in areas of unrest would make it safer for grassroots activists (and vice versa).  It’s also important to consider how sexual orientation can be used as grounds to economically marginalize a person regardless of whether his/her work is related through personal activism. For example  I recently asked a grantee of the Creative Resistance Fund if sexual orientation had anything to do with the eminent danger faced.  The answer was yes, but with the caveat that there is no way to know for sure until it is too late.  Unfortunately, I have heard this on several occasions.  When I think about all these overlapping vulnerable groups - grassroots activists, LGBT community, artists in conflict (or unsafe) areas - the concepts of precarity and intersectionality come to mind.  According to Wikipedia, precarity means “existence without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare.” And, “intersectionality holds that the classical conceptualizations of oppression within society, such as racism, sexism, homophobia, and religion-based bigotry, do not act independently of one another; instead, these forms of oppression interrelate, creating a system of oppression that reflects the “intersection” of multiple forms of discrimination.”

As the Creative Resistance Fund further develops, we will continually look for ways to distribute decision-making and resources to trusted partners in regions where we work.  Often times emerging artist residencies are the most interested in providing Creative Safe Haven to culture workers, writers, and dissidents in need of accommodation during a critical period.  At the same time, emerging initiatives are usually fueled by the volunteerism (blood, sweat, tears) of their founders, and may need financial capital to match the social capital they present.  A couple years ago, freeDimensional started the Emerging Art Space Support Initiative (EASSI) to get to know the needs and possibilities of working with new and emerging spaces around the world.  One such space, Sangam House, a literary residency that happens in different locations around India told us of their plan to start a rolling fund for inviting writers from the region who are facing adverse conditions due to views expressed in their work.  As a follow-up step to EASSI, the Creative Resistance Fund has made a financial contribution to Sangam House and their Rolling Fund.  We look forward to learning from this process and gaining insight from Sangam’s experience that will help us to make similar investments in partner organizations elsewhere in the world.  We also plan to support Sangam House in the further development of their fund.

The December 19th elections in Belarus have come and gone. Alexander Lukashenko has, once again, declared himself the winner with nearly 80 percent of the votes. International observers have condemned the outcome. In less than 24 hours after the election, Lukashenko’s forces rounded up hundreds of unarmed protestors, including several of the opposition candidates. Many family members of the candidates have told international reporters that they still do not know where their loved ones are.  In the last few days, the total arrests have surpassed one thousand. One of those rounded up was Natalia Koliada of the Belarus Free Theatre. Natalia has been an outspoken critic of Lukashenko’s regime; she was detained overnight on the 19th and released the next day, forced into hiding. Some details of her detention have been made known, including the fact that she was given no water or food and verbally threatened with death. You can read more about Natalia’s detention, and the detentions in general, here. freeDimensional and the Creative Resistance Fund are following the lead of Trans Europe Halle  to build a solidarity fund for the Belarus Free Theatre.  Joining in the effort are Mischief + Mayhem Books and IETM. More information, including how to contribute, can be found here. Blog text reprinted from DW Gibson, co-founder of Mischief + Mayhem Books.

This past weekend, freeDimensional was represented at the Prince Claus Fund for Culture & Development’s annual award ceremony.  The ceremony is a great time to meet and network with others working in the fields of culture, free expression and human rights.  At the same time, an award ceremony like the Prince Claus Fund’s or the Freedom to Create Awards recently given at the Citadel in Cairo, Egypt are lavish events that cost  a lot of money to stage.  This begs the question of how does the award, its ceremony and the resulting media help the artist who is doing frontline activism, the culture worker in distress.  freeDimensional and the Creative Resistance Fund operate under the assumption that having the international limelight (even for a brief period) can provide a critical awareness (i) to the public about that individual’s situation and conditions in her/his community and (ii) to an oppressive regime that it is not acceptable to harass, threaten or censor the artist and that people, organizations and governments on the outside are watching.  In keeping with this belief, we regularly use staff time, capacity and connections to nominate our stakeholders to various awards.  For example, we nominated Uzbek photographer Umida Ahkmedova and Iranian cartoonist Kianoush Ramezani to the Freedom to Create Award.  Whereas they did not win the award, another fD stakeholder, Owen Maseko (pictured here) was the third place winner, an accolade that came with a $10,000 prize.  Similarly, we nominated Taslima Nasreen, Athol Fugard and Naseer Shamma’s Oud School in Cairo to this year’s Prince Claus Fund Award.

The pilot phase of the Creative Resistance Fund runs from mid-2010 to mid-2011.  During this period, the Fund will make 10-15 small, rapid-response grants to people using creativity to fight injustice.  These grants may be used by the recipient to evacuate a dangerous situation; cover living expenses while weighing long-term options for safety; or act on a strategic opportunity to affect social change.  During the pilot phase, the Fund will be relying on freeDimensional’s board of directors for all grant decisions.  Over the past five years, freeDimensional has helped more than 70 culture workers-in-distress through its Creative Safe Haven service; based on this track record we outlined potential uses of the fund (listed above); however we are also open to tackling new challenges faced by artists doing the work of activists.  During the pilot phase the committee has a mandate to experiment with its grantmaking so that it can revise its funding parameters at the end of the pilot year.  Here’s an example of that experimentation:  Back in July, an advisor to the Fund alerted the committee of the impending eviction of 96-year old sculptor, Inge Hardison.  With one look at Hardison’s ouevre, using the Fund to lend a helping hand was unquestionable.  Much of Hardison’s work is emotionally involved to her heritage as a woman of African decent. She has created a series of busts of African American heroes that she has called Negro Giants in History.  Hardison is often seen wearing pieces of her work, such as a two-inch pin depicting Sojourner Truth. The original piece was a two-foot work given to Nelson Mandela by (then) New York governor Mario Cuomo in 1990.  In addition to being a sculptor, Hardison is an accomplished photographer too. She was the only woman among the six artists who formed the Black Academy of Arts and Letters.  Hardison once said, “During my long life I have enjoyed using different ways to distill the essences of my experiences so as to share for the good they might do in the lives of others.”  The Creative Resistance Fund chipped in $500 (along with many individual supporters) to build up a bank account from which her future rent payments will come.

The Creative Resistance Fund (CRF) is a new initiative started by the founder of freeDimensional.  Currently CRF is being incubated and fiscally sponsored by freeDimensional.  The Fund works in tandem with other services such as Creative Safe Haven; however, it is intended to become an autonomous fund built on an emerging principle of network philanthropy, which has sustained the work of freeDimensional over the past five years.  freeDimensional is set to expire in 2015 because we feel that ten years is enough to pilot, document and transfer skills for the model of critical hosting upon which the initiative was founded in 2005.  We expect that the name freeDimensional will eventually go away, but the practice of Creative Safe Haven will continue to develop and be modified at the intersection of the human rights and artist residency sectors. In its place there will be a new entity called the Creative Resistance Fund; we’ve started early because we want to pilot, build a track record, collaborate and, ultimately, show how the Fund is essential for supporting an overlooked (and under-supported) demographic of activists.  By 2015 the Creative Resistance Fund will be housed at and receive technical assistance from a pre-existing, reputable foundation.  In the mean time, we will continue to experiment raising resources and re-granting them to people using creativity to fight injustice. In addition to the emergency cash grants we make, we also have an artist residency, travel and living stipend combo that we re-grant in Bilbao, Spain.  Now you might ask: How is this different from freeDimensional programming?  When we conduct a Creative Safe Haven placement at freeDimensional, we have learned about a culture worker-in-distress from a trusted partner (organization or individual); we do research to validate the situation and then present the case to our global network of artist residencies.  We usually narrow down the pool of residencies solicited by geography, proximity, visa eligibility, and good fit in terms of culture and professional needs as well as the level of support a residency can offer at the given time.  This is a service we provide on demand from culture workers.  Here’s how the placement in Bilbao is different:  The Festival Against Censorship is an annual, weeklong event in Bilbao.  As a way to support free expression year-round, the Festival offers a Creative Safe Haven space (with all expense paid) to people using creativity to fight injustice.  This constitutes a demand on the part of the art space and festival.  To date, we have organized residencies for Druze painter Fahed Halabi, Uzbek photographer Umida Ahkmedova, and Zimbabwe ceramicist Owen Maseko in Bilbao through this partnership with the Creative Resistance Fund.

Before we ever thought about developing a mobility or strategic opportunity fund at freeDimensional, we had several experiences that showed us the utility of quickly dispersing small amounts of money to artists, activists and journalists (all culture workers in our eyes).  Alicia Marván, founder of Guapamacátaro, an Interdisciplinary Residency in Art and Ecology in Michoacán, Mexico, wanted to make sure that she could invite Mexican artists to join an international roster of guests.  So, in 2007  freeDimensional gave Laura Silva Cervantes (pictured here), a dancer, teacher and choreographer from Oaxaca, a fellowship to participate in Guapamacátaro’s thematic residency focused on place and community.  Also in 2007, freeDimensional responded to an urgent call from The Rory Peck Trust for support to Lamin Fatty, a journalist from The Gambia, who quickly needed a place to stay for two weeks while long-term plans were being arranged.  freeDimensional provided a Creative Safe Haven residency to Fatty at a partner center in Dakar, Senegal; and it was understood that - due to recent trauma - he would need to be cared for, fed and oriented by staff of the art space.  In this situation, it was necessary to offer a small daily stipend to Fatty so he could pay for the essentials and build up his strength to make another move.  And in 2008 we saw an opportunity to help Darfuri Peace Singer, Abazar Hamid, begin performing again after he moved his family from Sudan to Cairo, Egypt.  All three of these experiences were building blocks that helped freeDimensional (build a case for and) develop its Creative Resistance Fund.

It’s fair to say that we wouldn’t get anything done at all if not for a reliable network of supporters and friends.  As we embark upon the R&D phase of the Creative Resistance Fund, both Res Artis & Wooloo are helping us get the word out about a new rapid response distress fund for artists doing the work of activists … and we thank them for this exposure!

This site is the new online home of the Creative Resistance Fund, a project of freeDimensional. Welcome!

Since formally launching the Creative Resistance Fund, we met Kianoush Ramezani, Iranian cartoonist and chronicler of the Green Movement. Reporters sans Frontières notified freeDimensional that Ramezani was stuck in Paris without a place to sleep as he awaited political asylum status and he became the first official grantee of the Fund.

Thanks to Kianoush for the drawing above and see more of his work by following his blog!

Applicants to the Creative Resistance Fund may also benefit from a list of resources for activists and culture workers in distress compiled by freeDimensional staff, volunteers, and partners. Click here to access this guide.

Apply here.

Eligibility

The Creative Resistance Fund is intended for activists and culture workers in situations of distress as a result of their professional work. Distress situations may include verbal threats, imprisonment or legal persecution, violent attack, professional or social exclusion, or harassment. In assessing potential cases, freeDimensional confirms the validity of the persecution faced with trusted outside sources and conducts its own independent research. We also consider the extent to which our limited resources can be effective in relation to the urgency of the situation.