Get Artists Paid and MAMI presents Art is Labor: A Day of Creative Advocacy and Critical Imagination, a day long event that centers holistic sustainability for artists in today’s precarious economy.

Join us for discussions and workshops that cover topics such as managing student loan debt, healthful eating on a budget, internet security, making sense of the commissioning processes, and more, as well as an ART IS LABOR marketplace with goods for sale by local qtpoc artists. The day will wrap with a mixer and DJ sets by D0UZE and Cremosa.

Schedule of Events

1:00-6:00PM
ART IS LABOR Market
Goods for sale or barter by qtpoc artists featuring:
The Bettys
Stephanie Griffin
Sakuradaijin & Moonbear
Artist Statements 101 with Shama Rahman
HERban Cura
Inshadycompany
HAT_LINE
Odiosas
Matthew Scott Gualco
Yung Nihilist Vintage
BROOKLYN HI-ART MACHINE
Santa Isla
Mojuicy
Ayqa Khan
Black Boy Feelings
Wyeth Moss
Roxana Santana
Holyrad Studio
Caribienne
rayo & honey
Cósmica
Yellow Jackets Collective
La Chamba Press
Danni Hu-Yang
Wet Blanket Enterprises
BALTI GURLS
3 dot zine
Braids by Mariama
Fikira Bakery
Bandaid Baby
Criminal Pussy
La Liga Zine

1:30-3:00PM
Panel Discussion: Co-operative vs. Co-opting
With Suhaly Bautista-Carolina, Barbara Calderón, Natalia Linares and Tsige Tafesse
Moderated by Luna Olavarria Gallegos

“Co-operative vs. Co-opting”: A conversation around the complexities of creating, consuming and representing ourselves as creatives in a capitalist system rooted in exploitation. Is it possible to create a cooperative and sustainable creative ecosystem in today’s times, and if so, how? What are examples of tangible resistance, pre-existing and co-existing, that create necessary friction against destructive institutional paradigms? What are the alternatives to exploitative economies and how do we create lasting and realistic change?

3:15-4:15PM
Workshop: Healthy Eating on a Budget
Facilitator: Janel Coleman
How can we take care of both our bodies and our pockets? This workshop will cover how to sustain a healthy diet on a budget. We will explore the myth of healthy eating being an expensive privilege and the necessity of maintaining good health in order to pursue our passions.

About Janel: My name is Janel and I spend a lot of quality time with food. Currently, I have a B.S. in Public Health and am a Certified Holistic Health Coach. My interest in nutrition was sparked by being a broke college student while developing food allergies and intolerances. My goal is to provide communities with knowledge and support, so people become self-motivated to practice self-care throughout the entirety of their lives.
IG: @janellaurel

4:20-5:20PM
Workshop: Web Security for Dissident Artists
Facilitator: Candace Williams
Although web security seems daunting, there are basic concepts, tools, and strategies that dissident artists can use to make better choices about how they secure online communications. This session includes an overview of threat modeling as well as basic messaging and email security strategies. There will also be time for conversation/Q&A about web security topics. By the end of the session, participants should be able to take 1-2 concrete web security steps.

About Candace: Candace Williams’ poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Hyperallergic, Lambda Literary Review, and the Brooklyn Poets Anthology (Brooklyn Arts Press), among other places. Her first collection, Spells for Black Wizards, won the the Atlas Review’s 2017 Chapbook Series. She’s earned a MA in Elementary Education from Stanford University, a Brooklyn Poets Fellowship, and scholarships from Cave Canem. She’s performed, presented, and taught workshops at the Obie-winning Bushwick Starr Theater, the New Museum, Dixon Place, Eyebeam, and the Museum of Arts and Design.

5:30-6:30PM
Workshop: Debt-Free Denae: Meet An Artist Who Paid Off Her Student Loans…Are You Next?
Facilitator: Denae Famada
Join dancer Denae Famada for a conversation on dealing with student loans. She will share her personal story of becoming debt-free, the skills she learned along the way, and offer steps to help start your journey to life without student loans. Bye Sallie!

About Denae: A native of Fort Worth, Texas, Denae Famada is a comedian, choreographer and burlesque artist based in Brooklyn, NY. She’s the creator of the dance and comedy collective DNA Comedy and performs burlesque as her alter-ego Ravenessa. She believes in the power of humor, movement and fun to create new perspectives and engage difficult topics. She received her B.A. in Drama from Stanford University and M.F.A. in Performance & Choreography from Florida State University. She studied at The Alvin Ailey School, The Peoples Improv Theatre and is an Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB) alum in both improv and sketch comedy. Ms. Famada was a 2012 EMERGENYC fellow with New York University’s Hemispheric Institute for Performance & Politics, a 2012-2013 Commissioned Artist at Stanford University, a 2013 TEDxStanford performer, a 2014 Laundromat Project Fellow, a 2015 UCB Diversity Fellow and is the winner of the 2016 NBC Inclusion Scholarship. Her original dance comedy shows have been performed at NYC SketchFest, SOLOCOM, SPANK, NACHMO, Brooklyn Museum, the Comedy in Dance Festival, and Women in Dance curated by Camille A. Brown. Ms. Famada is currently work on her book about becoming debt-free and posts tips weekly. Learn more at Debt-Free Denae on Facebook.

3:00-5:00PM
Workshop: Demystifying the Process of Commissioned Work
Facilitator: New Negress Film Society

Members of the New Negress Film Society will screen commissioned work and then engage in a frank Q&A discussion about our experiences making work for companies. We hope to cover topics such as the value of Black Women’s creative work within a capitalist framework, tactics used by companies to keep artists’ rates low, and tips for calculating your rate.

BIO: The New Negress Film Society is a core collective of black women filmmakers whose priority is to create community and spaces for support, exhibition and consciousness-raising. The group is formed by Frances Bodomo, Ja’Tovia Gary, Chanelle Aponte Pearson, Stefani Saintonge and Dyani Douze.

4:30PM-6:00PM
Workshop: Healing//MerKaBa for the Hoeteps
Facilitator: Tabita Rezaire

Join in a meditative journey into Kemetic wisdom to awaken your light beings and reclaim your hoetep powers. In our times of ultra disconnection, ancient African teachings offer guidance to raise our vibrational frequency and tune into our energy source. The spiritual technology of Kemetic Yoga enables us to reconnect, remember and nurture our divine juice. Come turn your MerKaBa on.

Instructions for optimum experience: wear a comfortable power outfit, bring a yoga mat (or a towel) and water to stay hydrated.

About Tabita: Tabita Rezaire (b.1989, Paris, France) is a French-born Guyanese/Danish new media artist, intersectional preacher, health practitioner, tech-politics researcher and Kemetic/ Kundalini Yoga teacher based in Johannesburg. She holds a Bachelor in Economics (Paris) and a Master in Artist Moving Image from Central Saint Martins College (London). Rezaire’s practice explores the possibilities of decolonial healing through the politics of technology, seeking to unlearn, remember and reconnect. Navigating architectures of power – online and offline – her works tackle the pervasive matrix of coloniality and its affects on identity, technology, sexuality, health and spirituality. Disseminating light through screen based interfaces; her digital healing activism offers substitute readings decentering occidental authority, so as to assist the dismantling of our white supremacist-patriarchal-cis-hetero-globalized world screen. Rezaire is a founding member of NTU, half of the duo Malaxa, and mother of the energy house SENEB.

5:30-6:30PM
How to Effectively Provide Opportunities + Space for Marginalized Voices in DJ Culture
Facilitator: Frankie Decaiza Hutchinson (Discwoman)

Since Discwoman’s inception, our main concern has been platforming those with less representation in broader society, specifically women, gender nonconforming folks, people of color. I’m going to share the experiences we’ve had since our beginning, covering what has worked and what has not worked. We will focus on how to effectively benefit those most vulnerable in our communities, how to redirect resources from white cis men and how that is a politically potent action. After the presentation, I’d like to invite people to give their own feedback on their experiences and for us to collaboratively develop more effective ways to keep our voices centered.

About Frankie: Hailing from London, co-founder of Discwoman, Frankie Decaiza Hutchinson, moved to New York City in 2009. While in university, she developed an affection for the underground electronic music scene and began creating platforms for women. Since her move across seas, she’s worked in a range of places and areas of the city relating to media and culture that have ultimately led her to leading Discwoman.

6:30-8:30
MIXER
Unwind and process the day with a drink and sets by D0UZE and Cremosa.

About the organizers:
Get Artists Paid (G.A.P.) is an international alliance, formed online in 2016 as a collective response to ongoing exploitation in the art and media industries.

Get Artists Paid asks that artists receive just compensation for creative labor, which is the foundation of any sustainable society. We organize around identifying art as labor, demanding compensation for work and acknowledging that people of color have always created societal infrastructure without recognition. Members of our alliance include writers, curators, filmmakers, photographers, organizers, performers and musicians— all of whom are under-paid, misrepresented and largely professionally unrecognized.

MAMI is a curatorial initiative started by Dyani Douze and Ali Rosa-Salas after their co-curated exhibition in summer 2016 at Knockdown Center. They’ve partnered with BALTI GURLS, BBZ London, Browntourage, BUFU, POWRPLNT, Fake Accent, GET ARTISTS PAID, Holyrad Studio, Smart Girl Club, SISTER NYC, Top Rank Magazine, and many more womxn of color and collectives to organize community gatherings that center our survival. IG: @mami_dna