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Arts Gowanus News: January 2, 2025
Arts and Entertainment
January 3, 2025
From: Arts GowanusHey art lovers, Welcome to 2025... we are hitting the ground running!
Today marks the culmination of years of hard work advocacy for the creative community in Gowanus. The day has finally come the lottery for the first batch of Subsidized Artist Studios is now OPEN!
AND we are super excited to announce that we are now accepting applications for our brand new Fellowship Program!
FIRST... we are thrilled to welcome Gayah Imani Gillson to the Arts Gowanus Board of Directors!
Gayah Imani Gillson is a BIPOC, QTPOC, TwoSpirit Brooklyn-based/International Artist, Healer, Visionary Activist, and Spiritual Worker. She is the founder and artistic director of Theater of the Liberated, a performance community in Gowanus, Brooklyn - and soon to launch, Artist Temple, a multi-media online company.
Gayah's work spans multiple disciplines:
1. Theater/performance art: Creates/directs interactive, immersive, socially conscious, and enriching performances, sometimes including fine arts (drawings, paintings, colláge, pottery, etc).
2. Film/Music: Highlights/celebrates themes of intersectional visibility, opening conversations for heightened awareness and social change.
3. Activism: Focuses on social justice, racial equity, community engagement, and empowerment.
4. Spirituality: Integrates meditation, mindfulness, ancestral wisdom, ritual, and healing arts practices.
5. Education: Facilitates workshops, retreats, and training programs.
Gayah's guidance has been invaluable as we roll out the Arts Gowanus Fellowship Program!
The Arts Gowanus subsidized studios are finally here!!
Arts Gowanus worked tirelessly to secure a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) for subsidized artist studios as part of the Gowanus Rezoning.
The Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) provides over 100 subsidized artist studios at 11 development sites, with a negotiated cost well below the existing median artist studio prices in the area.
Subsidized Artist Studios
We're thrilled to announce that the first subsidized studio spaces will open at at The Shop, a coworking space at 420 Carroll Street, in spring of 2025!
APPLICATIONS ARE NOW OPEN!!
MORE EXCITING NEWS!
We are launching our new Fellowship Program for low-income artists!!
The Arts Gowanus Fellowship Program
Launching in conjunction with the first lottery for subsidized artist studios, Arts Gowanus is proud to welcome two Fellows in 2025 as part of our new Arts Gowanus Fellowship Program.
Brooklyn-based artists who are low-income/upwardly mobile, working in any medium, and at all stages of their career are invited to apply for the Arts Gowanus Artist Fellowship Program in January 2025, which offers free studio space for one year.
*Residents of The Gowanus Houses, Wyckoff Gardens, and Red Hook Houses will be prioritized.
The Arts Gowanus Community Artist Fellowship seeks to also provide material and production support to each participant.
In addition to access to studio spaces, fellows will participate in individually tailored career development workshops and studio visits led by artists, curators, gallerists, and cultural workers.
Fellows will take part in Arts Gowanus’s year-round programming, and these year-long fellowships will culminate in solo exhibitions by each fellow, open to the public and supported and in a space provided by Arts Gowanus.
THE ARTS GOWANUS FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT!
A donation today will help fund free studio space, career development workshops, production + material support, and a final exhibition for two Fellows in 2025!
“Affordability and access to workspace remains one of the biggest challenges facing working artists today, We know that even the cost of the subsidized studios we negotiated in the CBA may still be a barrier to some, and we want to keep fighting for a more equitable Gowanus in any way we can; the Arts Gowanus Fellowship will make a sustainable art career accessible to even more members of our community.”
-- Johnny Thornton,
Arts Gowanus Executive Director.