1. 2024 Webinar Series
  2. 2024 Webinar Series

Working Together: Arts Funding, Solidarity, and Non Hierarchical Program Structures

Tuesday, May 21, at 2pm EDT/11am PDT

  • Randi Berry, Executive Director, IndieSpace
  • Sruti Suryanarayanan, Core Organizer, Art.coop
  • Salem Tsegaye, Grantmaker
  • Haowen Wang, Director of Regranting, Dance/USA

Register Now

How do we think about ways of funding structurally based on a trust model? Can we build ourselves around the artists’ desires and individual choices? This webinar will explore various funding processes currently working in the field that use a non-hierarchical or solidarity-based approach. Join Randi Berry (IndieSpace), Sruti Suryanarayanan (Art.coop), Salem Tsegaye (formerly Mosaic Network and Fund), and Haowen Wang (Dance/USA) on Tuesday, May 21 at 2pm EDT for an interactive session that encourages participants to consider obstacles and possibilities in giving agency of program design and decision-making to artist-centered and non-hierarchical approaches. Breakout sessions will be facilitated by advocates of the Solidarity Economy Movement, including members of Art.coop.

This 90-minute webinar will include breakout discussions between members.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Live captioning will be available in English throughout the webinar. For additional accommodation requests, please contact GIA Program Manager Jaime Sharp, jaime@giarts.org, at least three (3) business days before the event.

 

Presenters

White woman with dark framed glasses, mid length brown and gray hair, black shirt with colorful necklace

Randi Berry, Executive Director, IndieSpace

Randi is an indie theater maker and organizer with over 20 years of dedicated service to the performing arts community. As the Executive Director of IndieSpace, she oversees radically transparent, equity-focused funding, real estate programs, and advocacy for individual artists, theater companies, and indie venues. She is dedicated to coalition building, partnerships and removing barriers to access. Randi oversaw the merger of Indie Theater Fund and IndieSpace in 2022, which together has provided over $2.5M in direct funding and countless hours of professional development and real estate advisory and consulting for the indie theater community. Randi co-founded the Cultural Solidarity Fund with 17 other cultural organizations, raising over $1.3M to support 2,030 artists. She spearheaded various initiatives through IndieSpace, including the AAPI Transportation Fund, Pay Your People, Milk and Eggs, Little Venue that Could and a 0% interest loan program for small budget organizations. Randi's expertise in real estate has benefited over 90 organizations, providing advisory services and securing affordable spaces, like the 99 year lease at $1 per year for the West Village Rehearsal Co-Op. 

South asian person with hair pulled into a bun, wearing a black mask with a zapatista image and a thick blue scarf wrapped around their neck, holding a mic to their face

Sruti Suryanarayanan, Core Organizer, Art.coop

Sruti Suryanarayanan (they/them) is a Brooklyn-based researcher-writer-artist studying how people use culture to resist the dominant systems of racial, economic, and migration inequity and build the future worlds we deserve. They use this focus to study, seed, and sustain the Solidarity Economy Movement in the arts and culture ecosystem led with, by, and for the self-determination of queer people of color, and away from state, interpersonal, and historically traumatic violence.

Black woman smiling with dark brown hair pulled back into a bun and wearing a black oxford shirt and red, gold, and orange beaded collar necklace

Salem Tsegaye, Grantmaker

Salem Tsegaye currently serves as a senior program associate for Humanities in Place at the Mellon Foundation. She formerly managed grantmaking in arts, culture, and historic preservation at The New York Community Trust, where she supported fellowships, awards, and services for working artists, capacity building for small nonprofits, social issue documentary filmmaking, cultural heritage preservation, and research, advocacy, and other efforts to foster equity and inclusion. She also has managed collaborative funds, including the Mosaic Network and Fund and New York City Cultural Agenda Fund. Salem previously worked as a research administrator at Virginia Commonwealth University, in development at the Queens Museum, and as a technical assistance provider to government agencies and small and midsize nonprofits in Washington D.C. She holds a BA in cultural anthropology from Duke University and an MA in design studies from The New School.

Haowen is a Taiwanese man with wavy black hair, brown eyes, and a light-medium complexion. Sitting with one arm resting on his knees and the other on his chin, he is smiling intently at the camera. He is in a dark blue backdrop and wearing a wine-red sweater, blue jeans, with a wristband and a silver wristwatch.

Haowen Wang, Director of Regranting, Dance/USA

Haowen Wang currently serves as Director of Regranting at Dance/USA, where he administers Dance/USA Fellowships for Artists (DFA), a national artist fellowship program for dance and social change. Between 2016 and 2021, Wang was Program Officer, Performing Arts, at Mid Atlantic Arts, where he oversaw a portfolio of longstanding regional performing arts presenting grants. In this capacity, he curated annual rosters of US-based and international artists for subsidy-supported tours. Previously, Wang was part of a team that managed two significant re-design processes of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s state and local regranting programs. At Asian American Arts Alliance, Wang piloted a two-year funding program serving traditional cultural groups in Manhattan’s Chinatown. In addition, Wang was General Manager at Ping Chong & Company and Executive Director at Yangtze Repertory Theatre of America. Born and raised in Taiwan with New Zealand and US citizenship, Wang holds an MA in Performance Studies from NYU and a Certificate from the Institute of Curatorial Practices in Performance at Wesleyan University.

Photo credit: Root Branch Media Group.