Future
freeDimensional is a ten year initiative that supports art spaces and culture workers advancing social justice. freeDimensional partners with art spaces to provide safe haven for oppressed culture workers in their residency apartments and introduce new ideas to the public through bold exhibitions and inclusive educational programs. The Creative Resistance Fund goes one step further by providing small distress grants to people in danger due to their use of creativity to fight injustice. In the first five years we steeped ourselves in the artist residency model in order to develop Creative Safe Haven. Over the next five years, we will build capacity to implement the Creative Safe Haven service amongst the intersecting networks on which we have relied in our first stage. At the same time we are learning all we can about rapid response, emergency distress funds in order to grow the Creative Resistance Fund, another service with potential to bridge the arts community and human rights sector.
By making this programmatic shift, we seek to develop variations of support based on obstacles we have experienced from over 60 cases helping activists, artists, journalists, musicians, writers, theater directors, and community organizers from more than 30 countries. We learned that the Creative Safe Haven model of hosting culture workers-in-distress in artist residency apartments works, but often requires finishing funds (even when accommodation is offered in-kind) for travel or incidental needs. The Creative Resistance Fund is intended to provide small distress grants that enable the culture worker to evacuate a dangerous situation or to cover living costs while weighing long-term options for safety.