DEFUND + DEFEND: DIGITAL ARTIFACT SALE FOR M4BL
NMC Statement of Solidarity
The New Media Caucus (NMC) is a volunteer-run organization of artists, educators, theorists, technologists, and cultural producers whose core mission is to support, extend, and promote the diverse new-media art community based on values of equity, respect, and knowledge-sharing. The NMC stands in solidarity with all efforts towards Black Liberation. Black Lives Matter. Black Art Matters. This is not a moment to be silent. This is a moment to take a clear and unequivocal stand and say enough is enough.
We proudly support and showcase the work of black artists, technologists, scholars, designers, and makers and have benefited immensely from black cultural production.
We have a lot of work ahead of us, and we invite you, our members, to come with us. We at the NMC pledge to commit to doing the anti-racism work of amplifying the voices of black, brown, and lgtbqia+ communities, utilizing our privileges and platforms for listening, learning, accountability, and most importantly action in the long-term, in the small and large spaces we individually occupy. Please join us as we move from allyship to accomplices through our programming into the future, as we commit as a community to move our society forward.
To move beyond the theatricality of allyship we recognize that this pledge requires action. Over the past three years, we have committed to building our programming, seeking to actively engage with issues of diversity, equality, and inclusion. While we have taken these commitments seriously, we still have a long way to go.
Below are some ongoing and future projects we are developing. We invite our members to contribute, expand, and keep building in more meaningful and useful ways.
what we will continue to do, what we have begun doing, and how we can potentially expand
- In 2018 we initiated an annual scholarship we hope to continue and build. This scholarship provides funding for BIPOC students to attend the annual CAA conference, providing for a total of 6 students thus far.
Donate To the Scholarship
- We have highlighted the work and scholarship of our members in our Member Spotlight series, with the explicit goal of highlighting the work of BIPOC in the new media field.
View Member Spotlights
- We have started a gallery, Header Footer Gallery, whose mission is to create exhibition opportunities directly on our website, centering New Media Artists outside of the normative western New Media canon. Our current open call for Flesh Spaces, curated by Constanza Salazar “brings to light the voices and artworks of Women of Color and members of the LGBTQ+ community that presently interrogate recent issues surrounding online spaces and digital technologies 30 years after the emergence of cyberfeminism”
Apply to the Open Call
- In 2019 we started an initiative focused on identifying and developing resources for decolonizing the field of new media art, including education. This initiative is still in the works and will be launching soon.
- Defend and Defund: Fundraiser for M4BL: the goal of this initiative is to contribute acute support and solidarity with The Movement for Black Lives, responding to their 7 Days of Action. Submission portal opening June 13th via the NMC website. But if you can't wait you can donate to the M4BL right now!
- A commitment to advancing art and scholarship by BIPOC in our 2022 Symposium and Exhibition at Virginia Tech. Opportunities to take action coming soon.
- We commit to an annual fundraiser, starting with the Defend and Defund initiative mentioned above, for the duration of the current presidency (3 years), to be re-evaluated after that time. We encourage our future leadership to continue this initiative. Future iterations will partner with organizations advancing the work of BIPOC in the fields of Art and Design and Technology.
Consider supporting
- Black Visions Collective
- Black Lives Matter
- The Movement for Black Lives
- Reclaim the Block
- National Bail Out
- Chicago Bond Fund
- Brave Space Alliance
- National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls
- Chicago ROAR
- Activation Residency
- Black Trans Femmes in the Arts Collective
- Southeast Community Commission
- Marsha P Johnson Institute
- Auction to Support Protests and Communities Against Police Violence
- Our friends at Ortega Y Gasset Projects have organized an Instagram auction of works donated by each co-director with 100% of the proceeds benefiting COVID Bail Out NYC.
New Media Organizations:
Learn More:
- Cafe con Libros
- The Antiracist Research & Policy Center
- Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture resources: Talking About Race
- Noname’s Book Club
- Chicago ROAR
- FTP III Operations Manual
- Brooklyn Library’s anti-racism reading lists for all ages
- Ortega y Gasset’s list of resources
- Rachel Cargle’S The Great Unlearn
- SURJ
- Layla Saad’s The Good Ancestor Academy
- Erica Hart’s Racial and Social Justice 101 (and 202!)
- Sonya Renee Taylor’s The Body is Not an Appology: The Power of Radical Self Love
Check out:
- Instagram bot that informs users using the BlackLivesMatter tag to post solid images that they may be accidentally hiding important information about the movement.
- This is a tool for anonymizing photographs taken at protests.
Know of any other New Media or New Media adjacent tools centering movement activities initiated by Black creatives? Email us!
