As CRNY celebrates its final months as an organization, and as we look to our growing community of artists organizers, movement leaders, and guaranteed income champions to carry on and build upon this collective work, we’re ecstatic to share the Artist Power Building School, a home to support artists, arts collectives, and organizations in New York State and across the country to spread knowledge about economic justice and foster base-building within the guaranteed income movement. 

The School is composed of 1) our 2024 Artist Power Building School Fellows, 2) our Guaranteed Income Political Education Partners, and 3) a four-part workshop series for Fellows and all GI participants. 

The Fellowship is a collective of 23 incredible artist fellows who are spending the next six months building the bridge across varied facets of the movement for equitable economic justice policy—as well as reflecting on and activating their experiences as Guaranteed Income participants. Through workshops, advocacy, and connection, these fellows will advance our call to amplify artist voices in the guaranteed income space. From now through December 2024, fellows will attend virtual workshops and community calls to share knowledge, learn new skills, and grow relationships with fellow GI Artists; participate in public GI-related conversations through press and media engagement; advocate for policy change and show up to movement events, advocacy days, and strategic campaigns; and build connections to GI movement leaders who will carry this work past CRNY’s tenure. To that end, 18 of our fellows will be attending the 2024 BIG Conference in San Francisco this month, an opportunity to meet one another, celebrate, and learn more about the movement. 

Our 2024 Artist Power Build School fellows are:

Mars Abrahamsen, Capital Region

Chemareea Biggs, New York City

Jacinta Bunnell, Mid-Hudson

Devika Chandnani, New York City

Yaching Cheung, New York City

Marcos de Jesús, New York City

Kara Fan, New York City

Chidera Ihejirika, New York City

Azure’ Kauikeolani Iversen-Keahi, Capital Region

Iya Brenda M-Espinosa, Finger Lakes

Columbine Macher, New York City

Kenneth McQueen, New York City

Casseophia Medlock, Finger Lakes

Jaclyn Mendez, North Country

Jacqueline Moncada, Long Island

Chris Myers, New York City

Peggy Robles-Alvarado, New York City

SassaCyprigo, Mid-Hudson

Antoinette Scott, Western New York

ziele sol, Southern Tier

Clarissa Spiller, Western New York

Serious Voice, Long Island

Gabrielle Wedderburn, Central New York

Alongside the Fellowship, GI Political Education Partners are five groundbreaking organizations who are committed to deepening a collective understanding of guaranteed income; learning from one another about political approaches to organizing and base-building toward robust economic justice efforts; and spreading the word about our Everyone Is Essential! curriculum. Everyone Is Essential! is a 2-part course about the history of guaranteed income and its contemporary place in the movement for economic justice. The course was developed by Creatives Rebuild New York and Eshe Shukura Cultural Strategist at The Georgia Resilience and Opportunity Fund, and produced by Art.coop and CreativeStudy. 

Political Education Partners will organize conversations within their respective communities about guaranteed income and solidarity economy frameworks; spread the word about Everyone Is Essential! within their networks and organizing spaces; and participate in group reflections with other Education Partners.

Our 2024 Guaranteed Income Political Education Partners are: IndieSpace; Anticapitalism for Artists, Springboard For The Arts, Waymakers Collective: The RiffRaff Arts Collective, and Waymakers Collective: The Bottom.

In June and July, CRNY hosted a GI Workshop Series, available to all our Guaranteed Income participants. Workshops included: “The Economy, Our Labor, and the Case for Guaranteed Income” with Dr. Francisco Perez at Economics 4 Emancipation and Chelsea Wilkinson at Income Movement; “Policy Change Through Grassroots Organizing + Movement Building” with Rebecca Bailin at New Yorkers United for Child Care; “How To Shift the Narrative with Key GI Messages” with the Economic Security Project; and “Art, Social Justice, and Cultural Organizing” with the Laundromat Project. The workshops presented an opportunity to share wisdom, discuss new practices, and connect the dots between artistic practice and economic justice.

Movements for economic justice take time and rely on people power. Through the Power Building School, we’re excited to play a part in galvanizing artists and organizers within the guaranteed income space to learn more about the movement, connect with one another, ignite GI conversations, and become champions for GI and direct cash-related policy and advocacy pushes. Artist organizers are central to the GI movement, and while CRNY will close its doors at the end of 2024, the fight for economic justice will only grow stronger.

Photo credit: Jacinta Bunnell— Latchkey Latch Hook Township (2024, ArtPort, Kingston, New York)