INVESTING IN DIVERSITY
As part of Strange Fire Collective’s commitment to creating a venue for work that critically questions the dominant social hierarchy and highlighting work made by women, people of color, and queer and trans artists, this guide is intended to offer a centralized list of collectives who are committed to similar work.
We invite our readers to think about these questions:
Who has access to make, exhibit, and publish artwork?
Who has access to higher education, particularly BFAs and MFAs?
Who and what is being exhibited, collected, and published? Who makes those decisions?
Who gets to tell which stories?
What complications arise when the identities of the makers differ from those of the subjects, particularly when members of marginalized groups don’t have access to tell their own stories?
Women Photograph
Women Photograph is an initiative that launched in 2017 to elevate the voices of women and nonbinary visual journalists. The private database includes more than 1,000 independent documentary photographers based in 100+ countries and is available privately to any commissioning editor or organization. This database is organized by region. For access to the complete database, which includes contact details, languages spoken, HEFAT info, and more, a contact email is provided.
Center for Photographers of Color
The Center for Photographers of Color seeks to promote emerging and under-represented artists of color working within photography, digital imaging, and other lens-based media. Their goal is to collaborate with artists from diverse backgrounds whose work challenges the monolithic historical narratives within culture and art. Through this collaborative approach, the center aims to create a sustainable creative community through the commissioning, support, oral history, and archiving of original works as a public education resource to address identity and representation.
Diversify Photo
Diversify Photo is a community of BIPOC and non-western photographers, editors, and visual producers working to break with the predominantly colonial and patriarchal eye through which history and the mass media has seen and recorded the images of our time. The international online database is used by editors at major media outlets seeking to diversify their rosters of visual storytellers. They also create networking, exhibiting, speaking, community-building, and resource-sharing opportunities for members.
Black Disabled Creatives
Black Disabled Creatives is a database and community of disabled Black artists and other creatives available for hire, organized by discipline. Jillian Mercado, founder, writes: “By showcasing creatives on a global scale, we aim to not only offer an accessible platform for hiring personnel but to help bridge the divide for creatives with disabilities.”
Photographer’s Green Book
Founded by artist and educator Jay Simple, the Photographer’s Green Book is an online resource for inclusion, diversity, equity, and advocacy within the world of photographic arts. Their mission is to promote organizations and collect published resources that reflect these values, as well as aggregating a list of questions for photo-educators that encourages self-examination and criticism.
Prints for Protest
Prints for Protest™ consists of a diverse group of artists and activists who share the belief that art can be used as a tool for political activism and resistance. The initial Prints for Protest™ campaign was established as a reaction to the November 2016 U.S. presidential election and offered participating artists an opportunity to confront the political landscape. This 2016 campaign expressed reflections and rejections and on the socio-political obstacles we continue to navigate.
Anti-Racist Art Teachers
An online resource run by art educators who have volunteered their time, which aims to remove biases, stereotypes, and false narratives in art education.
Anti-Racism Resources in the Art World
Developed by Artsy, this is a list of resources that call for and support systemic change in the art industry.
Archive of Documentary Arts
The Archive of Documentary Arts is part of Duke University’s David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Each year, they have an open call for collection awards, with the categories for documentarians of color, documentarians of the American South, documentarians of environmental change, emerging documentarians, and female documentarians. Each selected artist receives funds to produce a body of work to be added to the collection. This collecting initiative is an intentional effort to increase diversity in their collections and to more accurately represent documentary work being made today.
En Foco
En Foco is a non-profit that supports contemporary primarily U.S.-based photographers of African, Asian, Latino, Native American and Pacific Islander heritage. Through exhibitions, workshops, events and publications, it provides professional recognition, honoraria and assistance to photographers as they grow into different stages of their careers.
The Center for Photography at Woodstock
The Center for Photography at Woodstock’s Artist-in-Residence Program was created to support photography-based artists of color and to expand the dialogue around diversity, race and identity in the context of social justice. CPW firmly believes that accessibility, representation and diversity are critical to contemporary discourse on photography. Pluralism and acceptance are needed in our society now more than ever.
Threewalls
Founded in 2003, Threewalls is a cultural nonprofit that supports visual artists in Chicago by fostering contemporary art practices that respond to lived experiences, encouraging connections beyond art. They have committed to awarding $900,000 to artists who identify as African, Latinx, Asian, Arab, or Native American.
Black Women of Print
Black Women of Print is an African diaspora centered platform, a digital homeplace for independent, mid-career and established Black women printmakers. The organization serves as a place to support and promote the visibility of Black women printmakers and as a professional member directory of Black women printmakers who practice within the field.
Printers Without Margins
A project by Pickwick Independent Press, a community print shop in Portland, ME, interested in collaborating with individuals and organizations working for social, racial, economic, environmental and gender justice.
Towards Utopia
A print sale in solidarity with Black trans people and sex workers, offering affordable editions and prints by artists. This sale benefits G.L.I.T.S, SWOP Brooklyn, and For The Gworls.
Print Resources for Social Justice
The International Print Center New York and The Print Center, Philadelphia have come together to aggregate resources related to print and print culture supporting Black Lives Matter and other social justice causes. The list is a work in progress born of the 2020 Black Lives Matter uprisings.