Vision & Mission
FTP artists at our annual December showcase in 2018.
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For the People Artists Collective is a radical squad of Black artists and artists of color in Chicago.
As artists who organize, it is our duty to create work that uplifts and projects struggle, resistance, liberation, and survival within and for our marginalized communities and movements in our city and our world. Our collective strives to make the radical power of art accessible to organizations and efforts that want to build visibly stronger and more irresistible movements for liberation. |
We believe art is not an afterthought; it is an essential part of our path to liberation.
Our artists are committed to challenging mainstream, dominant narratives by uplifting and supporting the efforts of those existing at the margins of the margins, including queer people of color, Black queer and trans women, femmes, abundant bodies, indigenous, undocumented, disabled, chronically-ill, low-income, poor, and disenfranchised people in Chicago.
We recognize that while we make art out of the love for our people and with the goal of liberation, we also know that art is real labor that often sustains our livelihoods. We are actively creating tangible practices of sustaining ourselves as artists in order to share and learn skills to make a living and retain nourishment from art.
We are committed to creating artwork for and with organizations and efforts based on sliding scales, mutual aid, organizational budgets, and transparent conversations.