From August to December 2021, the Art+Feminism leadership team (Mohammed Sadat Abdulai, Amber Berson, Melissa Tamani, Kira Wisniewski, Nina Yeboah) took an organizational pause on all regularly scheduled programmatic activities to prioritize creating internal anti-oppression policies and mechanisms. This, in a way, became our programming.

The leadership team became deeply engaged in this work by: participating in ongoing meetings, readings and discussions, working through past trauma, examining how white supremacy/Anglo Saxon practices perpetuate in our everyday work culture (such as sense of urgency and centering/overrepresenting U.S. culture), and creating operational definitions of concepts like equity and racism.

We specifically focused on developing an anti-racism policy to be implemented across the organization and inform new work culture practices rooted in restorative justice. We do not want to have just words on a page, but rather move Art+Feminism toward a cultural shift with established policies and protocols that help the organization be more consistent with its values. We also envision regular org-wide trainings in the future to help us all be in alignment with this work. 

This is important and hard work that takes time.

As a team, we believe that we are a stronger organization now that we have the anti-racism policy and equity statement in place. We are committed to continuing on this trajectory as these two protocols are the first steps to sustainable change. We hope that you are able to take a moment to review both the new policy and statement below (available currently in English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese) and are as enthusiastic as we are to carry out the mission of Art+Feminism together.