the benevolent misconduct society had its first meeting on September 7th 2023

Held at the Deep End Studios, a group of artists gathered together to dream up alternatives to the current arts system.

https://phillyfringe.org/event-archive/benevolent-misconduct-a-vision-for-the-future-of-art-making/

invitation:

overview

Welcome to the Benevolent Misconduct Society!

Drawing on the work of Felix Rosado (Healing Futures Program Coordinator at the Youth Art & Self-empowerment Project) we will be gathering to examine what the abolition of our current funding systems in the arts could look like.

We will be adapting Felix’s work in abolition of the prison systems to examine these questions:

What needs do we have that aren’t being addressed by the current art funding systems?
What would a process in the community look like that can better address our needs?

Participants can expect to take part in small group dreaming exercises and ultimately share their vision with the larger group. This is a dreaming session, and the first of many to come.

About the Artist

Benevolent Misconduct is an emerging collective- of which you are invited take part. 

This collective asks how our systems of supporting artists can be egalitarian and inclusive. The current system of grants, residencies and the like are fundamentally exclusionary and symptomatic of a larger problem within the arts-- namely that our institutions are captialist, white supremecist and elitist in nature.

Benevolent Misconduct seeks to disrupt the current systems and institutions in the arts while dreaming forth processes in the artistic community that would support the needs of all artists.

what happened:

The group collectively reflected on Felix’s questions and came up with a light hearted allbeit heartfelt skit to concretize the work that had been done. The ritual of enacting/dreaming was named “The Baby Pool”