Mission
Guided by the core principles of Care, Trust, Slowness, and Mutual Aid, EC’s mission is to revolutionize arts patronage for early-career artists, while curbing exploitation, and stimulating the growth of a supportive arts community in New York, that shares its resources with those who have historically been denied them.
EC works toward this mission by:
Providing artists with long term curatorial, production, and mentorship support, leading up to the public dissemination of their work through exhibitions, programs, and publishing.
Implementing a code of conduct, or Care Standard, to be applied across all levels of EC’s operations and activities.
Stimulating symbiotic relationships and coalitions with like-minded art organizations through its collaborative exhibition model.
EC’s mission serves historically marginalized and undervalued artists, with a special focus on trans and queer artists of color from underground and nightlife communities, whose work is often overlooked by mainstream art institutions.
EC understands that making art is not a solitary occupation, and requires longterm access to time, money, space, and community guidance.
Extensive Support
EC’s non-commercial, hybrid model combines the reliable representation aspect of gallery systems, with the loyalty and encouragement to experiment provided by art non-profits.
To make completing current projects, or producing new work even possible, as well as to supplement the high cost of living in New York, EC’s Extensive Support model provides artists with monthly, unrestricted stipends over a one year period of time leading up to a solo exhibition of the their work, to which EC also contributes support.
Throughout the duration of each artist’s Extensive Support cycle, EC also provides access to mentorship by arranging studio visits with established artists, and meetings with industry leaders from its vast network.
Collaborative Exhibition Model
To fulfill its network building goals, as well as funnel more of its resources directly to artists themselves, EC’s exhibitions and programs are hosted at and with partnering art organizations and venues.
This collaborative exhibition model also creates space for slowness and flexibility to guide EC’s programming structure, as we navigate our current precarious reality.
EC’s Extensive Support Model is devoted to early-career artists without access to generational wealth, whose minority identities have historically marginalized them.
Language is integral to EC’s functionality and one of the main vehicles through which the organization communicates its vision, and works toward its mission.
Since EC’s projects are heavily reliant on collaboration and trust, contracts, or Consensual Agreements, become EC’s love-language.
Beyond legitimizing Loyalty and Trust as professional working standards, and outlining EC’s responsibilities, and in turn, what it expects from its partners, Consensual Agreements also perform a coalition-building function by serving as mediums to spread EC’s manifesto: The Care Standard.
Everything EC touches, becomes part of its Care Network.