Applications for Cohort XII are now OPEN

THE FELLOWSHIP expands the skill-sets of emerging and mid-level arts and culture workers through personal and professional development curriculum. Through participation in this interactive learning cohort you will build relationships across sector, discipline, and role within the Bay Area’s arts and culture field.

WHO is a Culture Worker or Arts Administrator? You work in the field of arts and culture, that may be as a teaching artist, a gallerists, curator, non profit organization staff member (who manages or produces arts programming), you may be an independent media maker who publishes or produces events, you might be a community artists who runs your own or another artists programs. You make it possible for folks in your community or beyond to have access to creative and cultural experiences. This program is not intended for individual artists looking to focus on their own individual art practice.

To get an idea of the past program, take a look at our 2017 sample BROCHURE

Beginning in 2021, we shifted the format of the fellowship to incorporate intergenerational work and to better fit the realities of our new world, especially as we continue to navigate the global pandemic and recovery. The cohort now meets for shorter sessions more often, and focuses each year on one of our four Affinity Topics: Cultural Equity, Creative City, Regenerative Practices, and Arts & Capital.

We will continue to center our Equity Framework and Practices and empower art workers with invaluable tools and skills for leadership in the arts & culture field as we work towards an arts industry that is equitable for all people, is a valued and sustainable career sector, and honors the individual arts worker as a creative and whole person.

Cohort XII (2022 – 23)

This year, we focus on Regenerative Practices and advocacy as we reimagine the fellowship with past fellows and experienced arts workers who find themselves simultaneously healing from and operating within white institutions.

Cohort XII will redefine how the fellowship can best serve the arts sector by developing a new vision for regenerative practices to serve as a guiding star for future cohort and leadership development. We aim to give folks what they need to build a better sector by offering empowerment and resources to process and transform the traumas of professionalism we face everyday. The fellowship will combine arts practice with strategic planning to develop a fellowship model that nurtures space for arts professionals to heal and advocate for the changes needed to make a more equitable arts and culture sector.

New fellows will have the unique opportunity to be in dialogue with recent alumni throughout the fellowship and glean from their past experiences how to best progress the field of arts and culture further towards equity. Returning alumni for Cohort XII will be able to curate a support system that can be applied to future groups needing to collectively heal and advocate for change. The framework used within Cohort XII to sustain regenerative arts practices for arts and culture workers will be documented for future cohorts.

Fellows will use artistic expression as a means for allowing arts workers to maintain their practice and build the next iteration of support for arts workers and emergent leaders through our programming. Cohort XII will gather, share, and support one another to unravel the stories that make up our resilience and map out the skills needed to continue fighting for liberation. By the end of the program, we hope

Participants feel seen, nurtured, and empowered to advocate in community for the needs of arts professionals.

What are our objectives?

• For Arts & Culture Workers: To have a space to heal from white institutions using arts practices while building community alongside individuals in the field of arts and culture. To continue leadership development through centering decolonized leadership practices in arts and culture.
• For EAP: To support the healing, community building, professional development and empowerment of our network of arts and culture workers and leaders through training in EAP’s Equity Framework, cultural protocols, methodologies, and curriculum.
• For the Community: To see and understand the impact of harmful workplace practices within the arts industry. To understand suggestions for how we can work toward an arts industry that is equitable for all people, is a valued and sustainable career sector, and honors the individual arts worker as a creative and whole person.
• For the Field: A network of arts workers and cultural leaders who are thoughtful, critical, have shared language and regenerative practices, and who will advocate for compassionate care in the workplace. To reduce harms that are created by white institutions who don’t understand the experiences of BIPOC individuals and communities.