How will the funds raised benefit NoMüNoMü’s mission?
Our hope is that this big fundraising push can get us ahead of next year so we can finally have a full year planned out. Much of the past two years have just been winging it and I have not been able to be as intentional as I’d like while planning our exhibition calendar.
I’d like to work with an integrated pedagogy that revolves around the themes of each show. If we can meet our fundraising goals, we will be able to fund not only exhibitions but lectures, free classes, art builds, teach-ins, movie nights, and more!
Are there any unique or compelling stories behind the fundraiser that you’d like to share with the potential supporters?
NoMüNoMü has transformed into a truly collaborative and community-based effort. I believe the success of our turn-outs, the range of arts and activist collectives we have worked with, exemplifies our value to the community.
One compelling event that stands out to me the most was the Plum Village Monastics of Thich Nhat Hanh concert that we hosted earlier this year. The event was our first attempt at fundraising for the gallery. The experience was deeply revealing to the ways in which NoMüNoMü can be utilized as a healing and connecting space.
The concert attracted audience members from Maryland, DC, New York, and France. And created some wonderful new relationships, with some people in attendance now regularly attending mindfulness meetings in the space.
So far, in just organizing this official fundraiser, so many wonderful people have shown up in ways I wouldn’t have imagined. They have volunteered their time and labor to make this event happen.
It is always amazing to experience people working together outside of the typical transactional ways we do. It genuinely feels like we are working together tied to a vision of something that we know can exist but needs to be built. There is a married couple volunteering their time, Dan and Safiyah, who I didn’t realize met because of an exhibition at our space. And now they’re on our advisory committee helping us with printing and outreach. It’s beautiful!
What can you tell us about the limited-edition portfolio you will be releasing on September 23rd? Can you speak some more about what makes this collection of prints unique and worth collecting?
The print portfolio is a beautiful assortment of artists we’ve worked with past and present, or not at all. I think it speaks to the range of artists we are in community with. Some of them are highly established and collected by museums and galleries, whereas others are completely unestablished!
It is important for our organization to distinguish itself in this way—we are not interested in reproducing hierarchies. We are interested in the process of collaboration and the conversations that different contexts can create, new contexts for artists that do not maintain the same pressures of careerism or market values.
The portfolio has been an incredibly fun process for everyone! At the price it will be selling for, the portfolio is an amazing deal for collectors of any range. Especially those who want to begin. We are also emphasizing accessibility, an important principle in our gallery. The range of aesthetics is all over the place, and it is hard to find this type of diversity anywhere else all in one portfolio!
