PARTICIPANT INC

Emerging from the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis in post-9/11 New York City and informed by the unresolved histories of the alternative space movement, PARTICIPANT INC is an educational corporation and not-for-profit art space engaging communities through in-depth artist collaborations, exhibitions, performances, and estates work as radical acts of care. PARTICIPANT supports generative curatorial and critical practices made through the lens of social, racial, and environmental justice and centers LGBTQIA2S+, BIPOC, disabled, and low-income artists. We foster expanding definitions of diversity, access, and service to artists’ legacies. Values: DEPTH: We understand depth as founded on the practice of a durational commitment to nurturing long-term relationships with artists and collaborators. Over the past two decades, we have worked at the nexus of exhibitions, archives and estates to build an extended community of relationships characterized by their substance and durability. PARTICIPANT believes that relationships with artists don’t end with the completion of a project or, in some cases, an artist’s lifetime; instead, that accumulated knowledge creates a responsibility to nurture cross-generational dialogues around artists’ work that calls for an afterlife, and speaks to future audiences. CARE: Throughout our history, PARTICIPANT has evolved in close conversation with the radical visions of the artists we support. Of particular significance to our early development was a generation of queer artists who, faced with the HIV/AIDS crisis, paved the way for our past and future work through radical acts of care and resistance, entangling these two concepts in new ways. As we evolve, our work with artists and activists involved in the fight for disability justice has introduced us to a vocabulary that builds on this history while giving new shape and political context to our long-held values and practices invested in care. ACCESS: We strive to eliminate social, cultural, and physical barriers to unmediated experiences of art. We remain conscious that removing physical barriers, ASL interpretation, and open captioning constitute a starting point, not an endpoint. We recognize that economic justice is often a prerequisite for access. Free entry remains a powerful baseline for offsetting inequality and for exploring how PARTICIPANT can fully open our doors to individuals of all experiences. As a not-for-profit art space, we are conscious of the ways the art world functions and work diligently against extractive, hierarchical models. Our work proposes different models of engagement, working toward an action-oriented archive, remembering as practice, and presenting work that not only revises but also contributes to multiple, parallel art histories. PARTICIPANT is committed to creating an inclusive and welcoming alternative space for people of all abilities. SUSTAINABILITY: We recognize that the climate crisis intersects with the many structural injustices facing artists and communities. We believe the root causes and direct effects will increasingly be felt across all sectors, including the arts. PARTICIPANT is committed to steadily decreasing our environmental footprint as well as advocating for systemic change within our sector. We see our work as part of a dynamic network — a mobilization of care and practices to support sustainability for artists and art workers as agents of collective transformation.