Are you a cool chick making cool art? If so, you should know about YOUNITY. Founded in 2007 by New York City artists Alice Mizrachi and Toofly, the organization’s mission is to provide a forum for women artists to share their ideas and showcase their work. According to YOUNITY: ‘The confines of galleries were too rigid and staid; the ‘white cube’ did not lend much room for personal expression and individual style. [We] wanted to create a place wherein females could tell their own stories in more universal, down-to-earth voices. [We] also wanted to build a stable community in which [we] could teach the next generation what goes into the process of setting up art shows and try to successfully spread artistic ideas.’
YOUNITY puts those ideas into action with a mentoring program for inner-city art students, quarterly workshops about urban art history, panel discussions, and female-driven shows that blow traditional gallery exhibitions out of the water (think crazy-cool video projections, funky fashion shows, and just about anything else you can imagine, all in unexpected places).
If you want to get involved, now is the perfect time to do so–YOUNITY is looking for artists worldwide to participate in its outdoor exhibition, FRESHER! The NYC-based show is aimed at bringing community awareness to environmental issues including recycling, global warming, and pollution. FRESHER! will also include youth workshops, mural projects, and panel discussions. Plus, the organization will self-publish a collectors book based on the exhibition.
YOUNITY will choose 10-15 new artists to show their work this year, and each artist will be asked to create a piece based on the environmental theme. They’re also calling for artists and crews worldwide to help out with YOUNITY’s Re-Fresh the Streets mural project. Check out the Web site for application instructions for either of those. More info is also available on YOUNITY’s MySpace page. Hurry up, though! The deadline is June 1!
P.S. If you’re an art lover but you don’t make art, you can also give YOUNITY kudos in the form of a donation.–Jax
Photo courtesy of superk8nyc , via Flickr.
