About fD
Overview
freeDimensional engages in a particular style of networking that builds on existing resources in the art, media and entertainment sectors in order to engage and financially underwrite direct actions necessary to help culture workers-in-distress and use their stories to illustrate critical, contemporary issues. Art and creativity are often commodified without acknowledgment of the social issues they represent, and thus the relation between culture and society erodes. freeDimensional seeks to strengthen this relation by taking practical steps to ensure individual safety, raise awareness and instigate change.
Mission
freeDimensional organizes community arts space and local resources for the support and protection of individuals who create dialogue on global issues and inequalities through their art and media.
Vision
freeDimensional envisions a world in which diverse ideas and rigorous debate are nurtured by inclusive community spaces that are unique for their creative outlook, a process that results in direct action on critical, contemporary issues.
Guiding Principles
Independent art and media are communication tools that can be used to resist entrenched power structures. We understand that resistance often results in censorship and can lead to official or self-imposed exile.
The creation of local arts and media in communities around the world gives rise to the existence of available space that can also be used (in the same spirit) for the creative safe haven of artists, activists and citizen journalists in need of assistance. By focusing on the work of independent artists, activists and citizen journalists (the mouthpieces of society) and scaling up the freeDimensional placement model, we are able to change the conditions that negatively impact vulnerable groups and society-at-large.
Phase I
The freeDimensional network was born of a dilemma: the need for accommodation experienced by culture workers-in-distress. Therefore, fD developed a system to partner residential artist communities with human rights and freedom of expression organizations in order to facilitate rapid response, creative safe haven.
The network provides administrative support to art and media centers worldwide that seek to create a web of flexible, short-term safe havens for human rights defenders working at the intersection of arts and journalism. Residential Artist Communities will benefit from this unique collaboration through enriched community, youth and environmental programs and by using their physical space to counter marginalizing issues at the local, regional and global levels. By organizing the freeDimensional Network, we strongly believe that a practical human rights solution can be realized through collaboration across two sectors of civil society.
Phase II
As fD evolves, members of the network have begun to share models for working with vulnerable groups in their communities. fD is helping to build capacity in these local initiatives and use their experiences to develop toolkits for community outreach.
freeDimensional is opening a regional office in Cairo at its partner center, the Townhouse Gallery. fD Executive Director Todd Lester's blog, Living Together: Cairo is documenting the process:
fD is supporting its Dakar partner center, Atelier Moustapha Dime, to raise awareness on the growing number of West Africans dying at sea while attempting economic migration. Find out more information at Taking IT Global.
Our partners during this phase are:
Tadamon
Tadamon is an Egyptian & refugee multi-cultural council that grew from fD partner center Townhouse's outreach program. More information coming soon.
Inklusion
Visit Danish nominating partner, Inklusion, at inklusion.dk.
FAQs
How does the Creative Safe Haven Service (Phase I) support freeDimensional stakeholders?
- Providing short-term studio and residential space for artists, activists and citizen journalists experiencing censorship, xenophobia and/or economic marginalization;
- Building partnerships between our stakeholders and local youth for the production of public art and independent media that expresses their individual concerns as well as those of the communities they represent;
- Distributing these media products using mainstream and alternative venues and targeted advocacy platforms to reach diverse audiences and decision-makers.
What are the criteria for individual support?
freeDimensional works with artist residency initiatives and neighborhood associations around the world to respond rapidly using their physical space as creative safe haven at crucial times for individual artists, activists and citizen journalists in need of assistance. These community sites constitute our global network, through which we accommodate:
- Young communicators working in any media who lack support and the protective recognition of the international community for their creative work detailing / explaining oppressive social issues;
- Artists working with new media that are not fully understood in their local area and for which there is government backlash and sanction;
- Artists and communicators expressing themselves on environmental issues, particularly those elucidating the politics surrounding natural resources and migration.
How do artists, activists and citizen journalists also fill the role of human rights defenders?
fD supports culture workers who are actively defending human rights. Human rights defenders expose "human rights violations, such as torture and disappearances, committed by state agents. They speak out on behalf of marginalized social groups, children, indigenous and poor people. They seek to end impunity by challenging the perpetrators of human rights violations and reminding all states of their obligation to bring perpetrators to justice and to uphold the rule of law. In some countries human rights defenders are often the only credible source of information regarding human rights violations." (See Amnesty International)
How can community art spaces help?
Artistic communities are often the first to step up to assist artists who are particularly hard-hit by tragedy, political strife, and funding declines. One artists' community altered its entire residency program to accommodate any New York artists who lost their studios in the World Trade Center. Another has sought out artists from Afghanistan and Iraq. Similar solutions have been created within the residency sector to support artists and centers that are victims of fires, tsunami and, most recently, Hurricane Katrina. (see Alliance of Artist Communities)
How does fD recruit partner centers?
Working with human rights and freedom of expression organizations, freeDimensional will seek placement referrals to fill short-term live/work space available throughout the network. Placement selections are based on the following criteria: (a) urgency of each individual situation; (b) geographical proximity or ease of access from the individual's country of origin; and (c) available media support, equipment and periods when space is available. See Nominating Organizations.
What is fD doing in Phase II?
As fD evolves, members of the network have begun to share models for working with vulnerable groups in their communities. fD is helping to build capacity in these local initiatives and use their experiences to develop toolkits for community outreach.
People
Management Team
Todd Lester, Executive Director
todd@freedimensional.org
Over the course of 2006 and early 2007, Todd worked with Reporters Without Borders to establish its New York communications desk. In late 2005, he served as Katrina Relief Project Manager for FilmAid International, for which he designed and implemented the organization's first domestic and natural disaster response intervention. Before that, Todd was Information and Advocacy Manager for the International Rescue Committee in Sudan. He holds a Masters of Public Administration from Rutgers University and is candidate for Doctorate of Public & Urban Policy at the New School for Social Research. (Founding Board Member)
Stefan Barbic, Managing Director
stefan@freedimensional.org
After receiving his MA from the Graduate Program in International Affairs from the New School, Stefan has been dedicated to including arts and culture in all levels of the development and nonprofit world. His work has ranged from project management in Douala, Cameroon to developing and running theatre based workshops in juvenile detention centers in New York City. Stefan has worked with freeDimensional since the Summer of 2006 and looks forward to working with them in the years to come.
Meral Agish, Artist Engagement Coordinator
meral@freedimensional.org
After completing her undergraduate studies in literature and the history of art at Yale University, Meral returned to her hometown of New York City and has since worked on projects at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, the Jen Bekman Gallery, and the 2005 Istanbul Biennial. She is currently studying the social dimensions of architecture at the CUNY Graduate Center and collaborating on community art projects as the Outreach Coordinator for the Center for International Art in Community.
Arthur Bouie, Youth Engagement Coordinator
arthur@freedimensional.org
Arthur is currently working as a Web Designer/Developer, Human Resource Consultant and, Podcaster. He's an all around technologist, working with various enterprises to improve both their human and technological resources. He is currently working with Ad Hoc Art/Peripheral Media Project to build a community, art, and design space for East Williamsburg. He's currently finishing up his B.A. in Business, and holds four certificates in Computer Programming, Technical, and Network support.
Alisa Cooper de Uribe, Development Coordinator
alisa@freedimensional.org
Alisa is a freelance writer and translator living in the metropolitan area of Mexico City. Holding degrees in English and Spanish, she has worked in the areas of both arts and education, providing translation services in the former, and fostering multi-cultural awareness in the latter. In addition to translating for various publications, Alisa currently facilitates an English-speaking conversation group for expatriates in Mexico City and maintains a blog about Mexico and its culture, alisacooper.typepad.com.
International Steering Committee
AFRICA
Ebenezer Obadare
Ebenezer Obadare is currently a Visiting Research Fellow in the Centre for Civil Society, Department of Social Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, from where he took his PhD in Social Policy in April 2005. He holds undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in History and International Relations respectively. In 2004, he was awarded the MacArthur Foundation's prestigious Research and Writing grant for a study of the short- and long-term impacts of transnational resource flow on citizenship in Africa. In 2003, through the Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, he received a research grant to study the citizenship effects of the Nigerian national service program. Dr. Obadare has been the recipient of numerous other competitive awards and research grants from internationally acclaimed research bodies, including the Social Science Research Council (New York), the Ford Foundation, the Gerd and Ebelin Bucerius Foundation, and the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA). He was a visiting scholar in the autumn of 2004 at the Transregional Center for Democratic Studies (TCDS), New School University, New York; and from 1995 to 2001, he was on the faculty of the Department of international relations, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. Before joining the academia, he was a national award-winning reporter with TEMPO newsmagazine, famous for spearheading the resistance to military rule in Nigeria in the early 1990s.
Kristin B. Palitza
Kristin B. Palitza has been working as a journalist, writer, and news editor for daily newspapers and news publications in Europe, the US and South Africa for more than ten years. She currently lives and works as a writer and journalist in Durban, South Africa, from where she reports about developmental, humanitarian, political and socioeconomic issues.
www.kristinpalitza.com
AMERICAS
Hugo Espinel
Hugo Espinel is a documentary filmmaker. He is the director of Threatened, an intimate portrayal of five people whose convictions have caused them to live under the threat of death in Colombia. Hugo has produced several institutional documentaries in Colombia for the government, NGOs and other non-profits dealing with subjects such as protection for indigent children and exposés on the government's indifference to slums and shanty towns. (Founding Board Member)
DW Gibson
DW Gibson currently serves as Executive Director of the Ledig House International Writer's Colony in Hudson, New York, which is part of the Art Omi International Arts Center. As a writer, his work has been published in various literary journals including Oxford Magazine and Alaska Quarterly. He spent some time as an script editor and writer on documentaries for PBS, A&E Television Network, and MSNBC. Some of his credits include "Eugene O'Neill Biography"; "Lost Generation Biography"; "The Hate Network"; "Inside Alcoholics Anonymous". His children's novel, FUNDORADO ISLAND, was published by Random House in 2006. He is currently working on a novel for adult readers.
Matilde Damele
Matilde Damele is a New York based photographer since 1999. Her current project is "street photography" in New York as well as Brazil. Her focus is mainly to represent women in contemporary society independently from race, class and age differences. She's also developed a project on boxing. She's exhibited in the city and taught photography workshops in Manhattan and in Brooklyn for freeDimensional. Her work can be seen at: www.matildedamele.com
Emiko Kasahara
Emiko Kasahara is a multi-media artist. In addition to her writing and lecturing, Emiko has received awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts (US), Pola Art Foundation (Japan), the Agency for Cultural Affairs (Japan), Asian Cultural Council (US) and was artist-in-residence at Cartier Foundation (France) in 1991. Her current project, SHEER, a sound and sculpture installation on the memory of loss, is exhibited at the Japan Society in New York City from October '07 thru January '08.
Una Karina Harders
With her "songs without borders" programs classical singer Una Karina Harders performs songs from the Italian Renaissance to contemporary music, Broadway and Jazz. The soprano has given song recitals in cathedrals, concert halls, cultural centers, at festivals and galas all over Germany, as well as in Austria, Switzerland, Turkey and Egypt. Here in NYC the German native has performed at New York's Lincoln Center, Flushing Meadows Park, the New York Public Library Recital Series and Eisenhower Park, among others, and has just been chosen for the Music Under New York MTA music series. Her own ensemble, the "Fruity Fruits Orchestra" (accordeon, vibraphones, viola and bass) accompanies her song recitals. Una has participated in a variety of performances with contemporary filmmakers, visual artists, writers and composers. She also teaches with great passion in her own voice studio in NYC.
Matthew Knouff
Matthew Knouff is an attorney, writer, musician, and elementary school tutor from North Carolina who currently resides in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. He received a J.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has since gained experience in both the public and private sectors in areas of law including litigation, criminal law, intellectual property, non-profit governance, international human rights, and corporate compliance and responsibility. As founder of the late Venge Records, an internationally distributed recording label and production company, he helped connect independent and under-resourced musicians with audiences around the globe. Matt has also drawn from his experience to help other entrepreneurs create their own media and arts organizations. As an advocate for community development and empowerment, he has worked with various groups including the NC Commission on Volunteerism and Community Service; The Empowerment Project, a non-profit organization which help to democratize access to the media; JusticeWorks Community, a Brooklyn based non-profit that advocates for humane and effective criminal justice policies. In 2006, Matthew was recognized by the City Bar Justice Center for his commitment to volunteerism.
Jennifer Pritheeva Samuel
Jennifer Pritheeva Samuel is a Sri Lankan-American photographer and filmmaker based in Brooklyn. She is currently working on a film for PBS FRONTLINE on business and climate change. She is also shooting stills for Innocents Lost, a film about child soldiers in Sri Lanka, Colombia and DRC. In the past she has shot for Jazz at Lincoln Center, Central Park Summerstage and World Music Institute and worked on productions for PBS Frontline, Dance in America, ABC 20/20 as well as numerous independent films. Jennifer has traveled extensively throughout the Caribbean and spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in the island of Dominica. Her academic background in international and community development informs her interests artistically. Jennifer holds a B.A. in Anthropology with a minor in Music from New York University and a Master in International Affairs from the School of International & Public Affairs at Columbia University.
Antwuan Wallace
Antwuan Wallace is an activist-scholar who helps construct policy innovations with politically marginalized and economically stratified communities. He formerly served as Program Consultant for the Funding Exchange's (FEX) Media Justice Fund, where he coordinated efforts to organize activists, practitioners and analyst to elevate issues of equality and fairness within a social justice framework. He earned a B.A. from Hampton University, a MPA from Indiana University-Bloomington and is a doctoral candidate in Policy Analysis at New School University.
Max von Duerckheim
Max von Duerckheim is German and American and has studied and worked in the Middle East and Africa. Max was most recently in Khartoum, Sudan where he managed a project using theatre for peacebuilding and human development. He now lives in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area where he is pursuing his acting career.
Ashley Josleyn French
Ashley is a Program Consultant with Advantage Testing in New York City, where she consults parents and students regarding appropriate educational programs and researches issues in standardized testing. Ashley received a Master of Arts in Sociology of Education (Policy Concentration) from Columbia University, Teachers College. She has been involved with the Shiloh After-School Program and Shiloh Mentoring Program for almost six years where she has taught classes, adapted curriculum, trained incoming staff, and been a teen mentor. Previously Ashley conducted research and documentation for New Visions for Public Schools for their Best Practices series on New York City public school programs for English Language Learners.
Alexandra Zobel
Alexandra is an adjunct professor of English at Brooklyn College. She has worked extensively with youth from coaching high school girls in standardized test preparation to creating and leading art appreciation programs for urban Latino youth. She is currently a New York Council for Humanities Fellow studying and leading discussions on the American work ethic in literature. (Founding Board Member)
Giuliana Chamedes
Giuliana is a writer and teacher. She is doing a PhD at Columbia University on the history of human rights.
Ari Moore
Ari Moore is a queer vegan artist / activist, and one half of Brooklyn design and consulting partnership Shirari Industries. Her work has appeared in Bushwick Open Studios 2007 and in publications including Feminist Review, The Socialist, and the Indypendent. You can read her blog and see her work at shirari.com.
Shira Golding
Shira is an activist who does graphic design, film, music and writing through Shirari Industries, a creative and consulting services company serving activists, nonprofits and artists. After completing her first film, In Search of Golding Street, and graduating Magna Cum Laude from Cornell University she worked for Arts Engine for over five years, creating school curricula, co-directing the Media That Matters Film Festival and traveling around the country to screen films and speak about distribution, youth filmmaking and media justice. Her work has been featured in MediaRights.org, Brooklyn Museum, Bushwick Open Studios, and The Indypendent and she has worked as an editor and designer on award-winning films including Gypsy Caravan (Tribeca Film Festival, PBS) and Election Day (South by Southwest Film Festival, P.O.V.) . She is also on the board of MIX NYC, a queer experimental film festival. shirari.com.
EUROPE
Kevin Prade
Kevin Prade worked with the International Rescue Committee in Sudan in its Monitoring & Evaluation Unit. In this capacity, he gathered relevant information and wrote rapid assessments for protection programming. Additionally, Kevin produced a "Most Valuable Information - CD Rom" for use by 800 field staff throughout Sudan. He currently works with the United Nation Mission In Sudan (UNMIS) as a base manager in Nyala (Darfur) for a helicopter company providing emergency evacuation for NGO workers. Main interests: Humanitarian affairs, fair trade, different cultures and traditions, fashion, music and basic sound creation (including DJing).
Blaire Dessent
Blaire Dessent is the Director for the Visual Arts Residency for the Omi International Arts Center. Blaire was formerly the Program Manager at the Bohen Foundation, a non-profit art foundation, and a Director at Friedrich Petzel Gallery, both in New York City. She holds a Masters in Art History from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Blaire splits her time between New York and Paris.
Melita Rogelj
Melita Rogelj's primary focus is developing strategies for organizations to shift operations towards environmental, social and financial sustainability using systems dynamics and sustainable development principles. She also combines the perspectives of art, environmental policy, commerce and cultural heritage to create environments that empower individuals to seek sustainability in their private and professional lives by providing them with positive, life-affirming reasons to do so. Following a Masters in intercultural management, she sought to forge an alliance between the worlds of art and sciences for sustainability by founding Arches for Art in New York City. The Rockefeller Foundation rewarded her commitment by awarding her a two-year Leadership for Environment and Development (LEAD) fellowship. Melita is based in Brussels, Belgium.
Devin Zuber
Devin Zuber is an assistant professor (Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter) in the Institute for English and American Studies at the University of Osnabrück. Mr. Zuber holds a MA in Literature and a Master in Philosophy from the City University of New York, and his current PhD dissertation, “The Science of Beauty: Swedenborg, Ecology, and Romantic Aesthetics,” received the City University’s Monroe Carell Dissertation Fellowship for 2007-2008. Recent publications include an article on 9/11 memorial aesthetics for American Quarterly, which was awarded second place for the Constant Rourke Prize, and forthcoming chapter contributions to Orient and Orientalisms in American Poetics (Lang Verlag, 2008), and Gaps in the Pavement: Reflections on Nature in New York City (2009). Mr. Zuber has held teaching fellowships at Queens College and at the Smithsonian Institution’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and remains interested in aesthetic intersections between literature and visual art.
Suzanne Schwarz Zuber
Suzanne Schwarz Zuber works as a freelance curator and educator in Munich, Germany. Her interest lies in the potential of art, design and history to empower today's youth and to foster creative community building. A particular focus in her museum teaching is to introduce sustainable design and to expose the complex relationships between consumption and exploitation.
EURASIA
Seta Iskandarian
Seta Iskandarian is currently working as a researcher for the Center For Work-Life Policy. Prior to that she was a financial analyst for the Estée Lauder Companies. She has extensive experience as a consultant for small businesses and non-profits in New York and Armenia. She has volunteered and started development projects in South East Asia, Armenia and Italy. She has an MBA from Fordham University and recently started her Ph.D. in public policy at the New School.
ASIA
Tricia Wang
Tricia is an education, media, and youth development specialist. She teaches participatory peer-enabled multi-media classes and develops culturally relevant teaching programs through new media technology and popular culture. Tricia's experience in community organizing, media production, and cultural programming has enabled her to bring a strong interdisciplinary approach to developing genuine youth-cultured empowerment models. Whether she is working with youth Beijing-China, low-income youth in the South Bronx or immigrant youth in San Diego, she is interested in observing how young people negotiate their personal stories using technology and media literacy. www.youmeiti.com >
Peer Nominators
Jose Ferreira, New Media Arts
Jose Ferreira was born in Mozambique and grew up in South Africa. He recently returned to South Africa after a four-year stay in London where he served as a Research Fellow in Digital Media at Sunderland University. While in London, he also lectured in media and cultural studies at various universities including the University of East London, Winchester School of Art and the University of Portsmouth. His own practice incorporates multidisciplinary media in which he engages debates about the self, technology, history and post-colonialism. Jose has worked as an independent curator since 1998, initiating projects and fundraising with various institutions. He was also a co-initiator of The Trinity Session, an arts collaborative that initiates projects globally. Jose is based in Johannesburg, South Africa but soon begins a new job as Assistant Professor of Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Salman Ahmad, Performing Arts
Salman Ahmad is a doctor by training and a rock musician by profession. Salman went to grade school in his birth place of Lahore, Pakistan and then moved with his family to New York. After graduating from high school in the US he got his medical degree from Pakistan's King Edward Medical college in Lahore. While in medical school he was also a member of Pakistan's first pop band, Vital Signs, whose debut album sold a million copies. The album included the mega-hit anthem "Dil, Dil Pakistan". The success of Dil Dil Pakistan made the Vital Signs into a household name. This is when Salman decided that he was going to give up his stethoscope and pick up the guitar. He left the Vital Signs in 1990 and founded South Asia's biggest rock band, Junoon. Junoon won Channel V's "best international group award" in India and has also been the subject of a VH-1 documentary, Islamabad: Rock City presented by Susan Sarandon. Junoon has sold over 25 million albums worldwide and has the distinction of being the first ever rock band to be invited to perform at the U.N. General Assembly by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan back in 2001.
Salman has also been appointed as U.N. Goodwill Ambassador for HIV/AIDS. He has personalized the "I care, do you?" UN poster campaign in Pakistan by paraphrasing a popular Quranic verse "saving one life (from AIDS) is like saving the whole of humanity". He's been interviewed or quoted in major newspaper and magazine publications including the New York Times, Boston Globe, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Newsweek and Time Magazine and has also appeared as a commentator on major television networks like CNN, BBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, MTV, VH-1 and other global media networks. Recently he has appeared in two documentary films: It's My Country Too on Muslim-Americans and Rockstar and the Mullahs which won a SAJA Award. Both films have been broadcast worldwide on PBS and the BBC.
Post 9/11 Salman toured a number of colleges in the United States to bridge the gap between Muslims and the west. He has performed and screened his documentaries at over 24 colleges including Princeton University, Harvard, Stanford, American, George Washington University, UPenn, MIT, Michigan, Boston University and Purdue University. Salman recently finished his "Heart of America" Tour by performing at Kansas State University, Pittsburg University, NAFSA Regional Conference and University of Missouri in Kansas City.
Salman is a passionate activist in promoting peace in the Asian Sub-Continent. His efforts in bridge-building between India and Pakistan have resulted in a song/video he produced called Ghoom Tana, which is featured on his latest solo album INFINITI and is currently being broadcast on MTV Desi in the US. www.junoon.com
Contact
freeDimensional
c/o Magnolia Tree Earth Center
677 LaFayette Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11216 USA
E:
For local NYC programs, check out our new site, artincommunity.org, the online home of Center for International Art in Community (CIAC).
CAIRO
Townhouse Gallery of Contemporary Art
Hussein El Me'mar Pasha Street
Off Mahmoud Basyouni Street
Downtown, Cairo
Postal Address:
10 Nabrawy Street
off Champollion Street
Downtown, Cairo - Egypt
PONDICHERRY
Sangam House
Pondicherry, India
SAO PAULO
Casa das Caldeiras
Avenida Francisco Matarazzo 2000 CEP 05001400
Água Branca, São Paulo - SP
Brazil
BERLIN
Ufa Fabrik
Viktoriastraße 10 - 18
12 105 Berlin - Germany
