The Strange Foundation Gives the Creative Residency an Upgrade
The shape-shifting entity sparks conversations on how to build a better future. Its new Election Infusions program supports those pouring their energy into turning out the vote.
/ OCTOBER 07, 2020
/ FEATURED
A riverside compound down the road from Woodstock, New York. Check. A barn workspace that dates back to the 19th century. Check. A view of a pond and forested mountains. Check, check. The Strange Foundation’s property has all the trappings of an off-the-beaten-path creative residency. But where it differs from many is that it is open to creative practitioners who aren’t “artists” in the traditional sense and hosts one-week residencies that can fit in with family obligations and work schedules.
The plan for fall 2020 was to host an on-site residency program that would support political organizers in the run-up to the election. However, that idea has moved online in the form of Election Infusions, which this week provided $10,000 in grants to five groups working on projects that get people to think about how they participate in the election. The grantees included Shape Up The Vote, which empowers barbers to engage their clients in conversations about participating in the upcoming election, and Color Jax Blue, which brings black artists and voter advocacy groups together to inspire citizens of Jacksonville to turn out the vote.
Willa Köerner, The Strange Foundation co-founder—and former Content Director for Kickstarter’s The Creative Independent—discusses starting “The Strange,” how to build a better residency program, and the ways Election Infusion nominees are energizing their communities.
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What types of conversations does The Strange Foundation aim to spark and facilitate?
The Strange is a shape-shifting entity that can evolve and adapt based on the conversations that feel necessary to spark. Mostly though, we’re interested in facilitating work that addresses how to build a better future.
Since we got started, we’ve focused on building out a residency program that supports creative practitioners amplifying change across disciplines. Most of the residents we host aren’t visual artists—they’re journalists, organizers, curators, designers, politicians, writers, botanists, arts administrators, social-justice entrepreneurs, and everyone in between. The key aspect that ties all the residents we’ve hosted together is that each of them is imagining a more sustainable and equitable future—and taking proactive steps to make it real.
What question did you initially set out to answer?
When we got started with our space, a key question I had was: Why should residencies only be for full-time artists or writers working on books, instead of for social entrepreneurs or underpaid columnists, or for people with stressful full-time jobs who are still doing incredible work—and who really need a chance to slow down? We call our residency a Decelerator, because its primary aim is to give our residents a week of time to rest, refuel, and refocus.
A quiet spot for concentration. Image of resident Esther Y. Kang by Willa Köerner / The Strange Foundation
What led to your Election Infusions granting initiative?
Normally, we host two residency sessions per year: One in the spring, and one in the fall. We host about 20 people per session over the course of two weeks. In March of 2020, we were just about to start hosting our spring Decelerator residency, which was Earth 1.0-themed, and had the aim of supporting creative practitioners whose work centers on the environment, climate justice, and healing for the natural world. Then COVID hit, and we had to pause all operations until hosting felt safe.
We just started hosting residents again at the end of the summer, but with limited capacity since we’re keeping everyone socially-distanced. So, long story short, we weren’t able to host a second cohort of residents this fall. This was a bummer, because we had been planning to run a program that would support political organizers in the run-up to the election. But since we no longer had space to do that, we decided to do a granting initiative instead, as another way to offer support.
With Election Infusions, we’re committing $10,000 to supporting critical election-focused projects, as nominated by our community. This has led to our community making over 125 nominations of people and projects who are pouring their energy into turning out the vote, amplifying underrepresented voices in our political system, and in many cases electing a new president and flipping the Senate towards a progressive agenda. You can see all eligible projects that were nominated—and support them directly—in our public Directory of Election-Focused Initiatives.
Top row, left to right: Boyuan Gao and Johan Mantin hold a strategy session for Project Inkblot; Willa Köerner and Daniel Morgan, co-founders of The Strange Foundation, with Frankie. Middle row, left to right: Collateral from Shape Up the Vote, displayed at Graham’s Barber Shop in Pittsburgh, PA; members of the Creative Resiliency Collective: Andrea Ngan, El Sigelman, Sterling Johnson and Dianne Loftis. Bottom row, left to right: Yumna Al-Arashi and Frankie take a moment on the porch; Shape Up the Vote poster prominently displayed at the entrance of Graham’s Barber Shop in Pittsburgh, PA. Shape Up the Vote images courtesy of Graham’s Barber Shop. Strange Foundation images, Willa Köerner.
Tell us the story behind Shape Up the Vote.
It exists to help barbers to talk to their clients about participating in the upcoming election, and even distribute voter registration forms right from their barbershops. This project feels so smart to me because it reaches people in a direct but previously untapped way. Barbers are important figures within their communities, with connections to all types of people. They need to make chit-chat with each person who sits in their chair, so why not use those moments to encourage members of their community to vote?
Everyone needs a haircut, so it feels like such a natural way to reach across political divides. Another great part of this project is that they’ve already started scaling it up: While rooted in Pennsylvania, they’ve already got over 100 barbershops recruited into the program and are working to expand into swing states. Interested readers can sign up as a barber, or apply to join up as a field organizer.
How can someone get involved with The Strange Foundation?
The Strange Foundation is growing slowly and largely behind the scenes, because it’s just me and Daniel (my husband and co-founder) doing everything ourselves, in our spare time. It’s a labor of love, which we do because we’re obsessed with doing what we can to help re-engineer the status quo. For other people who are looking to help build a better future, I recommend finding your own niche or points of leverage from which you can proactively affect change. Don’t wait for someone else to give you that opportunity.
Working towards a better future is a way of life, not an item to be checked off of our collective to-do list. As we’ve all seen this year in particular, the path towards progress is long and mired in obstacles, slips, and set-backs. That doesn’t mean we’re not getting there though, slowly but surely. Things are changing, and while it can feel insurmountable at times, ripple effects are real. All it takes to make a ripple is a small splash. So get out there and do your part.
To get involved with The Strange, sign up for their newsletter and follow them on Instagram and Twitter. If you’re looking for more ways to get involved with the election, consider supporting or volunteering with organizations like Power the Polls, Knock for Democracy, and Black Voters Matter.
Matt McCue is the co-founder of Creative Factor. He lives in New York City, but is willing to travel long distances for a good meal.