2020 Call To Create Application
CALL TO CREATE (C2C)
process is the project.
C2C engages a cohort of thinkers & creators in a 10 month process; cultivating spiritual, artistic & professional renewal. The call is a community effort in service of fostering personal and collective liberation. This process is an expression of Mother Mercy’s mission: making space & time to reimagine the purpose & pillars of our creativity.
Utilizing any creative medium of their choice, participants pursue a guided process of creating a work of art based on the interrogation of a singular question or “call”. We imagine the C2C question, and thus the call itself, would be in conversation with a goal or vision each participant has set for themselves this year outside of C2C. Therefore, the Call To Create isn’t just offering guidance but also accountability through this shared process. At the end of the 9th month, each participant will be required to share their work at an Open Studio event produced by Mother Mercy. As a cohort we will also participate in a panel discussion, sharing our creative process with our community. While Mother Mercy itself is an incubator, the Open Studio offers a platform that many thinkers & creators need to share their work and ideas. The 10th month will be dedicated to reflection & evaluation of the entire process, providing closure for the cohort, while also offering a new starting point for each participant to continue the work on their own.
The Call To Create is currently designed for thinkers & creators in the greater Boston area 21 years of age or older and who identify as Black (part of the African Diaspora), OR see their identity directly aligned and connected to global Black liberation & joy - thus are able to describe that connection in this application.
Revolution is not a one time event.
-Audre Lourde
COMMITMENT + EXPECTATIONS
This process is facilitated by Mother Mercy and completed in a community of multifaceted thinkers & creators. Each member of the cohort will be coming to this process from different phases in their spiritual, artistic and professional journeys. There are no educational requirements needed for participation, nor specific creative accomplishments expected. Nevertheless, it is important to understand the C2C process is loosely aligned with a graduate school workshop model and/or artist residency program. You must be committed to reading, writing & discussing your ideas and feelings throughout the entire project.
The Call To Create is free; required reading & writing materials are available to each participant upon acceptance. Community is a core component of this effort, still personal drive and individual work is equally important to the success of this process, and the completion of a final project. A C2C syllabus provides the framework within which the creative process will be documented, including details regarding the schedule of workshops, specific readings/activities, and other relevant information and resources. Once accepted, cohort members will be asked to sign an agreement to affirm their commitment and understanding of expectations. Applicants will have a week to review the agreement before confirming.
Summary of Expectations:
Workshops are mandatory. Monthly cohort workshops will be 3 hours long on a Saturday, with light refreshments provided. 3 additional dinner meetings with guest speakers addressing the SAP (spiritual, artistic & professional) of our process will also be scheduled.
If a participant misses 3 workshops or does not meet the expectations laid out in the signed commitment agreement, they will not be able to continue the process. If a participant is experiencing difficulties with their original commitment, or is in need of specific adjustments they must initiate a meeting with the facilitator to discuss further. If matters aren’t managed to mutual satisfaction, the participant will be contacted via email to schedule an exit interview formally, and will be expected to reimburse Mother Mercy $50 ( a subsidized fee covering launch materials).
Documentation is mandatory. There are several ways the cohort can document their personal creative process while working to answer the C2C question through creating art. Each participant is encouraged to document as much as possible, yet will only be required to share:
Bi-weekly journal entries, 200 word minimum on a shared google doc;
Monthly answers to process questions, completed during each C2C workshop;
One article, a minimum of 500 words (and original image) posted to the Musings page on mothermercy.org
Final project; a work of art/performance, complete or in progress, ready for Open Studio
Throughout the course of this work, each cohort member must submit three (3) documents during different phases of the process. Guidelines will be shared for each document:
Project timeline
Project proposal/abstract
Project budget
Exhibition of a final work ( or performance) is required. There will be a delicate balance of tending to the process of creating in community as much as the completion of a final project.
The Open Studio event will take place in November 2020, the 9th month.
If a project has not reached completion, participants will still share their work in progress.
Mother Mercy won’t be able to compensate each participant for their respective supplies throughout the process, yet funds are available for exhibition materials after the project budget is reviewed.
C2C CURRICULUM + THE QUESTION
A syllabus will be available the day of our official Call To Create launch on March 14, 2020. The C2C methods, schedule and expectations will be explored thoroughly, while offering time for the cohort to connect with each other intentionally over a meal. Our launch meeting will be longer than our monthly workshops and portions of it will be filmed to begin documenting our process together.
There are 3 objectives to the C2C curriculum, (SAP); growth as individuals and thus as a community of thinkers & creators:
spiritually (Phase I)
artisitcally (Phase II) &
professionally (Phase III)
Process Is The Project; this means, while a final piece of art-work is expected from each participant, the quality of the process in creating it will be privileged over the full completion of the work itself. This also means, while there is a syllabus for C2C, changes can and will be made based on the specific cohort and what unfolds in our process together. There may be changes in meeting dates, assigned text or even the pace in which we work or accomplish our objectives.
Breath work, check-ins and various writing prompts will be used not only to build community, but support in the creative practices of each participant. Still much of the actual art making will take place outside of workshop, thus personal time management and discipline are crucial to success. Collective study of text and workshop style feedback will be part of our process.
Emergent Strategy by Adrienne Maree Brown will be the main text aligning our study. In Brown’s own words: Emergent Strategy is how we intentionally change in ways that grow our capacity to embody the just and liberated worlds we long for...The book can be engaged nonlinearly. We will not read the entire book as a cohort, yet completion of the text is highly encouraged.
David Hammons Bliz-aard Ball Sale by Elena Filipovic will be used as a new supplemental text in the C2C curriculum. The “Bliz-aard Ball Sale” was an actual moment that happened in contemporary art, a significant moment in art’s recent development. We will engage in passages of the text as a means to affect our understanding of art in general; and further interrogate our reasons for making art and for who.
The Question:
You will work with the C2C guiding question for the duration of the process, although the answer may change as it becomes refined each month. The exploration of this question is intended to bring healing and learning within. The question itself isn’t as important as the actual process. All applicants will learn what the question is upon their acceptance into the 2020 cohort. They will be able to sit with the question before they sign the commitment agreement required to participate. A process for how to answer the question will be facilitated during the first launch meeting.
The C2C application process is open from February 2nd until February 17th. If your application is incomplete it will not be considered for review; please take time to ensure each question is answered to the best of your ability. If you have questions email them asap to connect@mothermercy.org.
ABOUT MOTHER MERCY (MM)
Mother Mercy isn’t a platform but rather a genuine effort to incubate and cultivate conditions that birth ideas and language needed to begin, and sustain, meaningful and evocative projects; projects rooted in the reimagining of the purpose & pillars of our creativity. Established in 2017 by JME, a Boston based creative & educator, Mother Mercy continues to evolve as a haven for thinkers & creators in Boston and beyond. As an art based incubator MM is still exploring its purpose, nevertheless actively making bridges to and from liberation movements, spirit & healing practices, art and community based work.
MM has allowed JME to share her academic training, grassroots organizing, and passions with a growing network. After 10+ years working in the non-profit sector in Boston & NYC, utilizing her BA in Black Studies & Political Science, as well as an MS in Urban Affairs, JME decided to pursue a Masters of Fine Arts at Emerson College, while teaching in their innovative First Year Writing Program. Soon after obtaining her MFA in creative writing, JME became a Callaloo Fellow and sought more opportunities to be witnessed and renewed specifically as a creative of color, a Black woman.
These experiences led to the making of Mother Mercy, a space imagined as a location of rest & renewal in service to artistic & intellectual birthwork. After bringing several creatives together to produce our first internal production, the Call To Create was piloted in 2019. The success and lessons learned made it clear C2C must be relaunched. Currently we have two active board members supporting this process: Dr. Jakeya (Courage) Caruthers & Dr. Meghan Venable Thomas.
J. Courage is Assistant Professor and Department Chair of African and African American Studies at Berea College. As an educator and scholar, she appreciates opportunities to fuse study of black feminist and queer theory, humor and affect, visual culture, and black political aesthetics with the practical work of organizing and growing the next generation of organizers - not only through classroom experiences but through beautifully organic encounters with everyday life. A member of Survived and Punished California, she is invested in prison abolition and decarceral strategies; this winter, she is excited to join an archival and data analysis project focused on criminalized survivors of gender violence and edit a special journal on abolitionist feminisms. A C2C Alum, she appreciated the opportunity to translate thoughts on issues like racial/cultural memory, supertextual expression, and digital culture into visual/text forms. Her first monograph will be born from those very analytic musings.
Meghan is the Cultural Resilience Program Director at Enterprise Community Partners, supporting community based practitioners across the country in integrating culturally grounded and healing centered practices into their work, for improved health outcomes. Meghan is also a cardio dance instructor and Community & Events Associate at TRILLFIT® and leads You Belong Here Retreats. As a Doctor of Public Health focused on how arts and culturally grounded practices impact health equity for people of color, she leverages both practices to think about creative opportunities for increasing wellness access and decreasing health disparities.
Mother Mercy is sustained by many muses, and has been privileged to work in alignment with several exceptional thinkers & creators since 2017. There isn’t a specific leadership model that MM has committed to just yet, nevertheless we know not to work in silos, nor abide to practices born of global white supremacy. Approaching our three year anniversary, we continue to evolve, especially through the work of C2C. Consider this an invitation to grow together.