Be AFC’s Neighbor: Apply For Two Trees’ Cultural Space Subsidy Program

by Michael Anthony Farley on May 11, 2017 DUMBO + Opportunities

Install shot of "Strange Genitals" featuring

Install shot of “Strange Genitals” featuring (L-R) Ga Hee Park, Carol Cole, June Culp, Jared Buckheister, Saul Chernick, and Phaan Howng

We’re lucky participants in Two Trees’ Cultural Space Subsidy Program. The initiative rents space to artists and organizations at a mere $12/sq foot. It’s a price point virtually unheard of in ever-more-expensive areas such as DUMBO.

The program has successfully kept dozens of artists in the neighborhood, providing fantastic studio space as well as a home base for nonprofits such as AFC—we’ve been able to use our loft office at 20 Jay Street for programming such as workshops, talks, and a staging area for exhibitions. The sense of community fostered by having other artists in the building has its own rewards. Paddy frequently pops down to the New York Studio Residency Program for studio visits, and we even collaborated with the NYSRP and hung our exhibition Strange Genitals in their gallery space. Sometimes it’s just oddly comforting to walk down the hall of an office building and catch a whiff of oil paint.

In short: art works best when it happens in a supportive community. To that end, we urge artists and other cultural organizations to apply for the program and be our neighbors!

If you’re curious about the spaces, come to DUMBO Open Studios this weekend! Over 100 artists and organizations will open their doors on Saturday and Sunday from 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., a sizable chunk of them are also Cultural Space Subsidy Program beneficiaries.

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