Artists’ Adaptability Circles is a Mutual Aid-based funding and cohort development program for Bay Area artists, arts workers, and culture bearers — Forged out of deep, sustained conversation among arts leaders, the program supports those hardest hit by COVID-19: Black, Indigenous and People of Color, LGBTQIA+ people, people with disabilities, and other historically under-resourced communities.
It is a community-created and artist-led program designed to support Bay Area artists and arts workers creatively addressing issues arising in their lives and communities. Using a distributed leadership and funding model, the Project provides grassroots arts and culture leaders, and their collaborators, with monetary stipends to meet independently, attend cross-circle gatherings, receive leadership development training (provided by EAP), and utilize flexible funding to implement their plans. Focused on process over product, artist circles are not expected to create any final project or event, but instead are expected to share their experience and learning.