💌 You’re Invited! 💌

Pathways to Liberation: Artwork of Struggle, Joy, and Resistance

After 6 months of dedicated work, one-on-one sessions with mentors, and peer support during monthly creative co-working sessions, we’re excited to invite our community to "Pathways to Liberation: Artwork of Struggle, Joy, and Resistance," a showcase of all the creative work and talent from our first-ever Artist Activist Fellowship program.

In June, Vigilant Love welcomed an incredible cohort of 10 young, emerging artists from BIPOC communities with a desire to create art that connects to abolitionist movements, community care, and healing justice. Through the Artist Activist Fellowship, we paired each fellow with an Artist Activist Mentor, a phenomenal group of BIPOC singers, songwriters, filmmakers, visual artists, painters, crafters, and more who believe in the power of strengths-based mentorship and political art.

Join us for a powerful evening with hors d'oeuvres, drinks provided by Saffron Cowboy Coffee, and a program showcasing a wide range of political themes including:

• Longing for home in diaspora

• Preservation of Black lineages and familial archives

• Resource theft from the global South

• Violence and liberation within the university encampments for Palestine

• The joy, stories, and meaning found in cultural objects

• Lived experiences of border violence, Indigeneity, and self-and-ancestral discovery

• Historical foraging practices of Black Americans and indigenous peoples in Tongva and Chumash lands

• The intersections of mass incarceration and colonialism

• The war in Sudan through the lens of familial grief

• Struggle and resistance from Turtle Island to Palestine

• & much more

Vigilant Love’s Artist Activist Fellowship

The Vigilant Love Artist Activist Fellowship is a six-month program for young, emerging artists ages 18-24 from Muslim, Black, Indigenous, and/or POC (BIPOC) communities who have a desire to create political art that connects to abolitionist movements, community care, and healing justice. We believe that artist activists play a critical role in disrupting systems of violence and dehumanization and building pathways to liberation and healing – the Artist Activist Fellowship honors and resources this important work by ensuring young artists have the resources and deep, intergenerational, and cross-communal relationships needed to sustain this work for the long haul.

All Vigilant Love Artist Activist Fellows will receive one-on-one mentorship and coaching from values-aligned Muslim and BIPOC artists in community, peer support from their 10-person fellowship cohort and the broader Vigilant Love community, and resources to hone their identities and voices as artists activists. Fellows will also receive a $1000 participation stipend and an additional $500 to support the creation of artwork to showcase at a community exhibit at the end of the program. 

Young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 who identify as Muslim, Black, Indigenous, and/or a Person of Color/racialized person are invited to apply to the Artist Activist Fellowship. Ideal candidates include artist activists who:

• Are engaged with an artistic medium they would like to further develop in community with the support of a seasoned artist activist mentor 

• Have a desire to learn and create art that connects to abolition, community safety, surveillance, healing justice, gender justice, racial justice, disability justice, transformative justice, anti-Zionism, indigenous & land sovereignty, the War on Terror and intersecting themes

• Live in Southern California, with a preference for folks who are Los Angeles-based

The 2024 cohort is currently in session and applications for this program are closed.

Meet The Artist Activist Mentors

All Artist Activist Mentors identify as BIPOC/racialized people and/or Muslim and BIPOC. Artist Activist Mentors have a strong artistic practice or career that reflects, honors, and uplifts the importance of political art, and have a desire to mentor and support emerging artists through a relational and strengths-based approach. Click through the photos to learn more about each artist!