Vision
Artists and youth as visionaries within an ecosystem of care and accountability.
Mission
Recess partners with artists, youth, writers, and their chosen publics to create transformative cultural experiences.
Our programs welcome radical thinkers to imagine and shape networks of resilience and safety. By challenging dominant narratives and activating new forms of creative production, Recess defines and advances the possibilities of contemporary art.
Recess is free and open to the public to serve as a meeting place to generate art, ideas and actions.
History
Recess formed in 2009. We began by uniting artists and audiences through the creative process and we have steadily and intentionally pushed ourselves forward towards greater accountability to our values of equity and justice. As Recess grew and developed in response to priorities articulated by artists, community, and youth, it became increasingly urgent to focus on replacing systems of oppression. As such, our vision has sharpened, and our strategy for achieving our vision has likewise evolved.
Since our inception, our artists have addressed mass criminalization in their work. In response, in 2017 we initiated our Assembly program for artists to directly support system-impacted youth. In the context of Assembly, art, performance, and storytelling disrupt the deeply problematic and false narrative of the “criminal” that governs the legal system and perpetuates cycles of oppression. Assembly is a pathway to long-term, meaningful creative involvement in the arts.
We choose to participate in an economy of trust and care rather than an economy of service or charity. As such, we are led by our community members, manifesting an ecosystem in which individuals are valued for their creative vision, lived experience, varied skills, cultural vibrancy, and imaginative capacity.
In 2020, in response to the intensity with which the COVID-19 pandemic hit our predominantly Black community, Recess redoubled its long-standing commitment to care and accountability. This reality was further sharpened by reemergent racial justice uprisings, which brought urgency and focus to our practice of institutional accountability and clarified our abolitionist lens. We’ve since committed to an abolitionist framework for our programs, operations, board, and mission, further moving us toward working as an artist-led and POC-driven organization.
Present
Recess defines abolition as a mandate to work toward the removal of interlocked systems that cause harm, with a simultaneous investment in networks of community resilience, safety, and joy. Compiled in 2020, our Care & Accountability Towards Abolition Framework guided us to extend our abolitionist efforts beyond our organization to build a foundational network of communities and institutions committed to both internal and external work and visioning towards an abolitionist horizon. Externally, by embedding Recess artists and youth within partnering organizations and producing scalable resources grounded in creative reimagination, Recess helps build community and institutional capacity to combat systemic oppression from the ground up.
Internally our Care & Accountability Towards Abolition Framework has established: a universal starting salary for all employees including part-time staff on a prorated basis; healthcare benefits covered at 100% for all staff including part-time staff; onsite mental health care and wellness support for staff, artists and youth participants to promote resilience and healing; mentorship and professional development opportunities for staff; and shared power model including co-executive leadership. A Care & Capacity Fund was established to provide resources for self-determined care for artists and staff beyond capitalist production, and an Emergency Fund was implemented for immediate support in any situation that poses imminent harm or danger to members of our community’s mental or physical health and safety.
Recess is committed to a growth model that scales in depth of relationships and support within our ecosystem. Our evolution, therefore, relies on caring connections and security among our organization and its constituents. By working in this deep relational way, we ensure that we are always led by those most impacted by the harmful systems we seek to dismantle, while in a constant process of learning.
