Our Values

A Conscious Critique

We strive to be members of a conscious, loving, and fruitful creative community. Conscious because we are each here to be alive and awake for each other, in good faith and mutual respect; Loving because we are here to break down walls and to build bonds; Fruitful because what we seek together will make us better artists and citizens.

We believe that how we operate during our time together is a microcosm of how we operate outside of it. The dynamics we develop and the challenges that arise within Crit are ones we will bring into our larger communities. Therefore, we are intentional about how we perform critique and what we bring into and out of the space we hold together.

Critique is a tool we use to create more possibility for ourselves and our art. We critique (and get critiqued) because we care to engage. We critique because "being critical" is a generative awareness that brings into focus our questions and our hopes for what could be. To that end, we are critical of power. We are critical of worship of power. We are critical of complacency. We are critical of cool. We are critical of the myth of the lone visionary artist. We are continually critical of our position within oppressive systems (like art, education, status, race, class and the aesthetics of each) and seek to undo the harms these systems cause, even and especially when those harms come from ourselves.

We seek a better world through the practice of our art and the practice of community. We seek honesty and the healing it brings. We seek the conditions for new experiences, new feelings and ideas. We seek a vision of the artist as a being in constant evolution, in relationship to the world, open to influence, ready to change and be changed.