Grantees
and Partners

Artistic Noise

Overview:

Artistic Noise provides arts activities, employment opportunities and arts therapy for system-involved youth. Based out of their Harlem Studio, participants are encouraged to develop their creative abilities and business skills through arts workshops, arts education, and through exhibiting their work in a variety of youth-led art shows throughout the year.

Youth impacted by the justice system face challenges in nearly every aspect of their lives—from employment to housing to education to mental health. An estimated 90% of system-involved youth—those who were incarcerated in a detention center, long-term secure facility, adult prison, or who are in foster care or other systems—have experienced serious trauma in their lifetimes. This is also true for others who are impacted by the carceral system, including family members of the incarcerated, and those who have been impacted by the juvenile court system, shelter system, probationary system and the mental health care system.

Grant:

Purpose: To support the Arts, Curatorial and Entrepreneurial Program (A&E) in New York. 

Based out of their Harlem Studio, A&E participants are encouraged to develop their creative abilities and business skills through arts workshops, arts education, and an annual microgrant project. Youth are given a stipend and full access to programming, including opportunities with Artistic Noise’s partner institutions: School of Visual Arts, Studio Museum in Harlem, Pace Gallery, Kasmin Gallery, Hauser & Wirth, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and Columbia University.

Impact:

Annually, Artistic Noise works with 18 to 20 young people aged 15 to 22, all of whom are coming out of recent engagements with the juvenile court and probationary system as well as the shelter system, foster care system, mental health care systems, and others.  To this end, the Art & Entrepreneurship program, as of winter 2022 and spring 2023, has a 100% retention rate, illustrating the success of the program and the importance of it to young people in this community.

The most recent participants of the Art & Entrepreneurship program have reported the following reactions to their engagement in the programming:

• 100% report feeling cared for and safe to express themselves within the studio space without fear of any negative consequences.
• 100% of participants are able to identify at least one new, trusting relationship with a supportive adult since joining Artistic Noise.
• 98% of participants state that they enjoy working with others more since joining Artistic Noise
• 98% of participants report that selling their artwork at Artistic Noise has encouraged them to keep creating and growing as an artist.
• 88% of participants feel that they are more comfortable in museums and other types of art spaces since joining Artistic Noise.

Artistic Noise also brought on a second Alumni Artist in Residence in this program and has utilized the Artistic Noise studio space for a variety of new artmaking techniques and explorations. Artistic Noise put on the first solo art exhibit in Artistic Noise’s Harlem Storefront Gallery space with its Artist in Residence, focused on mental health.

Art & Care is a new, youth-centered, weekly drop-in program (Mondays 12pm—7pm) created in collaboration with the School of Visual Arts (SVA) Art Therapy team to address the expanded need of Artistic Noise participants, specifically their need for more therapeutic and healing-based experiences, as well as their need for basic health-related resources such as free clothing, safer-sex materials, MetroCards, food, and educational assistance. The weekly drop-in sessions offer opportunities for introductory self-care, one-on-one therapy sessions, leadership opportunities, art-making experiences, and more. Additionally, each youth participant who works within the space for an extended time receives a stipend for their work, an acknowledgement of the very real and pressing needs of this specific community.