Hi friends!

NOW Studios is an underground creator space in downtown Ann Arbor, dedicated to megaphoning the margins and hosting hundreds of radically free events that get 'all the other' together to dig each others' groove - and we're in need of some help to keep the dream alive!

As Ann Arbor becomes more and more expensive, places like NOW studios become more and more important. Will you help us keep the doors open as we transition into a community-held co-op?

In the past 12 months we've offered over 150 local creatives gig work to help us sprout magic all over town. Which has exhausted our financial reserves, but the landlord still needs his rent. So this campaign is to keep us solvent and pay the bills on our brick-n-mortar space through the rest of the year as our 501(c)3 nonprofit continues to apply for larger grants & operational funding.

NOW is a subteranean playground! A multi-modal venue, gallery, theater, social lab, & clubhouse!
https://www.secondwavemedia.com/concentrate/features/nowstudios0632.aspx

NOW is a dojo, a temple, & a safe space for those who don't fit the normative molds of the Midwest.
https://www.ecurrent.com/arts-culture/celebrate-marginalized-groups/

& NOW is a home for ARTivism & civic engagement with a political playhouse for the creative nonviolent revolution!
https://www.clickondetroit.com/all-about-ann-arbor/2021/02/13/now-studios-gives-visitors-permission-to-ask-questions-explore-experience-change-and-play/

It is radically de-comodifed third spaces that let us gather to imagine life beyond corporate capitalism and the binary wars of us versus them. Creativity lets us transmute our thoughts and feelings into art that become conversations that become perspective shifts which become the future of life on Earth (and beyond) !

This current fundraising goal is to keep NOW studios open through the rest of this year as we seek larger funding for basic operations and beyond. These funds will go to pay rent, utilities, internet, insurance, as well as purchase basic supplies, and help support event hosts, artists, special guests, and volunteers who keep the studios running.

If you are interested in helping us procure larger sustainability funding, please reach out! NOW@expressyouryes.org

Our community of creative disruptors and provocative thought leaders have collaborated with dozens of other organizations in the community to leverage love & collective consciousness to help honor the image sold in the brochures. Some of our past partnerships include UMS, A2SF, CultureVerse, Hashbash, Festifools, Foolmoon, Ann Arbor Art Fair, State Street Association, Main Street Association, RE:CLAIM and more!

NOW studios is also the brick-n-mortar home & hub for our 501(c)3 non-profit express your yes foundation.

To watch the story of our foundation - including events, festivals, short documentaries, & creative content, visit:

https://www.youtube.com/@expressyouryesNOW

Click here to watch a Channel 4 news segment on our first brick-n-mortar space called Lampshade Cafe (now Ziggy's), which opened in 2016 in Ypsilanti and became the blueprint for the work of our foundation today. And click here for an "All Things Considered" special with the late, great Lisa Barry!

What if we were ALL free? All empowered and safe and seen? Loved and looked after? What if we truly were One Nation, Undivided? Is this possible? Do we even want it? How do we shingle a single roof above our overlapping dreams and persecution?

NOW is a chance to dream, to gather and incubate new ways of doing things as the Old World of hierarchy and binary pain is being outgrown. We all know Life is perpetually full of uncertainty and change, and relentless tinkering and play is how we honor the ever-moving emergent moment.

The ability to build, to dream, to imagine an Earth beyond the one we inhabit, requires space and time to gather outside the confines of status quo.

Love WINS! Come play!

Creatively Yours,

- the ever growing family of NOW studios!

NOW Studios Needs YOUR Help to Stay Open!

Help give our 501(c)3 nonprofit time to continue working towards sustainability as a reimagined cooperative "third space" for non-normative creatives in SE Michigan.