OUR MISSION

Artists In Resistance (A.I.R.) NYC is a collective of disabled and chronically ill artists and organizers. We’re creating an air purifier lending library, and we need your help.

Our goal is simple: support artists, performers and cultural workers in hosting COVID-safer, more accessible events.

The pandemic is ongoing, and COVID continues to cause illness, disability, and death in our communities. Meanwhile, the public health response has been systematically dismantled. Our government, institutions, and workplaces have failed us, but we can protect each other. Illness need not be the price of living in community or participating in the arts.

We’re joining a growing network of volunteer-run action groups offering concrete tools, community education, and harm reduction. We can slow the spread of airborne infection in our city, and we know how to do it–together.

We refuse to abandon, isolate, and exclude each other. We insist on joy, solidarity, and community care. We are Artists in Resistance.

OUR PLAN

High-quality, high-capacity HEPA air purifiers are essential tools for mitigating the spread of airborne viruses. By removing airborne particles from an indoor space, they reduce the risk of infection for everyone in it.

We’ve scoured the options and chosen Smart Air Blast air purifiers for the foundation of our clean air technology toolbox. These air purifiers are highly efficient, very quiet (we see you, musicians), have wheels for easier transportability, and support a variety of venue sizes, alone and in combination. We’re aiming to purchase 3 large and 5 medium models, creating a total lending library capacity of 8 air purifiers covering approximately 10,000 square feet.

Our purifier library will prioritize loans to artists and organizers in communities disproportionately affected by the pandemic and the inaccessibility of arts, culture, and nightlife spaces in New York City: disabled, Black, Indigenous, people of color, trans, queer, low income people, and those working public-facing jobs.

Your support of this fundraiser will keep our lending library affordable for all. We plan to operate on a sliding scale basis starting at $0.

JOIN OUR WORK

DONATE : Every bit helps! HEPA air purifiers are long-term investments in the health and happiness of our communities.

SHARE : Help us spread the word!

VOLUNTEER : We’ll need more hands on deck as we launch operations! Sign up for our email list on our website, airnyc.club, or connect with us through email or DMs.

WORK WITH US : Are you an artist? Musician? Performer? Cultural worker? We work across all genres, and we’re looking forward to partnering with you! Sign up for our email list on our website, airnyc.club, or connect with us through email or DMs.

Do you represent a venue? Arts organization? Event series? COVID safer collective? Drop us a line! We’d love to partner with you.

BUDGET

We are committed to financial transparency. We plan to report on our use of funds at regular intervals following our operations launch.

Lending library = $7327

8 air purifiers (3 large, 5 medium) plus 8.875% tax = $6459
2 emergency replacement filters (1 large, 1 medium) plus 8.875% tax = $368
Air purifier carrying case materials = $500

Estimated first year operating costs = $2650

Web hosting = $250
First year of shared storage unit = $1500
Accounting = $200
Givebutter Transaction/Processing fee: [2.9% + $.30] = $300
Seed funding for transportation fund = $250 [ ongoing fund to support the transportation of purifiers for partners who are not able to do so themselves ]
Land Acknowledgement Honorarium = $150 [ see land acknowledgment below ]

LONG TERM VISION

We are building our collective with long term sustainability in mind. Once our lending library is up and running, we plan to expand the ways we support our community around COVID safety and access, including but not limited to: community education, creating guides for artists and performers navigating conversations about COVID safety, guides for venues, hosting A.I.R. NYC events, and collaborating with other organizations and initiatives, including Mask Bloc NYC. Your support helps us get started.

Thank you for contributing to the fund, sharing the fundraiser, and joining this work to make our spaces and our community safer.

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We live and work in Lenapehoking, which occupies part of the unceded homeland of the Lenape and Canarsie peoples. Colonial settlers and federal policies have perpetrated generations of genocide, forced migration, and systemic, violent oppression that pushed most Lenape west and north to rebuild their nations in the areas now known as Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Ontario. We acknowledge today’s Lenape communities, including Lenape people who belong to the Delaware Nation and Delaware Tribe of Indians in Oklahoma; the Stockbridge-Munsee Community in Wisconsin; and the Munsee-Delaware Nation, Moravian of the Thames First Nation, and Delaware of Six Nations in Ontario.

We support their movements to reestablish their visible presence here, in their ancestral lands, and invite you to join our members in making regular donations to projects supporting their work:

Lenni Lenapexkweyok : https://lennilenapexkweyok.wixsite.com/landback
Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation Honorarium : https://nllhonorarium.carrd.co/
Manna-Hatta Fund : https://mannahattafund.org/

ARTISTS IN RESISTANCE NYC

help us build an air purifier lending library!