Recess

Recess is a small, art-based nonprofit. We will not abolish systems of oppression on our own. Our impetus, therefore, for building a framework of care and accountability is so that it may be scaled in communities and with other institutions. We hold a core belief that artists must lead the process of imagining and actualizing fundamental social change.

Currently, the most widely available remedy to racism in institutions is anti-bias training. While there is great value in this training, it is insufficient when unaccompanied by structural and material shifts, matched by a vision that embraces care rather than a rubric of fear that seeks to control individuals. To operate like an artist gives Recess the permission to continuously ask difficult questions of itself—to never be fixed in its behaviors and functions. And by building an accessible framework that can shape-shift to inform any space as a work of art would, we invite institutional partners to imagine alongside us—creating an opening for change that would otherwise seem impossible through a bureaucratic lens. Like art, this Care and Accountability toward Abolition framework will be interpreted differently by different communities based on their identity, leadership, skills, and needs.

In January, I officially assumed the role of Co-Director at Recess. Six years ago I co-founded the Assembly diversion program, an arts-based alternative to incarceration, and served as its lead educator. As a organization welcoming the possibilities of artistic leadership, Recess seeks to emulate an artist’s practice by becoming an engine of revision and imaginative expansion.

The intensity with which COVID-19 hit our predominantly Black community forced us to slow down and reckon with the ongoing violence perpetrated by systemic inequity. This reality was further sharpened by the recent racial justice uprisings, bringing an urgency and focus to our practice of care and accountability. I joined the Recess in a process of rigorous reflection—creating an abolitionist framework to be applied to both programs and internal operations. I am also working closely with Assembly peer leaders—youth continuing their work in longer term, paid engagements—to develop a series of community safety workshops consisting of instruction in conflict resolution, alternatives to policing, political education and radical imagination. Dedicated to our abolitionist framework, these workshops interrogate how art helps us reimagine a world that moves beyond one shaped by legacies of oppression, colonialism, and racism.

Recess partners with artists to build a more just and equitable creative community. We began by uniting artists and audiences through the creative process and have steadily and intentionally pushed ourselves towards greater accountability to our values. As Recess grew and developed in response to the priorities articulated by our 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. 

Assembly, our artist-led diversion program for system-involved youth, offers an alternative to incarceration while providing long-term support, paid training, and employment. The Session and Critical Writing programs at Recess unite artists and communities to realize rigorous creative projects that offer pathways to envisioning abolition and creating networks of community care.

We believe artists are uniquely situated to address social injustice due to the creative toolkit they possess and their ability to offer nuanced perspectives—revising dominant narratives while examining systemic inequities. By supporting historically marginalized artists and welcoming communities to participate in their creative process, Recess provides an in-depth forum that nurtures empathy, collective re-envisioning, and community-building based in care and accountability.

Through a curriculum based on visual storytelling, participants in Assembly translate personal narratives into performances, without using words, in order to replace a culturally embedded conception of criminality with new language so that the mind and body may think, feel, and move in a way not defined by their experiences of arrest and incarceration. Our goal is to facilitate participants’ agency to tell their stories on their own terms, ultimately reframing existing narratives defining “criminal.” In addition, after participants complete the program, prosecutors may close and seal cases, allowing our youth to avoid an adult record.

This curriculum will serve as the starting point for a new workshop model with institutional partners, stemming from our framework of care and accountability. Moving beyond anti-bias training, this somatic work requires that participants deeply and honestly convey their own stories by expressing experiences as they are held in their bodies. With a different sense of interconnectivity, the group commits to the work of abolition from a shared starting point—assessing the ways power and whiteness operate in the institution, while simultaneously addressing harm that has occurred and implementing a system of care.

At Recess we have a proven track record of working with artists, system-impacted individuals, and community partners to continually foster a holistic effort toward abolition across our organization and our field. Abolition is defined here as the removal of interlocked systems that cause harm, with a simultaneous investment in networks of community resilience and safety. By pursuing new models internally (staff, operations, board governance) as well as externally (programs, fundraising, communications) we can realize our mission with integrity and proliferate an ethos of care with partners.

We are building structures for equity without relying solely on existing models designed to preserve white supremacy.

• Program model that provides alternatives to systems: eg community safety without police, diversion without the courts
• Artist-led advocacy for community safety and prison abolition
• Dual leadership model for staff and board that honors both operational and creative visioning and Black leadership
• Advocacy for artistic leadership and creative thinking scaled in partner organizations outside of Recess
• Mental health support for staff, artists, and youth
• Pay equity using a universal starting salary for all employees 
• Health insurance for all employees including part-time workers
• Competitive pay and resourced support circles for artists and youth
• Non-financial-contributing tier of the board