Beyond Projections

Art is in the senses of the beholder, and as humans are subject to our individual sets of prejudices (as a result of upbringing, exposure, etc.), we only need to take a quick trip to a thrift shop to know that one person's treasure is another's waste.

We also know, from the democratizing ability of social media, the rise of influencers, the success of self-published literary artists and the adage that "History is written by the winners" that artworks that are lauded in the annals of history or are displayed in museums and galleries, more often than not, represent the taste of those proportionally minuscule number of individuals who have the privilege (economic, social, cultural, etc.) to have opened and/or maintained platforms and provided them to the output of artists which, through luck or social networks, found their way to wider public knowledge.

Specific Issues:

• Dearth of platforms that pay their contributors (adequately) for showcasing literary, visual and performing artists from marginalized communities
• Lack of representation in the literary, visual and performing arts fields from members of marginalized communities
  • both professional artists (pages 7-8) and art administrators
• The under- and misrepresentation of those from marginalized communities in the film industry 
• Lack of transparency and points of entry in the publishing industry for marginalized-community artists 
  • especially those without post-secondary academic training (page 9)
• Disconnect between academically recognized excellence in artistry and popular reception of artistic practice 
• The underrepresentation of the vast variety of artistic practices that limits the appeal of certain art forms (such as poetry, plays, classical music), since they are associated with certain stereotypes through long-term under-representation of practicing artists from marginalized communities 
  • which, in turn, further limits access to finance for these artists, 
  • effectively choking off certain artistic practices, from all directions, in a vicious circle of 
    • forcing artists to seek other means of making a living, 
    • not having enough time and money to pursue further education/training in their artistic fields,
    • the loss of appeal for art forms with narrowing number and field of practitioners
    • less funding for those art forms
  • For instance, by interviewing poets from and attending open mics around the U.S. and abroad, I realized that despite the "ivory-tower" reputation of poetry, practicing poets hail from all sorts of backgrounds and earn their living from a myriad of industries

The Numbers:

Out of the 923 literary magazines listed on Poets and Writers, only 259 pay their contributors (while 211 require submission fees). Out of that total list, 188, 135 and 91 list LGBTQ (53 paying), feminist (38 paying) and BIPOC (31 paying), respectively, as their sub-genre.  

However, if a female queer BIPOC writer wants to submit to a journal that pays to showcase her work, she'd only find 14 options (1.5%) out of the 923 literary magazines listed.  Although she'll need to pay submission fees at six of the publications, only four will pay her at a professional rate ($50 or above) while most of the rest will only pay $10.

As a female BIPOC-led organization that has focused on and will continue to highlight artistry from marginalized communities since our launch at the end of 2018, given the fact that artists from marginalized communities face an even tougher road to achieve financial viability for their artwork, Poets and Muses will add financial inclusion to its operational process by launching the Beyond Projections project. It is a multimedia platform that will disseminate artworks that will follow in the steps of the eponymous Poets and Muses podcast, by focusing on showcasing voices from marginalized communities and their artistic reactions to films around the world with which they have found resonance.

This will, in turn, show our audience the humanity and relatability of writers and artists hailing from diverse backgrounds. Given the fact that the film industry often under- or misrepresents members of marginalized communities, we also hope that our online journal, podcasts, print-on-demand anthologies and hybrid events featuring their artistic reactions to film would offer a window for the filmmakers onto marginalized communities' reception of their creations.

We will also respect the humanity of our submitting and published artists, as well as our those who work at our organization by

1. offering emergent artists their initial paid publishing opportunities 
   1. building on the Poets the Poets and Muses podcast's focus on and recruitment of emergent poets
2. paying participating writers and artists for featuring their work at professional rates (https://duotrope.com/guides/glossary.aspx#payscale)
3. while also ensuring that our organizational team is adequately compensated
4. making the submission and judging processes transparent
   1. offering free submission opportunities during every submission period
      1. without the need for artists to request fee waivers
   2. giving a choice to submitting writers and artists to opt into being featured on the Beyond Projections companion and Poets and Muses podcasts
   3. responding to those who took the time to submit their work
      1. whether or not their work is accepted for publication
   4. in a reasonable amount of time 
      1. less than a month
   5. offering feedback to writers and artists to suggest areas of improvement
      1. without requiring additional fees
5. giving participating writers and artists additional paid opportunities for their participation in our events and profit share in the anthologies that we plan to publish

The items listed above represent improvements on current publishing-industry practices.

• (Emergent) writers and artists from marginalized communities
  • offer professional pay rates
  • make the submission and judging process transparent (see above for details)
    • no requirement for requesting entry-fee waivers
  • improve their artistic skills and increase their likelihood to be published/showcased in the future by giving submitters feedback
  • offer them free marketing opportunities 
    • via our two podcasts 
    • social-media networks and
    • newsletter
  • offer other paying opportunities in
    • anthologies and
    • performances
  • offer opportunities for providing constructive feedback to the film industry
  • the ability to showcase and discuss non-English works
• Arts administrators from marginalized communities
  • offer adequately paying job opportunities
  • an entry point into the publishing(-adjacent) industry 
    • an industry that, according to Lee & Low Books's 2019 Diversity Baseline Survey, still lacks diversity in many respects
  • remote working environment
  • opportunities for providing constructive feedback to artists
  • opportunity to support artists from marginalized communities and pave the way for them to cultivate a financially viable artistic career
  • opportunity to utilize their linguistic skills for those who speak / practice their art in other languages besides English

• Art lovers and supporters who are interested in finding more practicing artists from more diverse backgrounds and/or marginalized communities
  • enriching the lives of art lovers and supporters
    • by making art-consumption more accessible (pages 83-88) by
      • providing an on-line platform of featured artists and
      • hybrid rotating events
    • through exposure to new artists
    • as podcasting listeners diversify (according to Edison Research's 2022 survey), so should the podcasters, as well as the subjects of podcast focus
  • learning that people from many walks of life can share particular artistic practices and
    • be inspired by similar artistic works (such as film) in different ways
  • especially for art supporters who are also practicing artists (pages 63, 66, 67, 70 and 78), to discover the different ways in which artists from various backgrounds practice particular art forms (as I learned by interviewing diverse poets)
  • For those who utilize or are interested in practicing other languages, an opportunity to do so via artistic consumption
• Film-industry professionals seeking real-time feedback from members of marginalized communities
  • Since the marketers of films, especially of those that are more inclusive in nature, sometimes seem like they are unsure of to whom to market these products, perhaps seeing the reaction of marginalized-community artists will offer them the opportunity to find more appropriate marketing pathways
  • From listening to members of diverse communities and the film-industry's excuse that stories about marginalized communities are not as relatable as those of their White counterparts, perhaps gaining exposure to the artistic output from members of marginalized communities will help film-industry executives better recognize and understand the humanity and relatability of these artists and their communities
  • Since the Poets and Muses podcast is predominately about showcasing the person behind the poet, perhaps film-industry creatives will find inspiration in these stories to write more relatable scripts, and film executives and producers might discover literary-, visual- and performance-art talents from Beyond Projection's features, who would fit well for their industry needs

Our current team has nearly 30 years of publishing, podcast and entrepreneurial experience both domestically and internationally.  Our team-building and leadership abilities has translated into current and previous work with those across diverse socioeconomic communities (with up to 11 direct reports).  Our marketing efforts has not only attracted listeners for Poets and Muses from more than 100 countries worldwide, but also raised awareness of previous ventures in more than 160 nations.  Lastly, our collaborative approach and presentation skills have helped us to collaborate with both poets from diverse walks of life and local organizations (Barnard College’s Athena Film Festival, the Cambridge Foundry), media companies (the BBC), national government projects (White House Youth Jobs+ initiative) and international NGOs (UN) and alliances (International Alliance to End Genocide).

While the original Poets and Muses podcast and organization current serves

1. the 149 diverse poets we've featured on the eponymous Poets and Muses podcast (you can get a sense of who they are at https://www.instagram.com/poetsandmuses/) and
2. our audience from over 100 countries around the globe

Beyond Projections will build on this customer base to further our goal of providing a financially inclusive artist platform to showcase, above all, the artworks of those from marginalized communities.

If Beyond Projections is selected to become a Solver, we hope to 

1. join a supportive peer group of entrepreneurs to exchange ideas and improve our respective solutions
2. receive coaching from industry experts to fortify our ability to
3. raise the funding we require in order to 
4. build our team through existing and new partnerships
   1. up to 35 paid staff (on a temporary-to-permanent basis): 
      1. editorial, 
      2. podcast-production, 
      3. event-management, 
      4. marketing, 
      5. general administration and 
      6. board
5. reach out to members of marginalized communities through existing and new partnerships
   1. to be featured in
      1. the Beyond Projections online journal (which will pay artists to publish up to 1,872 literary, visual and performance artists per year) and 
      2. its companion podcast,
      3. the Poets and Muses podcast,
      4. profit-sharing (print-on-demand) anthologies and
      5. events (featuring up to 288 paid artists per year), and
6. to collaborate together to reach beyond our already-established global audience from over 100 countries worldwide.
7. In addition, we'd also like to receive technical support to ensure that our current website is robust enough to handle our anticipated on-line publication and traffic needs,
8. as well as to build proprietary software solutions if necessary.
9. We'd also like to have expert input in regards to obtaining more granular data on our impact (site traffic, audience, etc.).

Beyond Projections will both offer artists from marginalized communities a full-service multimedia platform to 1) earn income at professional rates and 2) gain global exposure, as well as to address the undervaluing of artworks by these communities at large and specifically in American/Western film industry, which fuels a global undervaluing of marginalized communities through a combination of persistent under- and misrepresentation in its output and its global reach.

Going back to the Poets and Writers database of literary magazines, out of the 923 online and physical publications listed, only 84 list Pop Culture (including film) as a sub-genre.  Out of these, less than a third of them (24 publications) pay their contributors while 16 require submission fees.

Out of these 24, our hypothetical female queer BIPOC writer (whom we introduced in answering the "What specific problem are you solving?" question) can only submit to four publications, since those very tiny handful are the only ones that also list LGBTQ, feminist and BIPOC as their sub-genres.  Out of these four, only one pays at a professional rate.

That number does not change, even if our hypothetical writer is male or not queer.

Since the Poets and Writers database doesn't offer "disabilities" as a sub-genre, we can't even calculate, based on this database, exactly how many less opportunities artists of varying abilities face.  And even though UK's National Disability Arts Collection & Archives (NDACA), Netherlands's ArtConnect, and FeedSpot offer resources for artists of varying abilities, they still do not tell us how female, BIPOC or LGBTQIA+ artists would fare in these already limited-opportunity environments. 

Since according to the National Endowment for the Arts, "Artists are less likely than other workers to have full-year or full-time employment" and "Among full-year, full-time artists, women earn 81 cents for every dollar earned by men artists," it is important to create more paying opportunities for artists, especially with a lens toward gender equity and diversity, equity and inclusion for an intersectionality of marginalized communities.

As no creative can sustain themselves through their artistic career on a one-time paying gig (unless they're so lucky as to earn a million-dollar commission on their first paying job), Beyond Projection will increase the limited opportunities available for artists from marginalized communities by both providing a paying platform and supporting these artists through our international marketing reach, so that they can be connected with other opportunities to find long-term financial viability in their artwork.

Next Year:

• As we've stated earlier, we plan to 
  • raise the necessary funding and 
  • hire up to 35 paid staff (on a temporary-to-permanent basis) to 
  • support the showcasing of paid works from up to 1,872 literary, visual and performance artists per year;
  • produce new episodes of the Poets and Muses podcast
    • that will feature a new poet in each episode (52 per year), as well as
  • new episodes of the Beyond Projection podcast

    
    

    • that will feature four artists in each episode (104 per year),
  • regular events 
    • featuring up to 288 paid artists per year, and
  • resume our weekly newsletters where
    • we promote news items from our past featured artists 
      • up to eight per newsletter (416 per year) while
  • becoming self-sustainable through diverse revenue streams

In Five Years:

• We plan to
  • become a fully multi-lingual multimedia platform
  • have produced up to four annual (print-on-demand) profit-sharing anthologies, in addition to
  • conducting our regular publishing, podcasting and promoting activities
  • reach and feature artists from countries we've yet to
  • become a respected and regularly-referenced resource for art and film lovers and supporters around the globe and
  • become an educational resource for various art forms
    • regarding the ways by which contemporary artists practice their respective art forms
    • for AI-based technology companies to lessen AI's perpetuation of discrimination based on data that under- and misrepresent members of marginalized communities.

To increase the opportunities for economic empowerment and visibility for artists and art administrators from marginalized communities.  To return the reigns of empowerment of the global majority into the hands of the global majority (AKA: marginalized communities).

To lessen the effects of colonial legacies by demonstrating both shared cultural practices (such as particular art forms, like poetry, song, dance, music, theater, film) across the globe and the individual characteristics these practices take on within particular cultural settings.

To counter the idea that some cultures or cultural practices are "less than" and promote respect for all cultures and their right to existence, preservation and perpetuation.

We plan to use a combination of our own proprietary platform (the Poets and Muses website), as well as other existing platforms to achieve the goals set out for our Beyond Projections project.

These include:

• SoundCloud or other podcast-hosting platforms
• a variety of podcast platforms, such as
  • Apple Podcasts
  • Google Podcasts
  • Spotify
  • Stitcher
  • Audible, etc.
• a variety of social-media platforms, such as
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
• submission platforms, such as
  • Submittable
  • Duotrope
• email marketing tools, such as
  • Mailchimp
• virtual meeting tools, such as 
  • Zoom
  • Google Meet

Beyond Projections would be a project of Poets and Muses, which has been operating on a non-profit model, whereas Beyond Projections will likely operate on a hybrid model.

Since Poets and Muses was launched, specifically, to showcase the diversity of contemporary practicing poets and break away from the "ivory-tower" reputation of the art form, we have been deliberate in our recruitment of featured artists from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds and ensuring gender-balanced representation.

In our four-and-a-half years of operation and our semi-journalistic format, we have learned from the communities we've interacted with and their members we've been fortunate enough to interview and gained more awareness of and insight into marginalized communities to which we may not be members ourselves.

We operate under the principle that everyone we encounter is an individual human being and cannot be categorized solely based on their incidental membership in particular communities.  Given the fact that we were always aware of the global appeal and practice of poetry, we wanted our featured artists to reflect the diversity, not only of the local practicing poets we encountered, but also of those from around the globe.  Therefore, we took the opportunity of attending online poetry events during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as self-funded trips prior, to recruit widely (18 countries so far), for our featured artists.  (Please note that we count England and Scotland as separate countries.  Please also see "In which countries do you currently operate?" for the list of countries where our featured poets resided at the time of interview.)

In keeping with that practice and the relationships we've built as a result, we will continue to recruit from diverse socioeconomic communities, both for our organizational teams, as well as potential feature artists.

While we have been lucky to have encountered podcasting platforms that provide automatic transcription to make our episodes more accessible to those with hearing impairment, as this is done through third-party platforms, we hope that building a robust and diverse team will afford us the ability to be more intentional in our efforts to cater to those with varying abilities.

In addition, as we are keenly aware of the loss of Indigenous languages, due to genocidal actions and colonial legacy, we have made efforts to feature Indigenous languages and artists where possible and look forward to do more in the future.

While we have detailed financial projections for a number of foreseeable revenue-generating streams, as this section of the application is publicly available, we'd prefer to discuss these and share our financial spreadsheets in a more private setting.

We have had both previous sponsorship and sponsorship inquiries for our weekly newsletter, as well as online donations and solicitations for funding applications.  (Unfortunately, since we were no longer living in the state where the funding organization asked us to apply, we no longer qualified for the funding.)

In terms of newsletter sponsorship, we look forward to hiring dedicated staff to market that, as well as other, revenue stream(s) to potential sponsors.