Our mission and vision
We want to see an art field that is more representative of, and accountable to, its constituents, and that functions in ways that are safer, fairer, and more comfortable for all kinds of bodies, identities and agencies.
We work to
- establish and promote a working culture that amplifies underrepresented artistic voices
- abolish unpaid and underpaid labour in the art field
- insist upon equal, safer, and healthy working environments in the arts
Rather than emphasising pressured forms of production and promotion, we concentrate on incubating, nesting, and nourishing our artistic collaborators.
We think about accessibility in terms of physical, spatial, verbal, lingual, and structural access, working towards an arts organisation that is understandable from a variety of perspectives.
Our vision is to be the peak body advocating for intersectional feminist values and working conditions, resulting in an art field working sustainably, and thoroughly occupied and built by different kinds of bodies and identities.
Our cornerstones
accountability, artistic practices, boundaries, celebration, collaboration, curiosity, inclusivity, inquiry, listening, patience, respect, recognition, safer spaces, sharing, solidarity
Our history
Feminist Culture House grew from Support Structures Collective, which was founded by Anna-Kaisa Koski, Katie Lenanton, Neicia Marsh, Orlan Ohtonen, and Selina Väliheikki in 2018. The aim of Support Structures was to research and understand how we could build a thoroughly feminist art organisation.
In 2019, we registered FCH as an association. Our association board consists of the founding members of Support Structures. At this point Anna-Kaisa left to work elsewhere, but stayed on as a board member. We received a Kickstarter grant of 6 months from Kone Foundation.
In 2020-21, we operated with organisational funding from Kone. During 2021, we worked for 6 months with Yasmin Ibrahim, as she developed our equity training program. During this year also Selina and Neicia both found permanent work opportunities elsewhere, but continued to guide us in an advisory capacity as board members. Katie and Orlan have since been working with nesting curators Gladys Camilo and Jonni Korhonen, as well as artist Paola Jalili, among others, and are now working towards securing funding for FCH for the coming years.