Five Curators. One Exhibition. No Art. Zero Dollars.

Five Curators. One Exhibition. No Art. Zero Dollars.

Can they Crowdfund a Crowdsourced Exhibition of Crowdfunding Rewards?

Artists, technologists, and business people, tired of stagnation from the
traditional funding models of investment, grants, and representation, have
turned to crowdfunding as a means to supplement or fully support their
ventures.  Today's world of connectivity creates a fluid landscape of
ideas, incentives and, even money. Small ideas and small amounts of money
can amass to a grandiose scale as individuals are united even fleetingly
for common cause. This is unique to our time, and our era.  “Mining the
Crowd” seeks to bring together the audience and the funder for a
discussion of the sustainability of crowdfunding, especially, but not
limited to, how it pertains to the arts.

Currently, “Mining the Crowd” is in the middle of its 30-day make-or-break
fundraising Kickstarter campaign, the sole financial source for a future
Kickstarter and Indiegogo based art exhibition, which will present
materials from artists actively engaged in their own crowdfunding
campaigns. Fiscal sponsorship for this project will be provided by
Maryland Art Place (MAP), allowing donations to Mining the Crowd’s
crowdfunding campaign to be partially tax deductible.

While the culminating exhibition is scheduled for February 2015 in the
Sheila & Richard Riggs and Leidy Galleries in the Graduate Studio center
at MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art), funding must be completed as
soon as possible.  The second phase of this project involved investing in
the artists who will ultimately exhibit.  Not only will the artist need to
be sought out in crowdfunding circles, but they will need to be given time
to create their art.

Through this meta-Kickstarter social experiment, social media, and the
exhibition, the curatorial team aims to educate artists and facilitate
critical discourse about the challenges to financially supporting one’s
artistic practice. Additionally, like most campaigns, the team desires to
build a community of supporters for this project and this conversation.

More information about the project and links the Facebook, Twitter, and Tumbler pages can be found at http://miningthecrowd.org.

The ongoing Kickstarter campaign can be found at
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/miningthecrowd/mining-the-crowd-artifacts-of-crowdfunding-exhibit