Support
The vision for Yes We Cannibal is based on micro-patronage as a viable alternative to the non-profit sector. It is an experiment.
We gratefully accept financial support in four ways:
1. We use Patreon for monthly subscribers to donate.
2. We use Venmo for one-time donations.
3. We welcome local businesses to sponsor musical performances to help pay touring musicians, many of whom are world-class and able to stop in Baton Rouge only because of that support. We are grateful to these sponsors and urge friends to support them and say thanks:
4. For specific projects, we have received support from granting agencies including:
- Greater Baton Rouge Arts Council
- The Louisiana Office of Cultural Development
- The East Baton Rouge Parish Library
- The New Orleans Center for the Gulf Coast South
- The LSU School of Art
- Visit Baton Rouge
5. We always need volunteers to help with: cleaning, flier distribution, gallery hour sitting, light repairs and simple maintenance, the garden and grow room, working the door to ask for donations, and if experienced already – helping run sound.
About our model
Baton Rouge enjoys none of the visible experimental project spaces that are sometimes taken for granted in wealthier cities, as crucial parts of their art landscape.
Yes We Cannibal is located on Government Street, a kind of fault-line between multi-million dollar investment on one side and a long-disinvested poor and working class community on the other. From our inception, we committed to remaining entirely free in order to protect the radical inclusivity on which art depends and provide an alternative to gentrification.
We rejected non-profit status because we felt that it would be more prohibitive than helpful for this project. Instead, we depend on a horizontal network of committed supporters to make small regular donations that keep the project going by helping us to meet our base infrastructure costs (rent, insurance, utilities).
We are well-resourced and well-experienced to maintain our space, provide labor, and organize volunteers.
We are always happy to provide total transparency about our operating costs.
Inspirations
What role have experimental cultural spaces played in your own life? How have they shaped you and your world? Does it matter to you that they are available to others? Even in a city that may be unfamiliar to you? Experimental project spaces like are often insecure or transient. Their struggle for security is more difficult in the post-COVID world, yet they are also more important now, serving as both centers for mutual aid and as reservations for experimentation, justice and imagination.
Over the course of our own lives, various experimental spaces have been profoundly affirming and transformative for us. We believe passionately in their importance. Some of these, past and present, include:
- Rhizome DC (Washington DC)
- Telic Arts Exchange / The Public School (Los Angeles)
- Eremite Records Unitarian Meeting House Free Jazz Series (Amherst, MA)
- La Terre Institute (Mississippi)
- DC Space (Washington DC)
- Incite Seminars (Philadelphia)
- Rhizome DC (Washington DC)
- Lobelia Commons (New Orleans)
- Wonderground (Baton Rouge)
- Acid Horizon Podcast (Online)
- Cultivate Projects (DC)
- Active Cultures (Los Angeles)
- The Front (New Orleans)
- Good Children Gallery (New Orleans)
- Minimum Table Stacks (NYC)
- Jabs Records (Rochester)
- Intracoastal Club (Houma)
We also have several allied projects and businesses here in Baton Rouge that we admire and love to work with, including:
- eVOLVe – Victory Over Louisiana Violence
Laramie Griffin and crew are the most inspiring, committed, and effective activists we’ve ever met - Tough Gum Records
- Raegan Labat’s imprint is one of our favorite record labels
- Sole Lab Sundays
Mike is an incredible DJ, organizer, and human. We’re honored to host his showcase every first Sunday