Statements
Mission
COOP is committed to expanding Nashville's dialogue with contemporary art through programming which presents challenging, new, or under-represented artists/artworks.
COOP creates a dialogue between Nashville and art scenes across the country by inviting artists to exhibit, develop projects, and interact with the Nashville community. COOP presents artists of diverse media, content and backgrounds in a non-commercial space.
COOP is a non-profit, 501c3 organization. We are funded by contributions from our members, donations from our supporters, and we are grateful recipients funding from Metro Arts Nashville, the Hays Foundation, and the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee.
Background
COOP is Nashville's longest established, artist-run project space and curatorial collective, formed in 2010. COOP began as a way to bring new ideas and artists to Nashville's young visual art scene. Unlike commercial galleries, we are one of Nashville's few non-profit spaces with freedom to exhibit experimental and dynamic work, welcoming our community to openly ask questions and exchange ideas. Our passionate commitment compels us to do much with minimal financial resources. Your support allows us to give our visiting artists and curators wonderful and interactive exhibition opportunities by supporting their artwork, travel, and material costs with honorariums.
In addition to our critically acclaimed exhibitions, we offer free programming in which Nashville's artists and art enthusiasts connect. COOP's monthly events spotlights the work of local and national artists in artist talks, workshops, musical events, and film screenings. We exchange and collaborate with similar alternative artist groups nationally, showcasing great curators and galleries throughout the US. Our artist workshops and collaborations with the Nashville Free Public Library and Risology Club give us the opportunity to welcome our community to interact with and support artists and create their own art.
Motivated to energize, broaden, and diversify the art exhibited in Nashville, we are a group of artists and writers, many with different affiliations and diverse backgrounds, who collaborate to program COOP's monthly exhibitions. Our premise is simple: that we show great contemporary art work and focus on bringing excellent, diverse, and underrepresented artists and media to Nashville. COOP has grown from 12 original members to approximately 32 member artists and curators. COOP has presented over 200 exhibitions. Our commitment to the arts and our community compels us to shift and grow. In 2022, COOP moved to a larger gallery, allowing us to exhibit larger exhibitions and host events for artists and the community at large. The space has allowed us to feature a wider variety of innovative and risk-taking exhibitions featuring emerging artists and established artists who are taking risks with innovative art and events. Our Microcinema film festival is currently in its fifth presentation and occurs during Artville.
Impact
In November of 2023, COOP reached the milestone of 13 years! We host multiple exhibits, virtual access to events and meetings, and outdoor gathering opportunities. This included hosting our Microcinema film festival outdoors in September, during Artville. Our space regularly hosts arts workshops and, in conjunction with the Free Nashville Poetry Library, poetry workshops. The Risology Club also hosts monthly printmaking workshops at COOP. Our exhibition roster includes an exciting range of artists from diverse backgrounds, exemplifying our commitment to promoting diverse art forms. Our 2024 roster includes Matt Greenwell and Ron Buffington; Millicent Kennedy and Lisa Alberts; Jacklyn Brickman; Delanyo Mensah; Katie Hargrove and Meredith Laura Lynn; Marilee Salvator; and Tamara Reynolds.
COOP continues to offer dynamic arts programming, and COOP continues to live up to its mission and vision. We reinstated our internship program in 2022, training young artists and graphic designers at local universities on managing a nonprofit arts space. We continue to support filmmakers and digital artists with our Microcinema film screenings. Our workshops teach artists of all ages and abilities art skills and concepts, welcoming them into a collaborative, fun environment. During 2023, we are proud to present a variety of artists as part of the Tennessee Triennial, including Sarah Saturday, TC and Ole Skool Mike, Renata Casino Alvarez, and Samantha Zaruba. In March 2023, COOP artists hosted "Repair," a community arts event in which our artists use their artistic skills to repair clothing and other items for members of our community. In 2025, our TEN in TENN exhibition program will feature ten monthly exhibitions from ten Tennessee artists.
We aim to grow our fundraising and grant writing efforts in 2024 in support of our robust exhibition program, larger exhibition space, and workshop schedule. Another goal is go out into the community, to local K-12 schools, universities, festivals, and libraries with workshops and visiting artist opportunities.
Needs
Through our passionate commitment, COOP does a lot our resources and strives to make every investment count! We need YOU!
COOP needs include:
- Financial Support for artists' honorariums: $5,000+
- Financial Support for gallery upkeep, operations, and technology: $5,000+
- Financial Support for our internship program: $5,000+
- Financial Support for our workshops: $2000+
- Volunteers with fundraising experience, administration experience, and/or grant writing experience
- Accounting and bookkeeping support
CEO Statement
COOP is an organization that runs on passion. Our members are all full-time artists; many are professors of art and design, K-12 art teachers, arts instructors, and curators. All are deeply committed to enriching and contributing to the arts landscape of Nashville, and every hour put into the organization is donated. In our 13+ years, our exhibitions are thought provoking and of the highest quality, complementing galleries such as Zeitgeist, David Lusk, and the Frist Art Museum. We are Nashville's eldest artist-run project space. One of COOP's goals is to provide a venue outside of the commercial gallery system for artists to experiment with new ideas without the pressures of sales. This kind of creative freedom is rare, and our goal is to expand on our current programs with Pop Up exhibitions. We rely on the diverse resources of our member base to exhibit artists from around the country and the world. These endeavors require financial resources, however, and our honorariums and travel support for artists are basic by necessity. One of our goals is to alleviate more costs to the artists by increasing our honorariums. COOP is remarkable in that it provides a sense of community for artists all over the city. Our members live in various areas of the city, teach at every major university, and we work hard to support each other and also to create an inviting, open environment for all arts enthusiasts. Nashville, as we know, has grown exponentially in the last ten years, and we've seen almost every community thrive and prosper. We'd like to see the level of arts dialogue grow to match the city that we are transitioning into, and this means greater visibility, outreach, and education.
Board Chair Statement
COOP has approximately 30 members and is governed by a rotating board consisting of: President, Secretary, Treasurer, Curatorial Lead, Events, Fundraising and Grants, Internship Coordinator, and Communications. Positions rotate annually and others every two or three years. Members pay dues and all members are expected to contribute to the life of the gallery by serving on the board, hosting exhibitions, gallery sitting, and/or sponsoring events such as workshops and events.
Our organization is run primarily by volunteers; this contributes to both our successes and our challenges. Each board member takes their job seriously, and they all dependably get their jobs done. Burnout is an ongoing challenge because most of us are operating at full capacity as professional artists with full time jobs and families. We have an efficient system in place that ensures that all functions are met, but it has been difficult to expand beyond our current capacity. Thanks to a few extremely hard working and dedicated board members, we achieved non-profit status and are in a position to write grants and work on development. Ultimately, we hope to create a full-time paid Executive Director position who can dedicate at least thirty hours a week on growing the organization.
Service Categories |
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| Primary Category: | Arts, Culture & Humanities - Arts & Humanities Councils & Agencies |
| Secondary Category: | Arts, Culture & Humanities - Art Museums |
| Tertiary Category: | Arts, Culture & Humanities - Alliances & Advocacy |
Areas Served
COOP is made of artists living in or near Davidson County and mainly serves the Nashville audience by exhibiting artists from diverse areas of the country and world. We are also supporting Nashville artists, identifying and giving a voice to underrepresented and experimental work. It is not uncommon, however, to hear of people traveling in from various parts of Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, or elsewhere to view our exhibits or participate in a COOP event.
| TN |
| TN - Davidson |
