Frameworks List

Be The Museum is a framework of Artists Daria Dorosh and Yvonne Shortt. The goal of the framework is to disrupt the scarcity mindset and patriarchal selection systems commonly encountered in the art world. This framework empowers the artist, gives the artist autonomy over their artwork, builds a sustainable practice, builds confidence, helps the artist be introduced to collectors they might not have met otherwise, helps the artist explore their own objectives for their practice, and ultimately gives the artist a way to work toward their goals on their own terms.

Download the Be The Museum framework here.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Through the Artist Open Call, artists self-select to participate in opportunities, rejecting the traditional selection process as hierarchical and driven by a scarcity mindset. Artists meet weekly to build trust and connections through Zoom or in-person conversations. This preparatory exploration then impacts the creative process on-site.

It has been prototyped at A.I.R. Gallery, New York, NY and Ely Center of Contemporary Art, New Haven, CT.

Download the Artist Open Call Framework here.

BeTheMuseum:  The Endowment Rooms grew from recognizing a pattern of scarcity in  myself, my friends, and the artists around me. I began to see how I  wasted so placed in the position of begging for survival: applying,  waiting, hoping, proving, and asking to be chosen. Over time, I realized  this pattern was not only in the arts. It appeared everywhere, from  schools to jobs to nonprofit structures.

I  began studying private foundations, endowments, and the financial  systems that often support nonprofit institutions. At the same time, I  started writing publicly here about these questions. Instagram became a  site for field notes and conversation, a place where artists could  respond with their own experiences of fear, scarcity, confusion,  exclusion, abundance, and the desire to take control of their lives  without having to do it alone. I began educating myself in financial  language, invited a small group of artists to learn with me, and am  turning the research into writing, images, songs, ceremony, and public  dialogue.