Artists United

Artists United seeks to be a powerful tool for Chicago’s creative community. It is a centralized digital resource hub that provides peer-to-peer resources and services. Building on the Bridge Directory and Bridge’s networks in the arts sector, Artists United addresses critical gaps in accessibility, visibility, and professional opportunities for underrepresented artists. It also fulfills a key goal of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Plan for Arts and Culture.

• Unionization Advocacy: Artists United seeks to serve as a collective voice advocating for fair pay, safe working conditions, and transparent compensation structures, directly supporting efforts to empower arts workers’ unionization efforts.
  

• Access to Legal and Financial Resources: Through partnerships and referrals, Artists United seeks to help members access legal consultations, wage equity programs, and much more.
  

• Income Stability: Collaborating with these partners, Artists United seeks to advocate for creative workers in the gig economy, especially where possible to advocate for wages instead of the default to contract pay, which is often done to avoid paying the benefits that come with wage employment.

The Bridge Directory Service complements the “service desk” effort by focusing on underrepresented art forms and practitioners through creation of a creative worker’s “for hire” list with breakdown of specialties, skills and etc., making it a vital “vade mecum” for the creative industries in Chicago. Using Community Box integration, Artists United provides members a live, interactive directory, including:

• Searchable profiles of union members with tags for disciplines, neighborhoods, and specialties.
  

• Map functionality to discover artists geographically, fostering local connections and projects within communities.
  

• Portfolio and contact features for curators, event organizers, and employers to connect directly with artists.

Modeled on Successful Precedents

Drawing inspiration from the Hyde Park Art Center’s Artist-Run Digest and Flash Art’s Art Diary, the Bridge Directory Service modernizes previous models by combining the immediacy of a live, constantly updated digital platform with the permanence of a planned triennial print publication. This print companion will include essays, reports, and historical perspectives contextualizing artist-run initiatives, further elevating visibility for Chicago’s creative workforce.

In terms of advocacy, Artists United seeks to consistently provide a structural presence for the voice of creative workers. In addition, we also prioritize the following:

• Neighborhood Empowerment: Artists United seeks to facilitate community-driven public art projects, such as murals or performances, reflecting local histories and cultural narratives.

• Collaborative Opportunities: The union seeks to establish partnerships with city departments and local chambers of commerce to produce art installations and events, activating underutilized spaces and enhancing public engagement.

Yes, Artists United has an integrated focus on equity and social justice, with a number of stated goals, including:

• Diverse Representation: At its core, Bridge has always been a publishing, programming and arts service organization. Through the Bridge platform of publications, Artists United will include priority programming coverage that uplifts marginalized voices and art forms, including a focus on socially engaged art to tell not just Chicago, but the world’s histories of struggle, resilience, and triumph.

• Pay Equity: By integrating initiatives like Pay Equity Standards and collaborating with organizations like the Freelancers Union, Lawyers for the Creative Arts (LCA) and W.A.G.E., Artists United seeks to advocate for equitable compensation practices across the sector.

• Your Turn: Begun during the pandemic, Your Turn is an ongoing information-gathering project designed by an earlier iteration of the Bridge Artistic Collective. The Your Turn program was launched to assess how easy or hard has it been to access crisis resources, at any time in your life? Including SNAP benefits or other food resources? Have you been able to find help and support facing domestic abuse, eviction, substance use, abuse and addiction, mental illness, unemployment insurance, or anything else you'd like to tell us about? Your survival stories will eventually be transformed into posters and other print and digital projects to elevate your voice and that of others who are fighting to makes ends meet. It will also be used by Artists United to help guide program development, and provide needs assessments data for targeting what supports are critical to artist’s success and prosperity.