Summary

One month later, when the Hamas attacks in Israel occurred on October 7, we were already in the middle of our Tanfis II residency program, an ambitious project centering mainly around NY-based Palestinian artists. As the horrors of unchecked violence continued to unfold in their homelands, and as our Tanfis artists lost family members, friends, homes, and lands, we doubled down on our commitment to the creative process and our work together. The result was a life-affirming, truthful, and deeply moving body of work that we premiered in December to a sold-out audience in Brooklyn, NY.

All of this was bolstered by encouraging developments in our fundraising. In the first quarter of 2023, we raised $8,500 in individual donations from our community and secured $30,000 in institutional grant funding. By the end of the year, we secured $75,000 in institutional grant funding for 2024. While we continued to rely on large donations from our board of directors to fund the remaining annual budget, the increase in external funding demonstrated our growing visibility and the interest in the important work we do. This has helped fuel our commitment to continue co-creating spaces of belonging and mutual support through collaboratively documenting and remixing underrepresented traditional musicians and their communities’ stories.

 In-Person

The highlight of the year was the successful completion of our second Tanfis residency program. Tanfis II began with a vision larger in scope than anything we’ve previously undertaken. Supported in part by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and Brooklyn Arts Council, our Tanfis II journey began with an open call for NY-based artists from Palestinian, Syrian, Iraqi, and Lebanese diaspora communities. The invitation was to collectively explore the concept of “tanfis,” an Arabic word referring to a cathartic liberation of the soul, set against the backdrop of dehumanization, misrepresentation, and erasure faced by the featured artist communities. As a result of diligent outreach efforts led by our new Community Liaison, Waad El Hadidy, we received an impressive and diverse pool of applicants from which we selected 14 artists for the residency program. 

Over the course of several months – through a combination of in-person residencies in upstate NY and NYC and remote / independent work, diligently supported by our new Operations Manager, Danielle Andersen, and directed by our Artistic Director, Hatim Belyamani, – these artists individually and collectively explored ways to honor, celebrate, and amplify their community-rooted music and stories, and at the same time reimagine them. These explorations intensified in scope, depth, and urgency in the wake of the unfolding dehumanization, and erasure of Palestinian lives, lands, and culture. Amidst ongoing trauma, the artists bore their hearts and souls with strength, grace, and love. 

The project's key accomplishments included:

• Collectively defining the themes, music, stories, and approaches that best serve the project;

• Selecting and creating original arrangements of community-rooted songs;

• Recording and filming performances of the community-rooted songs;

• Collecting, recording, and filming interviews and storytelling content;

• Editing and remixing the recordings and films of music and stories;

• Creating custom digitized tatreez (traditional Palestinian embroidery) patterns;

• Co-designing a 3-hr live experience weaving in all of the creative explorations of the residency (in the form of acoustic music, electronic remixes, video projections, storytelling) into an immersive tanfis journey;

• Premiering the live experience on December 1, 2023;

• Presenting the live experience a second time on January 15, 2024;

• Building partnerships with a variety of local organizations and venues, including:

• NY-based, refugee-run Eat Offbeat, who catered the live events;

• Brooklyn venues Funoon and Roulette Intermedium, who hosted the live events;

• Arabic cultural institutions ArteEast and Brooklyn Maqaam, who helped promote the project;

• Community-supported music platform Viewcy, who hosted our online ticket sales.

Other In-Person Collaborations

Online

Traditional Music Releases

In 2023, as our community of musicians grew, so did our online audiovisual library of music recordings, sample packs, and community stories, thanks to the contributions of our new release manager, Conrad Clifton, working in close collaboration with our long-time audio director, Tyler Wood. These new releases offered musical and educational journeys across the world:

• Cavolo Marinho Estrela Brilhante (Condado, Brazil)

• Mani Nilchiani (Iran/NYC)

• Layale Chaker & Sam Minaie (Lebanon/NYC)

Community and Fair Trade Remixes

Our traditional music releases also serve as regenerative offerings, inviting remix artists worldwide to reimagine the traditional music and join our open-access, fair trade collective. Using our downloadable samples, anyone can participate in creating new music and video art. In 2023 we promoted this participatory culture by:

Our Reach 

In 2023 we invested in creating more meaningful, impactful, and engaging content on our social platforms. This included sharing music and video from our vast archive with more educational and storytelling context. These and other efforts led by our Community Manager, Max Katz, resulted in an impressive growth in our online presence:

• IG profile visits increased by 167.3%

• IG and FB organic reach each increased by 100%

• IG post frequency increased by 41.2% and story frequency increased by 137.7%

• IG followers grew by nearly 33% after the December 15 TANFIS event (with a second large spike after the January 15 event)

• YouTube views reached 14 million, with 2.4 million new views this year and over 58,000 subscribers

Mutual Aid

In response to the earthquake that impacted some of our partners in Morocco, we launched an online fundraising campaign. Thanks to the generous response, we were able to send money and provide relief for our partnering artist Khadija El Warzazia, her family and bandmates, and our partnering community center in Marrakesh, Dar Bellarj.

Behind the Scenes

Our Team 

In 2023 the Remix ⟷ Culture family grew as we created new roles and hired five part-time staff members: 

• Conrad Clifton, Release Manager

• Max Katz, Communications Manager

• Danielle Andersen, Operations Manager

• Waad El Hadidy, Community Liaison

• Sydney Friedman, Video Editor

Thanks to the leadership and drive of our Operations Director, Darwensi Clark, we also completely reconstituted our board of directors. These professionals and experts from diverse backgrounds and fields – from non-profit development to marketing to finance and compliance – supported us with additional tools and knowledge for best executing our creative vision:  

• Justin Adams, world renowned guitarist, member of Robert Plant and The Sensational Shape Shifters

• Regine Basha, seasoned arts curator, writer, consultant, and podcast host

• Steven Bean, award-winning social entrepreneur and non-profit development expert

• Jeremy Burke, nonprofit expert in financial leadership

• Altay Guvench, tech entrepreneur and software engineer

• Kurt Korthals, acclaimed electronic music producer and music software engineer

• Dominique Troy, seasoned nonprofit strategist and community-builder

• Amita Vempati, former staff member and non-profit arts and social justice professional

Financials  

After a difficult 2022, when the COVID pandemic dried up our external funding, we are proud to have bounced back by securing more grant funding in 2023 than in previous years, along with increased donations from individual supporters. 

• In January 2023, we kicked off a crowdfunding campaign that raised $8,500 in individual donations from our community.

• By June, we had secured nearly $30,000 in institutional grant funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Brooklyn Arts Council.

• Our online and in-person programming generated $16,275 in revenue, up from $12,610 in 2022.

• We received $195,000 in donations from the board and large donors, up from $48,000 the previous year.

• By the end of 2023, we received approvals for over a two-fold increase in grant funding for the following year, this time from the New York State Council for the Arts. The award consisted of $40,000 in operational support, and $35,000 in support of our planned 2024 residency program. 

This financial growth made it possible for us to not only cover $73,000 in program costs and $57,000 in operating expenses, but also to step into 2024 with over $100,000 in cash reserves.

What’s Next?