Public Assistants is a mutual aid network, design lab, and resistance hub.
Founded on June 6, 2020 as an organizing base in response to the confluence of the COVID-19 pandemic and global socio-political uprising, PA has both led and partnered a number of community initiatives since its inception.
Among them, a paid summer youth mural residency program, a free bike repair and refurbish initiative, a community garden, holiday clothing and toy drives, hot meal/care package distribution, as well as wellness workshops for collective care and resilience.
In addition to community programming, our eclectic team of artists, makers, organizers, and builders have the capacity to design, produce, and fabricate just about anything.
Capabilities include:
- Banners, sets, and media for protest and direct action
- Murals
- Visual media (painting/drawing/photo/video)
- Garment design
- Sustainable green design
- Research and archive
- Art/creative direction
- Styling
- Production and set design
- Music and Performance
All of our services to QTBIPOC members of the community are pro-bono and donation based.
Public Assistants, a Resistance Community Space, Opens in Crown Heights - Curbed
The Black Pages - Interview Magazine
Where We’re At - Art Forum
Necessity is the mother of invention, and Public Assistants is it’s daughter.
Born from the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, Public Assistants is built to grow within its community, and we understand that we cannot thrive if we do not first understand.
Programming must respond to the needs of those around us. Envisioned as a space for those that need it most. Public Assistants is a space for artists.
For too long BIPOC creatives, artists, makers and doers have found themselves unwelcome and sidelined.
Public Assistants will be a space for them with programming designed by them, led by them and built by them.