COVEN activates space and place for monumental art so creators and doers can change the world.
Let’s take art
beyond the living room—
back into communities.
COVEN is a nonprofit accelerator that supports monumental art for social change, backed by a real estate impact fund and strategic partners collaborating to build a strong ecosystem of next-generation artists, storytellers, and patrons transforming communities for shared prosperity.
To make large, multi-dimensional public art, COVEN enables creators and doers by aggregating the talent, infrastructure, capital, and platforms that make building and sharing powerful artworks economically viable and sustainable.
Our
Beliefs
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Monumental art, one of the oldest forms of art in the world, is a world changer by evoking wonder and inviting shifts in our collective perceptions of truth, meaning, and reality regarding impermanence, possibility, and generosity.
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Too often, those with the most powerful messages are circumvented from sharing. We seek out those voices and provide them a megaphone—through art. Within COVEN, all gifts are welcome.
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Industrial makers spaces serve as a convening ground. One where creators and community come together and find deep connections—a place to build. A brave space where hard things are done.
A Monumental
Ecosystem
Everything is interconnected. Our systems approach focuses on the whole instead of the parts—solving for the needs of creators and builders and, ultimately, the community as a whole. The COVEN ecosystem model leverages an artist-in-residence program to source talent and produce art, a real estate impact fund to secure industrial art maker-spaces, capacity-building programs to support artists as they build their business, and a placemaking program to get BIG art out into public spaces.
a pipeline of artists & doers
We scour every corner to find hidden talent—whether already existing large-scale artists, artists with the desire but not the means, or doers looking for ways and projects to do. We partner with local artist organizations who likely have their ear to the ground in a way that we can’t help us scout for talent. We aim to amplify those who might otherwise be sidelined given a lack of access. We leverage our community network, capital, and capacity-building programming to help nurture their craft.
physical infrastructure to build art
Space is integral to the artist’s journey—particularly space to build large, industrial, multi-dimensional art. We co-create and co-invest in makers’ and community convening spaces committed to creating monumental artwork ultimately placed in public spaces worldwide.
We partner locally with those already utilizing a collaborative community to create large-scale art and who would benefit from an investment to shore up their community—whether buying a building to protect against shifting real estate markets or elevating existing wraparound artist support services and offerings. We aim to help fortify nonprofit efforts and ensure enduring access to space for hot & dirty art.
platforms to enable artist success
Much of this world’s monumental art ends up in storage containers or kept under tarps. The impact of each piece diminished—conversations never had, and perspectives never shifted. We suffer.
Our goal is to get and keep large-scale art out into the world, our parks, our cities, our festivals—any and everywhere we can. We do this through partnerships with the real estate industry, business sector, and government agencies to place-make for public art—whether on rotation or permanent installation.
It’s also vital that artists are equipped with the resources necessary to ensure they are set up for success. 720 Support shores an artist’s skills or knowledge gaps —from hard stuff like design and fabrication to soft stuff like fundraising campaigns, IP, and taxes. We partner with subject matter experts to deliver right on time artist support.
capital to support artists
Monumental art is resource-intensive and takes its toll. Yet artists show up time and time again, bearing gifts for society. We must ensure they have the resources they need to share their vision successfully with the world.
We provide unrestricted grants to artists to support their projects. Monies can be applied across a project's lifecycle—from early-stage development through installation to placement. We also help our artists identify additional financial support (e.g., cost-of-living allowances) during the production of their projects via our partner network.
Do you share our mission of revitalizing SF through big art?