Black Artist Burnout is an ongoing participatory web-based project that explores the consequences of systemic race-related trauma on artists and their ecosystems, with the goal of developing individual and community-level strategies to navigate these issues.
View online exhibitionCommissioned by the New Museum’s digital art affiliate Rhizome, Black Artist Burnout is a work by Registered Nurse and integrative medicine practitioner Liz Mputu (LVLZ Healing Hub) and m3ga, a web3 smart company led by Architectural Designer Gregory Ketant and conceptual artist/designer Moustafa Hassan.
The featured activation for First Look: New Art Online is a care plan developed by Mputu, drawing on her background in healing, community building, and digital art. Participants can use the care plan to follow image- and sound-creation prompts to help surface distinct ways of processing and addressing racialized trauma encountered in culture work or settings. Black Artist Burnout also features a series of PSAs and memetic promos that evoke the experiences that Black artists often have when engaging with white institutions, even those with “good” intentions.
Black Artist Burnout is envisioned as an ongoing project, and its creators plan to further develop the care plan and share results through one-on-one and small group conversations and consultations, which will also inform the project’s overall direction. For ongoing updates, follow Black Artist Burnout on Instagram.
Research and development for Black Artist Burnout was done by NEXUS.
