*ACTIVATED: SPRING DISPATCH FROM MAH*
Newsletter Vol. 1 | Spring 2025
Hey there,
Ever find yourself wondering where to catch up on all the good things we’re sharing—whether on socials or in our meetings? Well, wonder no more. The Mutual Aid Hartford Newsletter is officially here!
Landing in your inbox every other month, this newsletter is your go to for updates, reflections, and calls to action. From what’s blooming in the Imaginal Cell and Autonomous Fellowship, to op-eds by our brilliant fellows, to upcoming events and ways to plug in—we’re keeping it grounded, communal, and full of heart.
So without further ado…here’s our very first issue! (cue glittery early-2000s scream)
IMAGINAL CELL: Cultivating the Culture of Care
In January 2025, ten visionary artists and cultural workers joined the inaugural Imaginal Cell cohort—a program made possible through CEIO’s Seeding Conscious Co-Creation Fellowship. Rooted in Hartford and expanding throughout Connecticut, this fellowship is a space for artists to practice and deepen mutual aid, solidarity economics, and radical care.
Over six weeks, our cohort came together with practitioners from across the state and nation to dream, study, and build together. From these emerged projects, now taking shape across Hartford—each a seed of possibility for a more just, creative, and connected world.
IMAGINAL CELL FEATURED PROJECTS
Get to know the amazing projects our first cohort is building.
Mariana Peláez
Project Title: MAH ZINE
A zine for and by the Mutual Aid Hartford network, this project uplifts grassroots efforts, offers educational resources, and celebrates the stories of care and resistance across the city of Hartford.
Jason Fredlund
Project Title: Offers & Needs Markets (OANM)
Using the model developed by the Post Growth Institute, the Offers & Needs Markets are community-powered exchanges of resources, skills, time, and opportunities - created to remind us that there’s help out there, you just have to ask for it.
Stay tuned for the next OANM coming up in September!
Tara Harrison
Project: cART in the Streets
A mobile art cart for creative expression in public spaces, inspired by national models and rooted in local love. From screenprinting to natural dye techniques, this project brings high-quality, free, accessible art to families right where they are—parks, pools, markets, and more.
Support the Cart!
Donate today at: Patronicity.com/cART. Sustainable CT will match every dollar if we reach our goal!
MUTUAL THOUGHTS - A Self Study Spotlight
Each month, one fellow reflects on a shared reading from our learning lab. Here’s an opinion piece on our April study, Coalition Politics: Turning The Century by Bernice Johnson Reagon, written by our Organizing Fellow, Dom McLennon.
“A large reason why I joined this fellowship was to create an opportunity to find more formal education and understanding of the infrastructural practice of social movement work through an organization that is aiming to support artists, and share my thoughts as an artist in what has been a protected space for us to cultivate and develop our skills. For most of my adult career, the arts and specifically the entertainment industry has become what Bernice would refer to as my ‘barred room.’
She says, ‘in that little barred room where you check everybody at the door, you act out community. You pretend that your room is a world…Of course the problem with the experiment is that there ain’t nobody in here but folk like you, which by implication means you wouldn’t know what to do if you were running it with all of the other people who are out there in the world. Now that’s nationalism. I mean it’s nurturing, but it’s also nationalism.’ My aspirations with making change may not always be in alignment with making friends, and quite frankly that’s been a really difficult pill to swallow over the last four or five years based on the world I spent a lot of my teens and twenties dedicated to.
I’m immensely grateful for all my peers and comrades, equally so for the ones gained and lost along the way. Something about making a more intentional effort to decolonize myself from the systemic abuse in my work led me to having to remove the things and people who have interfered directly with that effort. A lot of Bernice’s words really resonated with me, specifically how she communicated what the illusion of community can feel like when the ideology and reality of being like-minded doesn’t match up with the reality of staying intentional about keeping the work intersectional.”
OUR UPCOMING EVENTS
• I:RL - Imagine Release Learn | June 7th, 5pm-10pm
• MAH’s House Meeting - The Rent is Too Damn High! | June 17th, 6pm-8pm
• cART in the Streets Prep Party | June 18th, 6pm-8pm
• cART in the Streets at West End Farmers’ Market | June 24th & July 22nd, 4pm-7pm
Stay connected for exact dates and RSVP for more info!
The Autonomous Fellowship is a new artist fellowship brought to you by Mutual Aid Hartford. Its purpose is to resource artist’s involvement in social movement building through education and application. Our fellowship focuses on solidarity and fosters networks of care, emphasizing the importance of personal transformation as a foundation for creating systemic change.
This fellowship is designed intentionally for artists who are resisting hyper-individualistic and hyper-capitalist approaches to creating and existing, cultivating a collective framework for meaningful, socially impactful work.
Check out our fellows for the 2025 cohort!
From left to right Andriana Milner, Thorne Malik, Bizzie Ruth, & Dom McLennon. Click here to learn more about our fellows and their roles!
WHY WE EXIST
Mutual Aid Hartford (MAH) is a responsive community network. Our work furthers alignment in the social movement ecosystem through education, social care, and the stewardship of third space. Our work has transformed but our mission remains; building community power through person to person care and connection.
GET INVOLVED!
Support our work by donating or becoming a member today.
[Click to Donate or Become a Member]
If you’d like your upcoming event, story or call to action in our next newsletter, be sure to fill out our content request form! Please submit your information by July 17th.
Share this newsletter. Volunteer with us. Attend a community event.
Let’s build the future together.
With gratitude and imagination,
MAH
