ABOUT IRENIC
Irenic Projects promotes the visual and performing arts within progressive and inclusive religious organizations.
Irenic Projects makes no statement about the existence of God (but it leans atheistic or agnostic).
Belief in a deity or adherence to a faith system is not required to participate in the work of Irenic Projects.

MISSION STATEMENT
Irenic Projects was founded to create a network of diverse and mutually supportive creative communities and inclusive religious groups. By finding commonalities across traditional divides, these groups can work together toward common goals: promoting sustainable living practices, lessening hostility and aggression, fighting antisemitism, and promoting more humane systems that foster dignity and justice to people and the earth. Irenic Projects empowers churches to operate more like community centers by bringing art into sacred spaces - not to elevate the art but to activate the church.
Reimagining religious places as community-centered institutions offers cultural and intellectual nourishment to underserved neighborhoods. Irenic Projects partners with religious institutions offering support and guidance in creating space for contemporary artists on their campuses. Visual artists and musicians need low-cost studios and rehearsal space, and they bring with them communities rich with curiosity, care, and creative vigor.
Irenic Projects blurs the boundary between who is in and who is out when it comes to religious space and art. The church on the corner should feel like a welcoming space to everyone, an extension of their home. Contemporary artists should have more opportunities to engage audiences outside of the market driven gallery and collector base. There is often a day of the week reserved for like-minded faithful believers to gather. But what of the six other days in the week? Those days are when we can widen the circle, expanding religious practice and participation in religious life, building new alliances in the pursuit of a sustainable future.
PHILOSOPHY OF GOD
Irenic Projects is invested in the origins, development, and ongoing maintenance of the idea of God. The idea of God is not a supernatural deity. It is a philosophical concept with very real practical, social, political, communal, and future building consequences. When the religious realms of society are neglected by progressives, they become hot beds for religious extremism and fascism. Religion is a persistent force in the world, and everyone should feel empowered to engage with the ideas, even if they themselves are not conventionally religious.
PHILOSOPHY OF PEOPLE
Irenic Projects is inclusive and fiercely protective of all ethnicities, gender expressions, sexual orientations, countries of origin, ages, and abilities. Irenic Projects is NOT necessarily protective and inclusive of all religions and beliefs: in so far as someone’s religious beliefs cause them to actively exclude or oppress the above mentioned peoples, or creates categories of acceptability and belonging based on damaging moral systems, Irenic Projects cannot condone.
Irenic Projects is a project of Fulcrum Arts’ Emerge Fiscal Sponsorship Program