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2023 was a pivotal year for growth and development at Union Hall. Driven by community needs, our programming was strategically-aligned with our mission and vision, in service of the immense creative talent the Denver-area has to offer.
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A LITTLE BIT ABOUT OUR NONPROFIT Union Hall was established in 2019 to advance opportunities for diverse, emerging artists and creatives, providing a platform for Denver locals and visitors to engage in enriching exhibitions and creative experiences, and serving as a community-focused art space and culture concierge. At Union Hall, we believe ALL artists and creatives deserve to have the time, space, and funds to accomplish their goals and grow their careers. Union Hall is the only nonprofit art space in the state that offers a curatorial program — Rough Gems — dedicated to the mentorship of emerging and aspiring curators with a goal of diversifying the voices responsible for exhibition-making. As one of the only non-profit art exhibition and event spaces located in Lower Downtown, Denver, our approach prioritizes institutional innovation, inclusivity of diverse artistic mediums and voices, tangible community impact, and inspirational experiences that are free and accessible to the public.
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WHERE WE’VE BEEN
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WHO WE ARE
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WHERE WE’RE GOING
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WHERE WE’VE BEEN 01. Over the past 4 years Union Hall has hosted 31 exhibitions working with 99 visual artists and 19 guest curators. We have hosted 207 events, always striving to keep them free and accessible. We have partnered with local organizations for exhibitions and events such as the Denver Film Festival, Athena Project, Sacred Voices, Denver Digerati, Shades of Honey, Denver’s Month of Photography, Denver’s Month of Video, and NEST Studio for the Arts, CU Boulder.
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WHO WE ARE 02. Union Hall is led by a team of 3 Hispanic women - Emma, Esther, and Jess. Together we organize 7 visual art exhibitions each year, showcasing a variety of mediums and focusing on early career creatives. Union Hall also hosts over 50 events each year including creative workshops, movement and meditation sessions, artist talks, curatorial tours, film screenings, comedy shows, and more. We also serve as a culture concierge, keeping locals and visitors in-the-know for the best arts and culture happenings via newsletters, blog posts, and visits.
STAFF MEMBERS Emma Perez Steuer - Executive Director Esther Hernandez - Chief Curator Jess Diaz - Gallery and Marketing Manager BOARD OF DIRECTORS Amy Cara Jay Lambiotte Tessa Crisman Erica Jacobson Johnny Klein Heather Meek Derrick Velasquez
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WHERE WE’RE GOING 03. Our goal is to expand the creative resources available for the community of artists, curators, and art-lovers within the Denver area, making cultural engagement a more enriching, accessible, and inspiring experience. Union Hall aspires to be a career launchpad for creatives, and a home-away-from-home for visitors.
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DATA POINTS In 2023, Union Hall continued to amplify the work of emerging artists, curators and performers while keeping events and exhibitions free, increasing wages, and carrying on our vision of being a professional springboard for early-career creatives.
91% FREE EVENTS
10% INCREASE IN WAGES FOR ALL CREATIVES
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ARTISTS, CURATORS, AND PERFORMERS WE WORKED WITH WHO WERE PAID FAIR, EQUITABLE WAGES
20%
61%
MORE VISITORS THAN 2022
ARTISTS AND CURATORS WERE BIPOC OR LATINX 06
ROUGH GEMS PROGRAM PURP O S E
IMPACT
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Rough Gems is our annual open call and collaborative curatorial program at Union Hall. Surveying the landscape of opportunities available for creatives in Denver, we recognized that there are relatively few opportunities for emerging curators to submit work for consideration, receive portfolio reviews, and be awarded funds, when compared to similar opportunities for artists. Rough Gems was developed as a response to this gap; supporting those curious about exhibition-making in developing their curatorial skills.
• 15 new curators have produced exhibitions in the Rough Gems program since 2020.
The program has been written about in Denverite, 303 Magazine, the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver’s Blog, and Southwest Contemporary.
• 3/4 curators in 2023 identified as female or non-binary. • 1/3 of all curators since 2020 have identified as BIPOC or Latinx. “My Rough Gems experience was truly impactful as it has inspired me to co-curate further exhibitions and to begin working in arts administration.”— 2022 Rough Gems Curator
“Rough Gems isn’t just an accolade or a chance to put on a show. And it’s not just a program that deepens a new curator’s practice, expands their possibilities, and prepares them for the future—though it does this excellently. It’s a place for the underdog artists and curators. A white-walled gallery that doesn’t want to tell the same old stories and show the same artists. A place where risk and experiment are valued in a city that needs it.” — Sommer Browning, “Rough Gems, A Curatorial Fellowship for the Underdogs,” Southwest Contemporary Magazine, Sept.2023 07
ART IST HIGHLIGHT: A GRIX Meet A Grix, a Boulder-based artist who was in Union Hall’s original 2023 exhibition, ‘Through Flesh to Infinity,’ and a 2021 graduate curator from our Rough Gems Curatorial Program. A Grix is an artist, educator, and independent curator whose work focuses on how bodies on the margins of society occupy space. Grix strongly feels that “curating and art-making have similar considerations,” and that their curatorial experience at Union Hall impacted their creative practice. “Union Hall is a nonprofit with the goal of supporting artists so [selling artwork] is not their main concern. In a lot of other contexts it wouldn’t really be possible for us to show or make this work because there would be different concerns. That’s really exciting, especially for an early-career artist, for the space to be about the art, it feels important and one less thing that artists have to compromise on.” 08
FINANCIALS 12.5% CORPORATE 1.5% EARNED INCOME 9% INDIVIDUAL
299K
28%
$71
INCREASE IN COLORADO GIVES DAY
AVERAGE INDIVIDUAL DONATION
DONATIONS 2022 TO 2023
AMOUNT IN 2023
77% FOUNDATION AND GOVERNMENT
2023 FISCAL YEAR INCOME
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THANK YOU, 2023 DONORS! The Coloradan Community Foundation Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts • Bonfils-Stanton Foundation Colorado Creative Industries • Rose Community Foundation Ascentris • East West Partners • First Bank • Otten Johnson • Sherman & Howard, LLC Alpine Bank • Harrison Home Systems 10
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CONNECT WITH US ADDRESS 1750 WEWATTA ST SUITE 144, DENVER CO 80202 PHONE (720) 927-4033 EMAIL INFO@UNIONHALLDENVER.ORG INSTAGRAM / FACEBOOK - UNION HALL DENVER YOUTUBE - UNION HALL DENVER WATCH OUR 2023 COMMUNITY IMPACT VIDEO
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