Gift Culture – Free Columbia Art Course

The next Gift Culture recipient is The Free Columbia Art Course, based in Hawthorne Valley, New York. Not only is this a free gift in support of the unfolding of human capacities through cultural activity – education, research, art – it is also supporting, importantly, new ways of financing such activity.

The Free Columbia Art Course does not charge anything for course tuition or materials. As you can see on their website here, the course expenses are completely funded through financial pledges and other free gifts, such as our micro-gift of $50. Because of this, there is a greater opportunity for those who feel called to take part in this full-time course to be able to take part irrespective of their financial situation.

Not only, therefore, does this course support the full, artistic unfolding of human capacities and creativity, it also enables the creation of works of art (some of which can be borrowed through their innovative artwork lending library) for others to experience. On top of this, its financial structure is itself a work of art. It is not funded by government nor by business in such a way that they are told what or how to teach. Nor is it ‘selling’ its education as a purchase transaction – education is not being commodified. Instead, education is being pre-funded as a free gift towards the renewal of society as a whole, including economic life.

We are delighted to be able to fund such an initiative through our Gift Culture experiment, and to make it possible for students to attend as free and creative human beings. Are we ready for similar ways of working in Western Australia?