We had the good fortune of connecting with Dani Cunningham and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Dani, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
chant cooperative began as a brainstorm between the co-founder, Laura Beacom, and me. We saw many artist friends struggling with motivation and having difficulty navigating the administrative side of being a working artist – especially those who had recently graduated – and we wanted to support them. Also, we both loathe the inherently capitalistic gallery system that often pigeon-holes artists into singular styles decided by fickle public opinion while gallery owners take 50% of sales. There are fantastic galleries who support artists, but a lot are honestly vile. In protest, we created a model that is truly cooperative, open to any skill level, and charges a monthly fee that is circulated back into the group.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I’ve always been a dreamer, with early ambition to become a writer, so I came to visual art later in life. Once I started developing an art practice, the universe conspired to place extraordinary, creative people in my path—people who believed in my ideas as much as I believed in theirs, especially my partner, Julio. His confidence in me opened countless doors, and without him, many of my projects wouldn’t have come to life, including chant cooperative.

Living with chronic fatigue and a mental illness has profoundly shaped how I navigate the world and create art. These experiences led me to cyborg theory—the concept that humans are already cyborgs through our entanglement with technology. This framework continues to resonate with my experience of disability, which is central to everything I make. Coupled with being a woman making nontraditional art (anti-capitalist performance, video, and sculpture), its been challenging to be seen.

I’m also unwaveringly hopeful and deeply committed to community building because I’ve been held by community during my most difficult times. I don’t subscribe to the myth of the solitary genius artist—I think that’s just silly egotism. Instead, I know that we’re all shaped by those around us, and that it’s our chosen families who influence us the most, and who help us thrive and move forward despite humanity’s uncertain future.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
City Park + food trucks at Jazz in the Park on Sundays
Chef Zorba’s
The Art District on Santa Fe (especially Center for Visual Art and the District’s emerging artists residency program)
Tonantzin Casa de Café
Dateline
Bell Projects
The Crypt
PS Lounge
Squire Lounge
Middleman (sadly, closing I think)
The Temple Contemporary Artist Studios & Adam Gordan, owner
Andrew Novick, artist, musician, and keeper of old Denver history

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Metropolitan State University’s Center for Visual Art – this is where I became comfortable with myself as an artist, met some of my favorite people, learned a few tricks around working with other artists, and saw how professionalism and creativity can coalesce.

Website: https://www.chantcooperative.org/

Instagram: @chantcooperative @thenowfuture

Other: I also write for:

DARIA Magazine
https://www.dariamag.com/home/everything-papier-mache

A Substack called Girl Book, published by Kiera McIntosh
https://studyforagirlbook.substack.com/p/dye-it-spike-it-shave-it-all-off

Image Credits
Lindsay Goodman, Julio Alejandro, me

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