Spark Fund has provided $100 of match funding
Transform Brooklyn Into One Giant Work of Art
New York, United States
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Part of the New York Founding 50
Aim
Help Create Brooklyn's Biggest Free Celebration of Art and Community This September
Brooklyn Is About to Become One Giant Work of Art
Imagine stepping outside your front door and discovering . . .
A jazz trio on your corner.
Poets performing in a neighborhood garden.
Artists painting a community mural.
Children creating art together in the park.
Dancers transforming a public square.
Interactive installations anyone can experience.
A fashion show made from reclaimed clothing.
Neighbors connecting through creativity.
This September, we're inviting every Brooklyn neighborhood to become part of one shared celebration of art, music, and community—and you can help make it happen.
One Borough. One Festival. Everyone Welcome. Free!
No fences.
No VIP tickets.
No corporate stages.
Just artists, neighbors, families, and communities creating together across Brooklyn.
We believe creativity shouldn't depend on income. Every performance, mural, workshop, installation, and exhibition will be completely free, because public art should belong to everyone.
Why This Matters
Art has the power to bring people together.
It creates connection between neighbors.
It gives local artists opportunities to share their work.
It transforms everyday places into spaces filled with creativity, conversation, and community.
Too often, experiencing art means buying a ticket or visiting a gallery.
We're changing that.
Instead of asking people to come to one festival...
We're bringing the festival to them.
Every neighborhood becomes part of the experience.
Every street can become a stage.
Every resident can become an artist.
A Vision Six Years in the Making
For the past six years, ARTMAGEDDON has been proving that art belongs everywhere—not just inside galleries or behind ticket booths.
Now we're taking the biggest leap we've ever attempted.
More than 500 artists, musicians, poets, dancers, and creators will transform all 50,244 acres of Brooklyn into a month-long celebration of creativity, culminating on September 27, 2026.
Our vision is ambitious—but it's built on years of experience bringing free public art into Brooklyn's neighborhoods.
This year, we're expanding that vision across the entire borough.
Why ARTMAGEDDON Is Different
Most festivals ask:
"What famous performers can we book?"
We're asking:
"How can we help thousands of people become creators?"
ARTMAGEDDON isn't about watching from the sidelines.
It's about participating.
Creating.
Meeting your neighbors.
Supporting local artists.
Building stronger communities through creativity.
Together, we're creating the world's largest neighborhood-powered art festival.
What Your Donation Makes Possible
Every contribution helps turn another block into a place where creativity brings people together.
Your support helps us:
- Recruit and support hundreds of artists
- Produce free performances and interactive installations
- Secure permits and insurance
- Print maps and promotional materials
- Provide supplies for community art activities
- Coordinate neighborhood hosts and volunteers
- Create free programming throughout Brooklyn
- Document the festival and its impact
If you'd like, consider replacing this section with donation impact levels, for example:
- $25 helps provide materials for a community art activity.
- $50 supports a neighborhood performance or workshop.
- $100 helps cover permits for public programming.
- $250 supports an artist-led installation.
- $500 helps activate an entire neighborhood with free creative experiences.
What We're Working Toward
This September, we're aiming to create a festival with:
- 500+ participating artists
- 90+ participating venues
- 50+ community partnerships
- Brooklyn-wide programming across neighborhoods
- Free performances, exhibitions, workshops, and installations
- Hundreds of opportunities for people to create and experience art
- A month-long celebration culminating on September 27, 2026
- 20,000+ festival attendees
- 100+ festival volunteers
Meet the People Behind ARTMAGEDDON
Robert Elstein is an educator, artist, producer, director, poet, activist, organizer, father and fourth generation Brooklynite is committed to the environmental and cultural restoration of New York City through means of urban alchemy. He is a co-founder of African Graves Matter which successfully advocated for the preservation of the Sacred African Burial Ground of Flatbush and the nonprofit NYC Earth, founder of Beautify Brooklyn and The Artmageddon Collective and originator of the Artmageddon Art and Music Festival, now in its eighth iteration, presenting the collective work of more than 500 Brooklyn Artists from the magical, enchanted gardens of Victorian Ditmas Park, Flatbush & surrounding areas, since 2021. Elstein envisions a future of musical cleanup parades, free public immersive art experiences and community operas, seed bomb rituals and a proliferation of poets on the corners. He aims to answer a nudging question posed by the late great poet John Ashbery, who wrote, “Elstein’s poetry repeatedly returns us to a central question: What are we doing here and why do we enjoy it so much?”
In the past six years, as Director of Beautify Brooklyn, Elstein has collaborated & helped lead a series of extraordinary successes transforming the landscape & culture of our home. In their first year, on a budget of only $5,000 they produced 22 events attracting more than 300 volunteers for sidewalk & beach cleanups & trash-to-treasure workshops & more than 8,000 festivalgoers for the free public art & music festivals known as ARTMAGEDDON. Additionally, Elstein collaborated closely with more than 200 artists & partnered with more than 30 businesses & community organizations.
In the years since, Beautify Brooklyn has expanded their work tremendously, forming the nonprofit NYC Earth & THE ARTMAGEDDON COLLECTIVE, a vibrant & diverse 900-member art community with members in every Brooklyn neighborhood, produced numerous free immersive art experiences & shows focused on the celebration & stewardship of the planet, such as SOLSTICE & EARTHYGIRTHY & ReFAIR & have watched their original festival’s popularity grow into a favored tradition that attracts more than 20,000 loyal attendees, year after year.
ARTMAGEDDON began as a response to the pandemic & the need for artists to connect in a time when gatherings were impossible.
For decades, people have come to live & work in New York searching for something difficult to describe but impossible to forget. They came for music pouring from basement clubs, for murals hidden around corners, for poets reading in cafés, for artists transforming warehouses into studios, and for neighborhoods where creativity seemed to spill into the streets. Brooklyn earned its aesthetic reputation because art belonged to everyone, it wasn't confined to museums.
Today, that spirit is under immense pressure. Rising costs force artists from their homes. Independent venues, festivals & programs disappear. Too many neighbors walk past one another without ever making eye contact. We spend more time looking at screens than looking into each other's eyes. Public life has become increasingly transactional when what people truly crave is wonder, belonging & genuine human connection.
That is why ARTMAGEDDON needs to expand—not simply as a larger festival, but as a new civic tradition.
Expanding Artmageddon across all 50,244 acres of Brooklyn means transforming an entire borough into a living work of art. Instead of asking people to travel to a single park or venue, the festival comes to them. Every block becomes a potential gallery. Every storefront can become a stage. Every porch can become an exhibition. Every café, church, community garden, library, business, school, and sidewalk becomes an invitation to participate.
This vision isn't about creating the biggest event for the sake of breaking a record (although we will!). It is about demonstrating what a city can become when creativity is treated as public infrastructure & creativity as a public utility, rather than entertainment. Art has the power to reduce isolation, strengthen neighborhoods, support family businesses, encourage walking, activate public spaces, and create unexpected conversations between strangers. A live painting can start a friendship. A porch concert can introduce neighbors who have lived on the same block for years without speaking. A poem can change the way someone sees their own community.
Brooklyn already possesses everything needed to become the most inspiring urban landscape in the world. Thousands of artists. Hundreds of cultural organizations. Countless musicians, writers, dancers, designers, educators, volunteers, entrepreneurs, and dreamers. What has been missing is a framework that connects them into one shared experience.
ARTMAGEDDON provides that framework.
Rather than concentrating culture in a handful of institutions, ARTMAGEDDON distributes it throughout the borough. Rather than celebrating a few industry-approved artists, it elevates hundreds of creators working side by side. Rather than asking people to observe from the sidelines, it invites them to paint, dance, sing, write, build, perform, and imagine together.
The challenges facing cities today such as loneliness, polarization, environmental neglect & economic uncertainty obviously cannot be solved by art alone. But they cannot be solved without imagination at all. & before we can build better neighborhoods, we must first imagine them.
ARTMAGEDDON is an invitation to imagine together.
If Brooklyn can demonstrate that an entire borough can unite through creativity, collaboration, and joyful participation, it becomes more than a festival. It becomes a model. A living experiment showing cities around the world that public art is not a luxury—it is essential civic infrastructure capable of making communities healthier, more connected, more resilient, and more hopeful.
The future of Brooklyn should not simply be built.
It should be created.
Help Turn Brooklyn Into One Giant Work of Art
Every mural starts with a blank wall & a blank stare.
Every performance starts with a single action.
Every movement starts with people who believe something extraordinary is possible.
Your contribution helps create free art, stronger neighborhoods, opportunities for local artists, and moments of connection that people will remember long after September ends.
Together, we can prove that creativity belongs everywhere.
Help create Brooklyn's biggest free celebration of art and community.
Join ARTMAGEDDON this September—and become part of the movement.
What You'll Get As Our Thank You
$10 – Founding Supporter
Your name added to our online Wall of Founders.
A limited-edition festival zine filled with original artwork, poetry & comics from the movement.
$25 – Festival Poster
All Founding Supporter perks & . . .
An exclusive ARTMAGEDDON poster.
$50 – Festival T-Shirt
All Festival Poster perks & . . .
An official handmade ARTMAGEDDON shirt.
$100 – Artist Tote Bag
All Festival Poster perks & . . .
Carry the movement with an artist-designed tote.
$250 – Hand-Painted Apparel
All Artist Tote Bag perks & . . .
Receive a one-of-a-kind wearable artwork from our RECLAIMED collection.
$500 – Collector's Package
All Hand-Painted Apparel perks & . . .
Exclusive merchandise bundle including signed prints and limited-edition festival items.
$750 – Kimono Package
All Collector's Package perks & . . .
A custom designed hooded kimono made in Brooklyn.
$1,000 – Artist Experience
All Kimono Package perks & . . .
VIP invitation to special festival events and behind-the-scenes experiences.
$5,000 – Sponsor An Art Village
All Artist Experience perks & . . .
Help activate an entire neighborhood with artists, musicians, and installations.
$10,000 – Public Art Patron
All Sponsor An Art Village perks & . . .
Support the creation of major public artworks and receive special recognition.
$30,000 – Commission a Monumental Mural
All Public Art Patron perks & . . .
Work with the Artmageddon Collective to bring a large-scale mural to life, creating a lasting public artwork while helping make the festival possible.
Funding method
Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 4th September 2026 at 2:56pm CDT