Imaginarium of Tears · Access
Tear Access Fund.
A limited number of personal tear artworks are made accessible to people for whom the regular commission price is currently out of reach. Community contributions fund the recipient place, and I contribute by reducing my artist fee. The recipient does not pay anything.
€150.00 community funding + €50.00 artist fee reduction = €200.00 regular Digital Tear Collection Kit value.
01 · Support access
Help fund the next story.
Every contribution joins one shared fund. When the fund reaches €150.00, the first eligible person in the queue can receive a funded Digital Tear Collection Kit.
What your contribution makes possible
Help decide which experiences are able to become part of the archive.
Supporting the Tear Access Fund is not only about helping someone afford an artwork. Some perspectives may otherwise remain absent simply because the person behind them does not have the financial freedom to commission the work.
By contributing, you help create space for those stories to be preserved and shared. There is no product or exclusive reward in return. Instead, you can follow what the shared fund makes possible through the public ledger and, if you choose, receive an email when a funded story is published in the archive.
Your contribution helps turn an individual experience into something that can be encountered by others — offering another perspective on grief, love, change, culture, loss, resilience and everyday life.
Help remove the financial barrier to someone taking part in Imaginarium of Tears.
See community funding move through available, reserved and completed in the public ledger.
Choose to receive an email when a Tear Access Fund story is published in the archive.
Contributions enter one shared community fund. A contribution is not assigned to one specific applicant unless the public ledger explicitly says so.
02 · Apply for access
Join the waiting list.
The fund is for people who genuinely cannot currently afford the regular personal commission. Financial need is self-declared: no payslips, bank statements or proof of income are requested. You do not need to prove that your hardship is greater than someone else's.
Why this fund exists
Some of the stories that matter most may never enter the archive simply because the person behind them cannot afford to commission the work.
A personal artwork normally requires disposable income. At the same time, periods of grief or loss, displacement or migration, caregiving, illness or disability, insecure work or housing, discrimination or exclusion, family responsibilities, cultural circumstances and many other major changes in life can go hand in hand with having less financial freedom.
If participation in Imaginarium of Tears depended only on the ability to pay, the archive could gradually become a financially filtered picture of whose experiences are visible. The Tear Access Fund exists to make more room for perspectives that might otherwise remain absent.
Through community contributions and a reduction of my own artist fee, we can offer fully funded places to people who genuinely cannot commission the work themselves. The aim is not to decide whose experience is the most difficult, or to favour one culture, identity or kind of life over another. It is to reduce a financial barrier so the project can include a broader range of lived experiences across cultures, backgrounds, identities, circumstances and stages of life.
Difficult experiences can carry knowledge that is rarely visible from the outside. Sharing them can help us understand how differently people move through the world, while also revealing experiences, emotions and moments we may have in common. With the Tear Access Fund, we hope to give some of those stories space to be seen, preserved and shared.
This is an art and storytelling project, not therapy or mental-health care. If preserving a tear connected to an important period in your life would help you mark it, reflect on it, remember it or give it a physical form, that personal meaning is welcome.
Financial barriers can arise for many reasons and often overlap with wider circumstances in life. You do not need to belong to any particular group or fit one of the examples above to apply.
What you receive
A funded place is completely free for the recipient and covers the Digital Tear Collection Kit: the physical collection kit is sent to you, the returned tear is prepared and photographed under the microscope, and you receive the final digital tear artwork. No applicant contribution or payment is requested.
Read the full waiting-list rules
- One active application per person.
- Each funded place is completely free for the recipient and covers the Digital Tear Collection Kit; Print and Dibond Artwork upgrades are outside the Access Fund.
- Personal, non-commercial participation only.
- Financial need is self-declared; no bank statements or payslips are requested.
- Applications are checked for genuine fit with Imaginarium of Tears, not ranked by whose story is “most deserving” or whose hardship is most severe.
- People of all cultures, ethnicities, nationalities, faiths or non-faiths, genders, sexual orientations, disabilities, family structures and social backgrounds are welcome. These characteristics never determine queue priority.
- Eligible applications are funded in queue order.
- A funded place must be accepted within 14 days or the reserved money returns to the fund.
- After the collection kit is marked as sent, the participant has 6 months to return the tear.
- While the tear is outstanding, a monthly reminder is sent to the participant and to Imaginarium of Tears.
- When the tear is received and marked Tear returned, reminder emails stop.
- If no tear is recorded as returned by the deadline, the funded place is forfeited, the reserved funding returns to the Access Fund and the next eligible person can be offered the place.
- Approved applicants are shown in the public waiting-list ledger using their chosen public name or pseudonym, short story indication and status. Their private first and last name are not shown publicly by the Access Fund.
- Participation and use of submitted stories, tears and resulting artworks follow the project's Terms & Conditions.
03 · Transparency
Follow the fund.
The queue and fund movements are visible so supporters and applicants can see how places are funded, reserved, completed or released.
Cash available for the next funded place.
Funding already allocated to accepted participants.
Funding moved into completed Access Fund commissions.
Queue
Public waiting list
Approved applications appear using the name or pseudonym chosen by each applicant, together with a short story indication and current stage. Private first/last names, contact details, shipping information and financial/access information never appear here.
| Queue | Name | Story indication | Current stage |
|---|---|---|---|
| No approved applications are currently in the queue. | |||
Money
Public fund ledger
Recent fund movements are shown below. Donors are listed by first name unless they chose to contribute anonymously.
| Date | Donor | Movement | Archived tear | Available | Reserved | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| September 14, 2026 | Chloé | Community contribution | — | +€10.00 | — | — |
How the ledger is maintained
Paid WooCommerce contributions are added automatically and WooCommerce refunds are deducted automatically. External chargebacks or accounting corrections are entered manually by the administrator so the public ledger remains accurate. The €50.00 artist fee reduction is never counted as fund cash.