OWS Arts & Labor [M4 Meet-up]: Alternative Economies

Alternative Economies: Seeing, Naming, Connecting, Strengthening, Creating

• March 4, 2012
• 3-6 PM
  

#OccupyWallStreet has cracked open a little hole in history, creating a moment where some of the very core institutions of our economy are called into question. Along with indignation and outrage, there is a certain excitement in the air. Things that have been terrifyingl...y stuck seem to be moving. Something seems possible today that wasn't just a month ago. In this space, our conversations and our imaginations are buzzing. What are we doing? What should we do? What's coming next? -Ethan Miller, Occupy! Connect! Create! Imagining Life Beyond ‘The Economy’

The second Arts and Labor Alternative Economies Teach-In looks to the model of the Solidarity Economy as a strategy for organizing new art economies. Rather than waiting for revolution, the solidarity framework allows us to begin where we are, to identify the struggles within our current economic structures, and to imagine alternatives. Built around values such as cooperation, individual and collective well being, social justice, ecological health, democracy, and diversity, the chief principle behind the Solidarity Economy is that rather than creating a new blueprint for society, our task is to identify the alternatives that already exist through the activities of seeing, naming, connecting, strengthening, and creating. How can we apply these principles of the solidarity economy to organize different alternative structures for work, life, art, and labor? Come be part of the conversation.

Schedule: 3:15 PM: Tour of 4th Arts Block led by Tamara Greenfield, Executive Director. Maximum Capacity: 20. Please RSVP at owsartsandlabor@gmail.com.
4-5 PM: Presentation by Cheyenna Weber and Caroline Woolard of SolidarityNYC
5-6 PM: Discussion

Contact: owsartsandlabor@gmail.com
http://artsandlabor.org/alternative-economies/

Click to read more ...

OWS ARTS & LABOR TEACH-IN: Alternative Economies: Occupy, Resist, Produce

OWS ARTS & LABOR TEACH-IN
Alternative Economies: Occupy, Resist, Produce
300 Nevins St., Brooklyn
February 19, 2012, 3-6pm
Contact: owsartsandlabor@gmail.com

So far remotely done power and glory–as via government, big business, formal education, church–has succeeded to the point where gross defects obscure actual gains. In response to this dilemma and to these gains, a real intimate, personal power is developing–the power of individuals to conduct their own education, find their own inspiration, shape their own environment, and share the adventure with whoever is interested. Preface to the Whole Earth Catalog (excerpt)

Like Stewart Brand’s infamous Whole Earth Catalog, this first installment of the Arts and Labor Alternative Economies Teach-Ins is chock-a-block with practical tools and impossible ideas. Today, people talk about alternative economies using all kinds of terms: The Commons, Solidarity Economies, Communization, Inclusive Democracy, Participatory Economy, Anarchist Consensual Democracy, Libertarian Municipalism, and even bolo’bolo. Whatever their partisan affiliation, these diverse thinkers and doers agree that the current economy is a mess, something must be done about it, right now, by any means necessary.

Despite a resurgent interest in collective and social practice, little emphasis has been placed on the internal relationships that allow creativity to prosper; the labor of nurturing and maintaining often goes under-recognized. As a start, reassessing invisible forms of labor and instituting models that emphasize care underscores the fact that even a solo art practice requires collaboration.

Bring your wired minds, your open hearts, talky mouths and listening ears. We can discuss what we like in the current art economy and what we don’t. We can familiarize ourselves with ideas like Participatory Budgeting, Living Wage, Cohousing, Economically Targeted Investment Programs (ETIs), Worker Cooperatives, Loft Law, Collective Bargaining, Community Land Trusts (CLT), and Worker Justice Centers. We can share our desires and visions for the future. We can just hang out and get to know each other.

Related Event:
OWS MAKING WORLDS: THE COMMONS FORUM
FEBRUARY 16 – 18, 2012, Location TBD

http://makingworlds.wikispaces.com/

Suggested Readings:
Ethan Miller, Solidarity Economy: Key Concepts and Issues: http://www.communityeconomies.org/site/assets/media/Ethan_Miller/Miller_Solidarity_Economy_Key_Issues_2010.pdf

Christian Siefke, The Commons of the Future: Building Blocks for a Commons-based Society: http://www.commoner.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/siefkes_future-commons.pdf

Endnotes, Communisation and Value Form-Theory: http://endnotes.org.uk/articles/4



[#j27]: MoMA Intervention; Video, Photos & Re-enactment by Paul Talbot

Click the image to see the photoset in OwA Photos

RE-ENACTMENT:

Great #j13 MoMA Action Coverage at ARTFAGCITY

Occupy Museums meeting beneath Sanja Iveković's "Lady Rosa of Luxembourg"

[EXCERPT]:

On Friday night, Occupy Museums — in conjunction with Arts and Labor, 16 Beaver, and Occupy Sotheby’s – conducted an exceptionally clear and efficient GA under Sanja Iveković’s controversial feminist monument Lady Rosa of Luxembourg, while a small group from Arts and Labor demonstrated with OWS banners and a flugelhorn outside the museum. Though “this isn’t Wall Street” was the general response from museum visitors, articulate speakers pinpointed specific issues. Feasible goals were set.  The crowd, of about fifty people in the atrium and a combined sixty looking down from MoMA’s three landings, included a notable increase in women and academics.

[LINK]

#J13 #OCCUPYMUSEUMS #OCCUPYWALLSTREET - MoMA BANNER DROP @ DIEGO RIVERA EXHIBIT

Uploaded by RhodesPictures on Jan 14, 2012

MoMA is exhibiting work from one of the most renowned Mexican painters of the twentieth century, Diego Rivera. Diego influenced by the Mexican Revolution and the Russian Revolution, believed that art should play a role in empowering working people to understand their own histories. Meanwhile MoMA buys and sells millions of dollars in art at Sotheby's auction house. Sotheby's has locked out 43 Local 814 union art handlers, claiming they are unable to negotiate a new contract with them. "The auctioneer proposed cutting the handlers' workweek to 36 1/4 hours from 38 3/4 hours and increasing the number of temporary laborers, according to both sides. The union said new work rules would decrease eligibility for overtime, resulting in take-home pay declining 5 percent to 15 percent. Temporary workers without medical or pension benefits would replace unionized art handlers as they retire or find other jobs. Chief Executive Officer William Ruprecht, yearly salary doubled in 2010 to $6 million dollars."

http://www.sothebysbadforart.com/content/

• See post at Ken Vallario's blog: "When Art is a luxury…Art is a lie!"

Pittsburgh Stagehands Circumvented for “First Night”

Posted on December 23, 2011

By Lisa A. Miles c2011

[Note: Lisa Miles is a regular contributor to OWA on 99% arts and labor issues. She's based in Pittsburgh, PA.]

Pittsburgh Stagehands don’t work Pittsburgh’s First Night.  The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust hires other workers to man the stages.

You’d think a city with vibrant cultural district would have plenty of work for arts professionals.  So much entertainment– little use of Stagehands.

The story gets stranger.

Click to read more ...

Arts & Labor Informal Discussion: Thinking Through Collectivity

Arts & Labor is a working group founded in conjunction with the New York General Assembly for Occupy Wall Street. We are artists and interns, writers and educators, art handlers and designers, administrators, curators, assistants, and students. We are all art workers and members of the 99%. Arts & Labor is dedicated to exposing and rectifying economic inequalities and exploitative working conditions in our fields through direct action and educational initiatives. By forging coalitions, fighting for fair labor practices, and re-imagining the structures and institutions that frame our work, Arts & Labor aims to achieve parity for every member of the 99%

Arts & Labor Informal Discussion: Thinking Through Collectivity

When: Friday, December 16^th, 7:30-9PM

Where: H.E.N.S. (Hanns Eisler Nail Salon Gallery/Solidarity Center)

Southwest Corner of Bergen and 3^rd Avenue

Directions: H.E.N.S.  is located 3 blocks from the 2,3,4,5,B,Q,D,M,N,R stop at Atlantic/Pacific Ave. or 4 blocks from the A,C,G train to Hoyt/Schermerhorn. (It is a gallery with glass windows).

PLEASE JOIN ARTS & LABOR FOR AN OPEN, UNSTRUCTURED DISCUSSION at 7:30PM:

What are the challenges of maintaining one’s place in the “real world” vs. striving for the utopian goals of OWS? 

What are the challenges of maintaining the concerns of the singular/particularistic within the framework of the collective embodied in the GA model? 

How is curatorial practice implicated in perpetuating the 1%?

Is the notion of “singular authorship” incompatible with a notion of a politically engaged art activism?

What is the “turning point” at which an artist leaves their studio practice and makes activism their main focus? Is this a false dichotomy? Can studio practice ever be activism? Have we all reached that turning point?

Is it necessary to share our personal histories in order to effectively organize together? How do we define efficacity, and is that our highest goal?

OWS Temporality: because time moves so fast within the landscape of OWS, and within the space of a week an entirely new situation on the ground may transpire, how does this effect our process and thinking within OWS?

The above is but a provisional sampling. To see the full list of questions compiled by Arts and Labor Members, join our discussion list at ows-arts-and-labor@googlegroups.com!

After the informal discussion, join us for a potluck and Holiday Party from 9 to 12AM as we make banners and signs for D17!

Cam-vid by Jim Costanza