Category Archives: Actions & Events

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

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OWS ARTS & LABOR TEACH-IN
March 4, 2012, 3-6pm
Location: 66-68 East 4th Street, Manhattan
Contact: owsartsandlabor@gmail.com
http://artsandlabor.org/alternative-economies/

#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 terrifyingly 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 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

Fourth Arts Block (FAB) (http://fabnyc.org/) is a non-profit organization founded in 2001 by cultural and community groups to establish and advance the East 4th Street Cultural District, between 2nd Avenue and Bowery.  FAB is leading the development of the East 4th St Cultural District, the only official cultural district in Manhattan. Home to more than a dozen arts groups, 10 cultural facilities and 17 performances and rehearsal venues, the East 4th Street Cultural District attracts an annual audience of 200,000, serves 1,200 artists and provides more square feet of active cultural use than any other block in New York.

SolidarityNYC (http://solidaritynyc.org/) connects, supports, and promotes New York City’s solidarity economy. The solidarity economy meets human needs through economic activities–like the production and exchange of goods and services–that reinforce values of justice, ecological sustainability, cooperation, and democracy. From credit unions to worker cooperatives, Community Supported Agriculture to time banks, community land trusts to participatory budgeting, it’s an economy actually worth occupying. Our vision is a vibrant and growing movement that provides greater economic security, improved physical and emotional health, and increased democracy for our communities and ecosystems.

Arts & Labor #OWS Call to NYFA: Stop Publishing Classifieds for Unpaid Internships

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Dear NYFA,

We are Arts & Labor, a working group founded in conjunction with the New York General Assembly for #occupywallstreet. We are artists and interns, writers and educators, art  handlers and designers, administrators, curators, assistants, and students dedicated to exposing and rectifying economic inequalities and exploitative working conditions in our fields through direct action and educational initiatives. We are writing to ask you to cease posting classified listings for unpaid interns at for-profit institutions on the NYFA website.

While we applaud the work that NYFA does in advocating for the arts and for artists, we feel that promoting the practice of unpaid internships is unjustifiable. While the internship finds its roots in the historical model of the apprenticeship and is premised on the value of education and experience in the workplace, unpaid internships in today’s job market often amount to nothing more than exploitation.

In April, the United States Department of Labor released a memo that included the following stipulations for unpaid internships under the Fair Labor Standards Act:

  • The internship is similar to training which would be given in an educational environment.
  • The internship experience is for the benefit of the intern.
  • The intern does not displace regular employees, but works under close supervision of existing staff
  • The employer provides training and derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern.

From our collective experience as interns and professionals working in arts institutions, we know these criteria are rarely met. Interns are often contracted to perform work that is not comparable with educational experience and their labor saves employers an estimated $600 million a year in wages.

Moreover, this system benefits people who already possess financial means and can afford to work for free, thus propagating social inequality in the art world. We are aware that these conditions exist in most fields. However, they reach a level of exploitation in the arts, where pursuing one’s passion and affiliating oneself with a culturally prestigious entity becomes a socially sanctioned rationalization for highly precarious working conditions.

We call upon NYFA to end its support of this exploitative practice by refusing to publish listings for unpaid internships at for-profit institutions, and to begin the fight against precarious labor conditions in the arts by promoting internships that comply with minimum wage laws, as well as all other state and federal employment laws including discrimination, sexual harassment, and health and safety protections.

Sincerely,
Arts & Labor

Alternative Economies: Occupy, Resist, Produce

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Alternative Art Economies

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

Christian Siefke, The Commons of the Future: Building Blocks for a Commons-based Society

Endnotes, Communisation and Value Form-Theory

What Does 100K Mean? Photos!

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On December 20, 2011 members of OWS Arts & Labor returned to the High Line for a Photo General Assembly at the site of the commissioned billboard by John Baldessari The First $100,000 I Ever Made. We engaged High Line visitors regarding the history and meaning of the piece and what $100,000 means in our current economic crisis. Using “Baldessari dots,” we invited the public to add another level of meaning to this somewhat ambiguous artwork. Participants either selected a pre-made dot, or wrote their own messages before posing for a photo.
[AFG_gallery id=’1′]

Specific Object, John Baldessari

Example of Baldessari "dotting"

Action 12/20 @ 1pm: What Does 100K Mean to You?

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What does $100,000 Mean to You?
A General Assembly and Photo action hosted by members of OWS Arts & Labor

WHEN: Tuesday 12/20 at 1pm

WHERE: 10th Ave & 18th Street (starting at street level) in front of the $100,000 Billboard

WHAT: General Assembly & Photo Action (Bring smartphones and cameras to participate!)

WHY: On December 2nd, The High Line unveiled “The First $100,000 I Ever Made,” a 25-by-75 foot billboard created by artist John Baldessari. We, as members of Occupy Wall Street, ask: what is the history of the $100,000 bill and what does it mean to resurrect its image in our current moment of economic crisis? Who is this billboard speaking to? How does it speak to you? What does $100,000 mean today to workers and residents of Chelsea, along with all New Yorkers, as economic conditions continue to worsen for the 99%?

I Will Never Make This Much Money

Teach-in with Gregory Sholette & Andrew Hemingway

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Occupy Wall Street Arts & Labor Teach-In with Andrew Hemingway, Gregory Sholette, and a special appearance from LOVE’s Purple Dinosaur
December 4th, 1PM
Underground Theater, Abrons Art Center, Henry Street Settlement

The phenomenal growth of the Occupy movement in recent months has brought new momentum to longstanding discussions of the relationship between art, labor and capitalism. The teach-in will be a platform to discuss two important historical precedents to our current situation: artist-workers under the New Deal, the Federal Art Programs (1933-43), and the Art Workers Coalition (1969-1971). What are the connections, parallels, and differences between these three historical moments? As we organize in the present, what can we learn from the successes, failures, and unfinished projects of the past? In turn, how might contemporary developments help us to rethink established generational narratives?

In addition, we will be screening an action video from the feminist video collective LOVE (Lesbians Organized for Video Experience)* featuring a big purple paper mache dinosaur that was wheeled into the streets and to the Museum of Natural History, in a protest demanding that feminists be hired, and that a non-patriarchal view of history be represented by the museum (1973). Continue reading →