My article “From Freehouse to Neighborhood Co-op: The Birth of a New Organizational Form” has been re-published in the new project site RESHAPE: A Workbook to Reimagine the Art World.
This Workbook is the result of RESHAPE – Reflect, Share, Practice, Experiment, a research and development project that brought together artists, art professionals, and organizations from Europe and the southern Mediterranean to create new organizational models and alternative ways of working. The project aims to respond to today’s challenges, aligning fairness, solidarity, and sustainability with the civil role of the arts. Exploring the expertise of those already experimenting with new models and ways of working, the Workbook gathers instruments for transition towards a new, fairer arts ecosystem.
My article describes a deep dive I took into the evolution of Freehouse in Rotterdam, a project catalyzed by artist Jeanne van Heeswijk in the Afrikaanderwijk section of the city that morphed into a functioning neighborhood cooperative structure. A brief except:
“The challenge of a neighbourhood culture that is organized through cooperative methods is to be exceedingly aware of how it changes and why. It must always be questioning what agendas are driving it forward and whether it is living up to its values.
And because it is self-produced, the vast diversity of cultures, education levels, economic classes, and individual agendas it encompasses must also be self-critical and reflective. It can only be built through millions of conversations, millions of interactions, crossing paths, and working together millions of times. The importance of slow learning and cumulative change through an open and long-term process, is a difficult commitment for communities to retain in the face of the urgency, and even desperation that characterize the ongoing struggle for the right to live well.”
You can read the article here, as well as the many other fascinating contributions to the RESHAPE project.
