Making and Being: Building Cooperatives

BFAMFAPhD presents Making and Being, a series of conversations that ask: What ways of making and being do we want to experience in art classes? The series places artists and educators in intimate conversation about forms of critique, cooperatives, artist-run spaces, healing, and the death of projects. These conversations about Art & Pedagogy are co-presented by BFAMFAPhD & Pioneer Works, hosted by Hauser & Wirth, covered by media partners Eyebeam and Bad at Sports. The third installment of this series will focus on building cooperatives, exploring the question: What if the organization of labor was integral to your project? The conversation will include members of Meerkat Filmmakers Collective and Friends of Light.   Meerkat Media Collective is an artistic community that shares resources and skills to incubate individual and shared creative work. We are committed to a collaborative, consensus-based process that values diverse experience and expertise. We support the creation of thoughtful and provocative stories that reflect a complex world. Our work has been broadcast on HBO, PBS, and many other networks, and screened at festivals worldwide, including Sundance, Tribeca, Rotterdam and CPH:Dox. Founded as an informal arts collective in 2005 we have grown to include a cooperatively-owned production company and a collective of artists in residence. Friends of Light develops and produces jackets woven to form for each client. We partner with small-scale fiber producers to source our materials, and with spinners to develop our yarns. We construct our own looms to create pattern pieces that have complete woven edges (selvages) and therefore do not need to be cut. The design emerges from the materials and from methods developed to weave two dimensional cloth into three dimensional form. Each jacket is the expression of the collective knowledge of the people involved in its creation. Our business is structured as a worker cooperative and organized around cooperative principles and values. Friends of light founding members are Mae Colburn, Pascale Gatzen, Jessi Highet and Nadia Yaron.   About the co-presenters and media partners: BFAMFAPhD is a collective that employs visual and performing art, policy reports, and teaching tools to advocate for cultural equity in the United States. Pioneer Works Press publishes a range of publications that foster experimental ways of thinking, and seeks to advance the dissemination of the arts through publication and recorded sound. Drawn from programs at Pioneer Works in Red Hook, Brooklyn, all editions can be found at pioneerworks.org. Contemporary art talk without the ego, Bad at Sports is the Midwest's largest independent contemporary art podcast and blog. Eyebeam is a platform for artists to engage society’s relationship with technology.   Access info: The event is free and open to the public. RSVP is required. The entrance to Hauser & Wirth Publishers Bookshop is at the ground floor and accessible by wheelchair. The bathroom is all-gender. This event is low light, meaning there is ample lighting but fluorescent overhead lighting is not in use. A variety of seating options are available including: folding plastic chairs and wooden chairs, some with cushions. This event begins at 6 PM and ends at 8 PM but attendees are welcome to come late, leave early, and intermittently come and go as they please. Water, tea, coffee, beer and wine will be available for purchase. The event will be audio recorded. We ask that if you do have questions or comments after the event for the presenters that you speak into the microphone. If you are unable to attend, audio recordings of the events will be posted on Bad at Sports Podcast after the event. Parking in the vicinity is free after 6 PM. The closest MTA subway station is 23rd and 8th Ave off the C and E. This station is not wheelchair accessible. The closest wheelchair accessible stations are 1/2/3/A/C/E 34th Street-Penn Station and the 14 St A/C/E station with an elevator at northwest corner of 14th Street and Eighth Avenue.