Dreaming and Strategizing Together: Cooperatives for Creatives in Lenapehoking
Rad Pereira (left) and Daniel Park (right) excited for the Cooperatives for Creatives workshop!
“Tired of capitalism? Try cooperation! Learn about the fundamentals of cooperatives and how they can help you meet your creative needs.”
-Obvious Agency Cooperatives for Creatives
Our coalition building continues! Since last January, we have been intentionally building bridges between arts workers engaged in the solidarity economy. From cooperatives to time banks to mutual aid and shared resources. Forming a coalition of likeminded arts workers building a new infrastructure for artists, by us for us. Daniel Park, of Obvious Agency and PAPA, is an incredible thinker, artist and organizer in the arts and labor movement. We have been thinking, dreaming & strategizing together on how we build our collective power as arts workers. This year, hopefully, we will begin building the next phase of our Federation work together.
Slide by Obvious Agency
Obvious Agency’s mission is “Play hard. Work together. Get free. We make playable theater and participatory experiences that model our vision of the world and how we want to get there. We develop, practice, and spread democratic and cooperative ways of making art, running a business, and fighting for a better world. We organize workers and workplaces to build power and create material change in the cultural economy and ecosystem.“
On a blistery cold day in late January, we attended a great workshop, with our friends from Art.coop, led by Daniel & Obvious Agency called “Cooperatives for Creatives” in Lenapehoking (Philadelphia). It was a great 101 on different kinds of cooperative structures, governance practices, financial models and lots more. The unique part of this workshop was how all of these structures, practices and models apply to arts workers. They showed us many examples of current artist cooperatives and how they function. We collaborated on some exercises where we invented imaginary cooperatives and decided how they might operate.
“After years of participating in an unjust economy, artists and culture bearers are searching for viable alternatives to the traditional models of cultural production. Cooperatives and the solidarity economy are gaining traction as a values-aligned solution. But what's the difference between a worker-owned cooperative and a purchasing cooperative? Is an ensemble a cooperative? Is talking about ownership inherently capitalist? In this workshop, participants will learn about the fundamentals that define cooperatives and how they differ from other types of collectives, explore case studies of cooperatives in the arts and culture sector, and brainstorm how a cooperative could meet their needs and the needs of their communities. Participants are welcome to join as individuals or alongside their collaborators, and will receive resources for further study into various cooperative models.”
Who is this workshop for?
The Co-op Curious - Any individual or group that is curious to learn more about cooperatives in theory and in practice.
Community Builders - People who value the things we can do together, that we can’t do alone.
Irrepressible Artists - Artists who have felt the pain of our current economic systems, and know that something better must be out there.”
Some things we learned:
Slide by Obvious Agency
Some questions we discussed:
What do you and your community need right now in order to artistically thrive?
Looking back at your list of needs, what are ways in which cooperatives could support you and your community in getting those needs met?
How could you and your loved ones come together using democratic practices and pool your resources to support one another?
We’re so excited to continue collaborating with Daniel Park and Obvious Agency on thought partnership, strategy and popular education!
Ways to support Obvious Agency (From Obvious Agency 😉)
Check out Obvious Agency’s upcoming workshops and tell your friends!
Check out the awesome mini-guides from the US Federation of Worker-Owned Cooperatives. They are a great collection of tips and tricks around specific topics, that are designed around worker-owned cooperatives, but are relevant to many other types of co-ops.
If you have any further questions or if you’d like to chat with us about future collaborations or consultation, reach out to me at Daniel@Obvious-Agency.com. We offer free 30-minute consultations where we can get into more specific questions you might have! We look forward to building power for arts workers with you.