Where We've Been, Where We're Going ...
Where We’ve Been.
With the mission to bring together disparate identities, intelligences and specialties into a shared space for creative work, Holes in the Wall Collective has served over 2,500 people across disciplines– artists, scientists, activists, lawyers, educators, environmentalists, economists, health practitioners and more– together in collective space.
Since 2014, Holes in the Wall Collective has focused on accessible multi-discipline events involving art, information and experience at the Industry City Distillery in Brooklyn, New York and since 2015 has designed, programmed and run a Creative Residency in New Jerusalem, Pennsylvania– holding space for creatives to work on their own projects in an affordable residency program.
Holes in the Wall Collective produces EVENTS/CONVERSATIONS/HAPPENINGS– multi-faceted events involving participants and audiences from an array of disciplines and identities including information, activism, performance and art– bringing together whimsy, action and engagement with people from different ages, races, gender identities and social class. Past events include The Not-For-Sale Holiday Party; Proof is in the Processor: a night of information theory; WhatNowWhat Benefits: Raise up for Women, Change the Climate, Know Your Media and Youth Vision– benefiting over 20 organizations most compromised by the current administration; Exquisite Corpus– a horizontally curated environmental group art show across 30 acres; and a round table dinner discussion on the theme of Democracy during the 2016 election cycle– bringing in perspectives across generations and the political aisle.
The Holes in the Wall Collective CREATIVE RESIDENCY PROGRAM is designed as an affordable and accessible residency space for creatives of all kinds to come work on their own work independently and to share collective space. We curate the program specifically to bring together creatives from a diversity of fields and identities whom share common themes, interests or inquiry in their work. The Creative Residency Program offered 3-day to month long residencies housed in a four-bedroom cabin with additional work/studio space. Programming included Open Residency periods– designed for creatives to work freely on their work; Frame Work sessions– widely held prescient themes to loosely focus creative work: such as Impact, Democracy and Black & White; retreats led by writers and health practitioners; and workshops– specifically designed weekends to engage the creative process. Holes in the Wall Collective also ran a large garden/tiny farm growing produce, flowers and medicinal herbs to supplement income with a small farm store as well as raised chickens for eggs and tick prevention.
Where We’re Going.
We are going to build the Holes in the Wall Collective CENTER FOR CREATIVE RESEARCH, REFLECTION & ACTION (or the C2R2A).
AND have found a prospective site in the Catskills !
Here we will:
• Establish Yearly Themes. Each year Holes in the Wall Collective will choose a theme widely relevant to the political and social climate. These themes will help frame the Incubations Fellows, Cauldron Sessions and the WhatNowWhat Campaigns. Prospective themes shall be matched to the following years as follows: Raise Up 2018/2019, Change the Climate 2019/2020, Know your Media 2020/2021 and Step Aside: Youth Vision 2021/2022.
• Continue our Creative Residency Program for creatives of all kinds– both emerging and established– to give time and resource for people to work creatively on their own projects.
• Build the Basic Needs Houses: thematic tiny houses based off the basic needs– the Environment (water, air, soil, climate), Food/Clothing/Shelter, Health (physical, spiritual, emotional), Materials/Design/Technology, Education, Economy, Policy/Law/Government, Media/Language/Communications, and Art (all fields-performing, writing, visual, film)
+ the Emergence Room– a shared library, collective workspace and kitchen.
• Partner with farmer(s) to cultivate and grow up to 5 acres– fruits, vegetables and livestock to supplement his/her/their income and provide food for programming held at the C2R2A.
• Commence our month-long Incubation Fellow Sessions. Inviting change-makers from a diversity of contexts, disciplines and identities (from climate scientists to neurologists to community activists to political analysts to systems designers) to incubate their work within a wide and prescient global theme that needs creative re-imagining. Fellows will be housed in the Basic Needs Houses, matching the fellows' work with each thematic house. We encourage creative cross-over to happen organically in collective spaces, and will hold weekly round-tables in the Emergence Room for people to share their work and offer feedback, critique and perspective. We intend to partner with guest curators, to invite participants in their respective specialty– widening representation and access.
• Commence our Youth & Elders Program: two-week sessions designed to pair youth (18-25) and elders (55+) who’s work and creative practice has significant overlay. Designed for intergenerational knowledge sharing to come together around creative re-imagining, youth and elders will be expected to build a project while hosted at the C2R2A where they will be given consultations and held in a curriculum framework.
• Host our biannual Cauldron Sessions: 1-2 day public events designed to celebrate work being done within the year’s theme. Each Cauldron Session will be held in relationship to each Incubation Session and Youth & Elders Program to bring together a wide group of participants to engage around a giant stone soup & idea potluck.
• Curate Events/Conversations/Happenings in and around New York City, bringing the work produced at the C2R2A to a wider stage.
. . .
And so... we welcome a season of FUNDRAISING.
Because the world of money is weird and imbalanced... and because money is in the world we live in...
we introduce the Holes in the Wall Collective Democratized Funding Model
1 donation at $1,000
10 donations at $100
100 donations at $10
1,000 donations at $1