Sat, Apr. 1, 2017 ⁄ 2:00pm–3:30am

Municipalism and the Lives We Make: Governing Outside of the Electorate

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On Saturday we begin our first in a continuing conversation on the Spanish Municipalism movement and the possibilities of translating the movements experiences and social tools into an overtly American context.

Please join us for an overview on municipalism through the work of Barcelona en Comu with Alan Moore, along with Skype contributions from Marc Herbst, artist / publisher of Mortgaged Lives: From the Housing Bubble to the Right to Housing by Ada Colau and Adriá Alemany, and writer Bue Rübner Hansen, author of the essay Building Power in a Crisis of Social Reproduction.

· Resident Weirdo· ∞

“I’m incredibly excited to make this news public. Last week I was awarded a Mid-Career Project Grant funded by the McKnight Foundation and administered through Forecast Public Art. I am overwhelmed and overjoyed by this support and its implications for the work and energy that is being generated out of the relationships forming in Beyond Repair. With this support (along with last weeks wonderful news of a Visual Arts Fund grant through the Warhol Foundation and Midway Contemporary Art Library) we’ll be able to do so much; bring in new voices with vital stories to tell, create platforms to amplify voices already present in the 9th Ward, and support the production of creative engagement throughout the neighborhood for some time to come.

The grant will support Publics & Publication. A multi-faceted project that will gather histories known and not-known-well-enough from noted artists, activists, and thinkers who have activated ideas around publication (the act of public making) to energetic means. These histories will energize a series of public projects and platforms (such as printed publications, radio broadcasts, and interactive billboards) addressing policing and “security” within Minneapolis’ 9th Ward, as well as models for collective self-defense and wellness.

What this will all look like will come out of the interactions that we share together within the shop. But, for starters, two platforms for continued questioning, and amplification of those questions, will be developed: a radio station (W R/L F/R, which stands for With Radical Love and Fierce Resistance, the thematic for all programming) and an on-going series of free pamphlets engaging urgent topics, advice, and tools around our present moment of abject fuckery that is Trump-World.

It’s incredibly important for me to thank all the people who have offered their time and love to the shop this first year. Random droppers-by who have become fast friends and compatriots like Duaba (Dane) Verrtah; the ever-expanding, soon to reform in some fashion, folks of the Undercommons Reading Group; Fiona Avocado, Derek Winston Maxwell,Lacey Prpić Hedtke, Rachel Hiltsley and all those who decided that they wanted to spend time around the shop and bring others into the fold (along with, simply, giving me a moment to breath and / or hang out with my family). Oh man… there are so many people!! You know who you are. And I will thank you personally.

There’s more to add, and so much more to come. I’ll be sure to clue you in when things are afoot. But for now, thank you thank you thank you. I am so grateful and excited for what will and may come out of this level of support for a project that, I am well aware, is complex and not in the least spectacular. And I mean that in a good way.

In closing, I wanted to point out one thing. I’m really not a fan of competition. And in this circumstance that is exactly what I got myself into. There were five finalists for this award. One of them being Roger Cummings, an artist and friend who I have a lot of respect for. I was certain Roger would get this. But that’s not how it turned out. Along with a whiskey, I want to extend my thanks and gratitude to Roger (and DeAnna!) for all the amazing work they do in Minneapolis, and the thousands of young minds and souls they have energized over the years. Here’s a future devoid of competition, bursting with shared support and friendship.” – Sam

· Resident Weirdo· ∞

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Lacey got our conversation with Emory Douglas down to 1′ and 0’s and we’re in the midst of cleaning it up. I cannot wait to get this out into the world! Here’s a quick taste…

Sam: So, in that way, you have the BPP doing something similar to, say the Wobblies at the turn of the century — of being on the street corner, being visible, saying, “look, here’s this thing and here’s the person attached to it. You could also be that person.”


Emory: Yeah, absolutely. We had a paper — 6:00 o’clock in the morning, people had assignments to go sell the papers. It was at the subway, the bus stations or wherever that may be.

Sam: In that sense was the history and methods of, say, the Wobblies or the black press leading up to your work at the paper in your minds at the time?

Emory: Yes, yes. Because the context and the content was the connection.

· Resident Weirdo· ∞

Sun, Dec. 13, 2015 ⁄ 4:30–5:30pm

Publics and Publication: A Conversation with Emory Douglas

ED

As part of an intermittent series of conversations taking place at Beyond Repair entitled Publics and Publication, Emory Douglas (artist and former Minister of Culture for The Black Panther Party) and Sam Gould (Editor of Red76) will discuss the role of the BPP’s newspaper, The Black Panther, as not simply a fixed object existing to move information along, but a very specific device to form a public around the desires and ideals of the Black Panther Party and its orbit. 

 

The conversation will touch on both the practical elements of putting out the paper, but equally as much the theoretical role and value of The Black Panther and how it served as a tool to illustrate distance between individuals, a device that opened up a space of questioning for the reader, pragmatically, within their day. Inasmuch The Black Panther was both a physical object, allowed to travel relatively freely within the world, but just as much a subject, a tool for public-making afforded a nature as complex as its readership. 

 
Not solely with an eye towards the past, the conversation will utilize the history and role of the paper in its moment as a way to consider the tactical uses of publication within our own moment, both here in Minneapolis’s 9th Ward, and further afield.

 
Early in the new year a book will be produced from the evenings discussion, available for sale at Beyond Repair and online. Sales from the book will be used to create new actions, publications, programs, and more to address the role of the 3rd Precinct within the 9th Ward of South Minneapolis and how the precincts actions affect the quality of life of 9th Ward residents.
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We’d very much like to thank the folks at Juxtaposition Arts, as well as Penumbra Theatre, and the Walker Art Center, for their support and collaboration in bringing Mr. Douglas to Minneapolis and Beyond Repair. 

· Resident Weirdo· ∞