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A Collaborative Economy

As a small, volunteer-driven organization, we found resilience in the reciprocal exchange of time, knowledge, and community and recognized the transformative potential of all contributions. As a partner to complex organizations, we were committed to accountability and transparency in the distribution of institutional resources.

This hybrid approach joined formal and informal economies and enables our sustainability. It negotiated the tension between grassroots activities and larger organizations, who often approach power, money, and institutionality differently.

Case Studies

View our collaborative economy in action

Mixplace Studio

This project emerged from informal conversation between Slought, People's Emergency Center (PEC), Estudio Teddy Cruz, and PennDesign. It responded to the crisis in public education, manifested in a drop in community participation, increased public school closings, and a city-wide epidemic of violence.

Facilitated by grants from the Pew Charitable Trusts and National Endowment for the Arts, these conversations also benefited from the in-kind support of fabricators, printers, filmmakers, students, web designers, and over 30 local artists, organizers and educators.

These formal and informal infrastructure enabled the creation of a new urban education model and the studio itself, which includes a computer lab. Stipends were also provided for participating youth, their families, a youth facilitator, and two coordinators.

Our hybrid model of collaboration fostered a sense of collective ownership, where all have a voice in drafting the studio's goals and curriculum. Ideas were exchanged over shared meals, workshops, and short videos of each collaborator sharing their expectations of the social contract.

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Perpetual Peace Project

This project emerged from informal conversations between Slought, the Syracuse University Humanities Center, and the Austrian Cultural Forum about the importance of thinking about peace in times of war. This partnership was then extended to the International Peace Institute, the European Union National Institutes of Culture, and finally the United Nations University.

Financial contributions were not required from the partnering institutions; however, they were invited to oversee the programs they hosted and share their network of filmmakers, designers, educators, and other volunteers.

Outcomes included the republication of Immanuel Kant's text, from which the larger project took its guiding principles, a major symposium at the International Peace Institute at the United Nations, and an exhibition at the New Museum in New York, where films and workshops on peace were incubated.

Public programs were also organized in countries that recently struggled with political conflict or social violence, such as Rwanda, Pakistan, the United States, and China. Occupying both non-governmental and governmental settings, they brought in activists, students, scholars, and diplomats, many of whom continue these conversations in new ways.

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Fairytale Project

Fairytale Project emerged from informal conversations between Slought, recent collaborator Melissa Lam in Hong Kong, and artist Ai Weiwei in Beijing. It responded to questions about the social impact of the arts and the value of cultural exchange.

During the artist's detention by the Chinese government, the project was impeded as potential funders grew wary of political complications. With a heightened sense of surveillance, the project and its website was instead developed through a volunteer economy.

Following the artist's release, modest support he requested from the Fairytale Foundation enabled professional translation effort and a redesign of the archive by Pentagram and The DuKode Studio.

In the aftermath, a workshop with the Andy Warhol Foundation at Slought invited visitors to engage in the archive and its translation. Over 60 volunteers around the world were involved in processing, translating and uploading thousands of documents and photos by the 1001 Chinese citizens who participated in the original 2007 project.

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These formal and informal infrastructure enabled the creation of a new urban education model and the studio itself, which includes a computer lab. Stipends were also provided for participating youth, their families, a youth facilitator, and two coordinators.

Our hybrid model of collaboration fostered a sense of collective ownership, where all have a voice in drafting the studio's goals and curriculum. Ideas were exchanged over shared meals, workshops, and short videos of each collaborator sharing their expectations of the social contract.

More »

Outcomes included the republication of Immanuel Kant's text, from which the larger project took its guiding principles, a major symposium at the International Peace Institute at the United Nations, and an exhibition at the New Museum in New York, where films and workshops on peace were incubated.

Public programs were also organized in countries that recently struggled with political conflict or social violence, such as Rwanda, Pakistan, the United States, and China. Occupying both non-governmental and governmental settings, they brought in activists, students, scholars, and diplomats, many of whom continue these conversations in new ways.

More »

Following the artist's release, modest support he requested from the Fairytale Foundation enabled professional translation effort and a redesign of the archive by Pentagram and The DuKode Studio.

In the aftermath, a workshop with the Andy Warhol Foundation at Slought invited visitors to engage in the archive and its translation. Over 60 volunteers around the world were involved in processing, translating and uploading thousands of documents and photos by the 1001 Chinese citizens who participated in the original 2007 project.

More »