An interesting insider’s look into Bushwick, Brooklyn’s growing “collectivist” dynamic from Jed Lipinski’s article in the New York Times, “A Commune Grows in Brooklyn.”
“ON a recent drizzly afternoon in Bushwick, Brooklyn, members of the Bushwick Food Cooperative gathered beneath a tent in a ramshackle backyard to claim their share of the weekly harvest. They picked through crates of cilantro and rosemary from a rooftop farm in Long Island City, Queens, and examined pastured eggs from an Amish farm cooperative in Pennsylvania.
…such scenes are not atypical across the greater metropolitan area, where a kind of renaissance in collectives is under way. Concepts like sharing and bartering — whether it’s fabric at Etsy Labs in Dumbo or powerboats at SailTime on the Chelsea Piers — are being revived and updated for the Twitter age.”
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Jed Lipinski quotes Rachel Bosman, author of the new book “What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption,” when she says, “The groundswell of social technology today is creating unprecedented opportunities to share and collaborate…Farmers’ markets and Facebook have a lot in common. All around us we’re seeing a renewed belief in the importance of community, in both the physical and virtual worlds.”
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“Bushwick is host to a staggering variety of collective organizations — including bedbug-ridden “freegan” cooperatives, handball-court movie theaters and activist bicycle collectives that double as bluegrass rock bands. Even the area’s formalized small businesses tend to work collaboratively, pooling resources and sharing employees.
In addition to food advocates, Bushwick is loaded with artists. Many have formed collectives to combat the isolation of the studio, the disappearance of state arts funding and what they see as the commercialism of the art world. Rather than petition fruitlessly for Chelsea gallery representation, these groups exhibit their work wherever they can — bedrooms, stairwells, street corners.”
