Sun, Jun. 18, 2017 ⁄ 2:00–4:30pm

Municipal Research Group: Second Assembly

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We need a new way of doing politics, not just new politicians:

A politics that is really by and for the people.

A politics that works to combat economic inequality.

A politics that works for the common good.

A feminized politics, driven by collective intelligence and concrete action.

A politics with racial justice at its heart.

A participatory politics, where people have power more than once every four years.
An open source, flexible politics, that can be adapted to the contexts of our big cities and our rural communities.

An ethical politics, with zero tolerance for corruption and cronyism.

Join us on Sunday, June 18 @ 2pm for our second meeting on Municipalism. We will be meeting at, of course, The Future (2223 E 35th St).

During this meeting, we’ll get to know each other and discuss a draft statement of principles (quoted above) being written by US activists working with Barcelona en Comú international to define municipalism in a way that’s relevant and responsive to the US context.

We’ll use this meeting to talk with each other and to read, discuss, reflect and critique the document. We’ll send this feedback back to the working group as an illustration of the participatory politics we are striving to create.

A full first draft is still being prepared. We will distribute it before the meeting.

Time / Location

When:

Sunday, June 18
2pm

Where:

The Future
2223 E 35th St
Minneapolis, MN 55407

See you at the Future!

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Didn’t get the memo? What is Municipalism?

As we slip deeper into a presidential crisis, we direly need new social and political ideas. Municipalism is a social movement inspired by the idea of creating a new relationship between people and power: Municipalism isn’t about electing better politicians. Municipalism is about changing the relationship between institutions, social movements and citizens. Elected representatives are just the institutional branch of a movement that is based in the streets and neighborhoods, where the real power resides. Municipal movements work both inside and outside of institutions, building dual power and creating concrete solutions. Municipalism depends on active, organized and independent social movements that support representatives to enact their demands – and push them when they don’t… Find out more by coming to the meeting.

· Resident Weirdo· ∞

Public Comment

The first billboard for this new project, Public Comment, coming out of the shop that Sam and Jonathan Herrera are working on went up outside of the offices of Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha (CTUL) and CANDO, the Central neighborhood organization. The goal is to gather common, if not always complimentary in association, questions from around the neighborhood and to distill these gathered questions into a series of uniformly designed billboards, translated into the predominant languages spoken in the neighborhood. If you live in the Powderhorn, Central, or E. Philips neighborhoods of the 9th Ward and have a broad question concerning how we live with one another or might possibly in the future, call the Public Comment hotline and leave us a message: 1.800.536.0702 (special thanks to Aaron Johnson Ortiz at CTUL for the invitation to house the first billboard and to Rachel Hiltsley for her labor and insight into the project and its future). Also, if you are a commercial or residential property owner in the neighborhood and would like to host a billboard please get in touch. We’d love to collaborate with you as the project moves forward.

· Resident Weirdo· ∞

Fri, Oct. 14, 2016 ⁄ 7:00–9:00pm

On Streetopia and Creative Counter-Measures Towards Gentrification: A Talk and Conversation with Erick Lyle

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Beyond Repair‘s Crisis Logic and the Reader series presents: Erick Lyle, reading from and discussing his book Streetopia!

(This event will take place at Moon Palace Books: 3260 Minnehaha Ave)

After San Francisco’s new mayor announced imminent plans to “clean up” downtown with a new corporate “dot com corridor” and arts district–featuring the new headquarters of Twitter and Burning Man–curators Erick Lyle, Chris Johanson and Kal Spelletich brought over 100 artists and activists together with residents fearing displacement to consider utopian aspirations and plot alternative futures for the city. The resulting exhibition, Streetopia, was a massive anti-gentrification art fair that took place in venues throughout the city, featuring daily free talks, performances, skillshares and a free community kitchen out of the gallery. This book brings together all of the art and ephemera from the now-infamous show, featuring work by Swoon, Barry McGee, Emory Douglas, Monica Canilao, Rigo 23, Xara Thustra, Ryder Cooley and many more. Essays and interviews with key participants consider the effectiveness of Streetopia’s projects while offering a deeper rumination on the continuing search for community in today’s increasingly homogenous and gentrified cities.

 

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Crisis Logic and the Reader: As sociological studies and our own experiences have shown us, crisis manifests relationships and modes of action uncommon outside of states of disruption. Egalitarianism, collaboration and cooperation, crisis highlights utopic possibilities in the midst of the destruction of the day-to-day.

But along with crisis comes anxiety. That boost of adrenaline, beneficial in small immediate doses, fracturing our clarity and composure over time.


Crisis Logic and the Reader, an area of inquiry centered at Beyond Repair this fall, promotes the notion of the “social life of reading” as a long-term, daily alternative to the logic which arises out of singular moments of crisis. This collective, and distributed, conversation will take form in multiple locations around the Twin Cities from Oct. – Dec. 2016, through talks, symposium, publications, art installations and more at Beyond Repair, St. Catherine’s University, Minnesota Institute of Art, and further afield.

· Resident Weirdo· ∞

Considering the differences in experience, income, and generalized desires at play in any one neighborhood, what tools and agreements allow for the greatest amount of input and autonomy wherein people get to live their lives, without the effect of us “living all over one another?” Especially when taking into account the ever present force of voices from outside the neighborhood that seemingly need to be responded to.

 

Simply put, how do we allow for true democracy in the micro without the loudest participants coming out on top?

· Resident Weirdo· ∞