We use art to cultivate community economies and grassroots forms of organizing.

Coming from the field of ecology, 3 Stages of Succession is a term that describes what happens when an empty lot, previously occupied by humans, is left to its own devices.

First, small plants with small roots break the soil, preparing it for bigger plants.

These further prepare the terrain for even deeper roots.

Lastly, bigger longer-term plants take root bringing with them a rich ecology of plants and wildlife.

The gradual, arts-based approach we use is similar, slowly letting friendships and collaborations unfold to create lasting grassroots social infrastructure.

What we’re about

We’re about opening spaces for new kinds of relationships, unorthodox economies, alternative forms of organizing on a neighbourhood scale. We understand the word ‘economies’ to mean all of the things we all do to help sustain life, to live well together. We have a growing expertise in creating spaces for community economies, and a growing arts-based toolkit for nurturing such spaces and the people active within them. All this might sound a bit serious, but we’re also about irreverent laughter.

WHAT WE DO

Compost

Open collaborative spaces nourish projects. New people and ideas wander in. The unexpected occurs (we count on it!).

Germinate

People and ideas meet in an open supportive environment. Ideas cross-pollinate. New initiatives emerge. Older ones evolve.

Care

Initiatives are accompanied and cared for. Research is conducted. Learning takes place. All through the growing 3 Stages of Succession arts-based toolkit.

Local economies against the pre-invented world

Creating grassroots social infrastructure is not always straightforward.

Sometimes it feels like there is a system set to lock us into existing patterns of behavior. Researchers call this path dependency. The way work and culture are organized, the economy built around it, can feel disempowering. Artist David Wojnarowicz called this ‘the pre-invented world’.

Portrait of David Wojnarowicz | In order to create something new from the smallest moments of the day-to-day, we have to examine our assumptions.

In order to create something new from the smallest moments of the day-to-day, we have to examine our assumptions.

We do this together, with others, not looking for the familiar answers…looking for difference, for the idiosyncratic, for things that challenge our patterns of thinking and doing.

We ask ‘what happens if…?’, experimenting, waiting, with curiosity for what later unfolds.