Production Collab
We’re exploring what it takes to build a community-powered network of creative event organizers that share materials and help one another organize, build skills, and celebrate.
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Co-organizers: Natalie (from Flushing Town Hall), Melissa (from The Latin Academy), and Anjali (Street Works/Make Justice Normal).
why
Grassroots cultural events are community lifeblood. They bring us together, make our stories visible, and create space for joy, activation, and connection. But the people who produce them — artists, culture-bearers, and community organizers — are often working on shoestring budgets.
Every time, we have to find gear, work out logistics, build budgets, recruit help, store materials, and somehow make the math work. Grants rarely cover the full cost. And if we’re lucky enough to get funding, half of it gets eaten up just navigating the grant process. Our labor often goes unfunded altogether.
Meanwhile, corporations pay big money to production companies to do the same work our communities have been doing all along, often more creatively and with deeper local ties. Why shouldn’t artists and cultural organizers collectively benefit from the value we create?
We hope this collaboration reframes the hidden labor of production as cultural organizing while offering mutual support, shared ownership, and a lending library for materials so that no one burns out and everyone gets to do more of what they love. By treating production as collective work, we hope it gets easier for neighbors to organize and artists practice their crafts in new ways.