TITLE NARRATIVE

The week after Hurricane Sandy hit the New York City area we established a potluck restaurant we called Henry in a long shuttered Greek diner on the corner of Nassau street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. We asked guests to bring food and drink to share as we collaboratively materialized a new dining establishment, a restaurant run by those who showed up that disappeared, or more appropriately was distributed and carried away, once its patrons left.

At Henry, we discussed some of the autonomous efforts witnessed over the week prior by individuals-in-common and a vital handful of groups, such as Occupy Sandy, considered their infrastructure, and how the mobilizing of these efforts had not only helped with basic physical needs, but also with more affective ones: closeness, solidarity, companionship, teamwork, group-think, shared know-how, and a belief in The Possible. Our conversation was recorded and broadcast on POWER 2012, a radio station we established in a Vancouver, Canada, Chinatown gallery, UNIT / PITT. The gallery, a store front, was disguised to look like a poorly stocked, run down bodega which acted as a front for a pirate radio station whose programming, collaborative and free-form, concerned power and its forms. The station was accessed through a false door in the tiny shop.

What would these efforts look like in NYC away from a moment of crisis? What would they look like in any city within the US? What can we learn from the autonomous and fluid infrastructures and agreements which were energized over that time period? And, what tools are needed to hold onto what is learned to sustain this envision of a more equitable and horizontal form of communal habitation and collaboration for our shared futures?

COMMENTARY

An excerpt from our dinner invitation:

“Let’s have fun, let’s make this the best temporary restaurant we’ve ever attended. Bring your favorite dish to share, bring two dishes. Bring bottles of wine. Bring plates and knives and glasses. We will too. As well, we’ll provide the setting - a dusty and beautiful old diner, with a long counter and booths as well. The stage will be set for us to sit comfortably among friends and those soon no longer to be strangers, to eat and drink in a lively and comfortable atmosphere wherein we can discuss what is truly, energetically, important today and into the future, in the midst as well as the aftermath of hurricanes, as well as scenic fall days strolling along familiar streets: How We Wish to Live.”

DOCUMENTS

COLOPHON

Editors: Sam Gould and Dylan Gauthier

Institutional Collaborators: Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at the New School, UNIT / PITT Gallery