Throughout 2023, Alternate Currents has worked to examine regenerative modes of economic exchange in which artists and organizers can fully participate. Sharing resources and holding cultural goods in common have surfaced again and again as viable working practices for building new paradigms to distribute wealth, knowledge, and power more equitably.
Establishing a cultural commons doesn't come without challenges though, particularly when operating within dominant economic systems that privilege private ownership, state enforced deregulation, and corporate interests. On Wednesday, November 29th at 7pm CST, Manne Cook, SaRena Freet, and Amanda Huckins will come together on Zoom for Amplify’s next virtual Alternate Currents panel discussion, Common Good: A Primer on the Commons to consider ‘the commons’ more deeply. They’ll talk more about the terms and social charters that help artists negotiate the often messy process of collectively managing shared resources for the wellbeing of the many, rather than the few.
Free and open to all. Please register on Amplify’s website (www.amplifyarts.org). You’ll receive an email with a link to join the discussion on Zoom after registering. And don’t forget to visit the Alternate Currents blog to read, watch, and listen to more discussions like this one.
www.amplifyarts.org/alternate-currents
Alternate Currents (AC) is a two-year program designed to support artists and organizers working to thoughtfully challenge dominant systems, forge collaborations, and engage with their communities. An alternative to a conventional MFA, AC cohort members work together to understand how justice in the arts is interpreted, documented, and enacted.
Alternate Currents programming is presented with support from the Sherwood Foundation, the Nebraska Arts Council and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment.
About the Panelists:
Manuel Cook (Manne) is an urban planner and spatial practitioner from North Omaha who works to create vibrant places and more liveable built environments. Manne works closely with local artists and grassroots organizations to produce events, exhibitions, and creative placemaking projects. He is the Director of Urban Planning & Design with Spark where he specializes in the planning and development of projects that support more livable, people oriented, human scale places. Manne is a former neighborhood planner for the City of Omaha, studied Spatial Sciences at Rijks University in the Netherlands, and holds a Masters in Urban Studies from the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
SaRena Freet (she/her) currently is a bartender at The Hot Mess. She is also a co-facilitator of mutual aid projects, political education and community spaces. SaRena graduated from UNL with a Women’s and Gender Studies degree.
Amanda Huckins is a Nebraskan poet whose work has been published in booklet form as "Trying to End the War" (merrily merrily merrily merrily, 2017) and featured in A Dozen Nothing (adozennothing.com), among other places on paper and online. In her weekday hours, Amanda is an Early Head Start educator and participates in building the brain architecture for social emotional and cognitive development in infants and toddlers. In addition to her paid work, Amanda is a grassroots organizer who works alongside fellow community members to build self-determination, forge non-transactional relationships, and create radical free spaces (such as past DIY spaces The Commons in Lincoln, NE and Media Corp. in Omaha). She is also a letterpress printer who produces posters and other ephemera in her garage print studio, where she teaches typesetting to anyone who wants to learn.