general space discussion

Submitted by mynweb on Fri, 07/13/2007 - 10:50pm.

mynweb

Posts: 492
Joined: 2006-10-31

Cool, now there's a real forum for us to talk about our ideas with the space (the "possible spaces" thread is now obsolete).

I have a few concerns about what we do with the space. The most pressing is thing is people are starting to call it a community center, which we weren't really initially planning on doing. we wanted to have space for ourselves, shared with other organizations, for the purpose of

a) Collaborating far more closely with other organizations
b) Having an easily accessible indoors meeting area for planning shit
c) Having a place for learning groups (the spanish group, the writing circle, poi) to meet regularly
d) Having the facilities for collaborative projects (silkscreening, carpentry, zines) to take place
e) Having workshops and events

I feel like these things should take priority - we are a struggling organization and this was an idea that I thought would push us forward, but I'm concerned that all the energy we would have to put into outreach would eventually take over. I feel sorta shitty being one of the only people against doing a community center, but I really think that a community center should be run by the community, not by us. Misled Youth has made numerous attempts at bridging hip hop and punk rock youth cultures and has never succeeded. I feel like there are enough stereotypical, closed-minded members on each side to make it very discouraging work, and every time we have decided that in the future we should stick with working within the community we identify with first.

Even in our "community", where there's supposedly a scene ethic of fucking up corporations and banks not benefit shows, kids come to our show and steal a case (if not more) of our beer. When that ethic isn't even there and you're dealing with people who have no reason to respect you it's likely that the conflict will be greater. I'm not making judgements about everyone in the neighborhood, and I think on a small scale, by slowly building relationships its possible to make real bonds. But I'm not into the ideas of canvassing the neighborhood, making tons of flyers, leaving the door wide open, throwing huge, loud events and especially having the entire space being public all the time.

I definitely won't try to stop any attempts at a community space, and anyone interested in having it I think should work with In Our Hearts (or an organization that's actually originally from bed stuy, if you prefer) but I'm proposing that the Misled Youth space and the kitchen/meeting space be somewhat private most of the time (unless we're doing public events or workshops), and the storefront can be whatever In Our Hearts wants. In setting up a mostly-private work/meeting space that doesn't serve the community we have to take precautions that we don't contribute to the gentrification of the neighborhood. I think right off the bat the store front and the events should be as cheap as we can feasibly make them and we should try to get most of our money from donations, maybe a distro, maybe an online business, but basically not charging people $2 for coffee and $5 for a smoothee or whatever. The bookstore can even be a used bookstore, if that could be practical.

Also, just to be clear, this is the small, temporary space we were discussing. The point of having it is to have a central base to raise more money for another, bigger space with less constraints on things like noise, or where we could have a huge expensive yuppie party once a month and then spend the rest of the time doing free, diy workshops, events and shows. so we want to not only make rent, but also raise money. one thing is now that we have a space we can actually do our projects and learning groups and will seem more credible and able to receive grants.

anyway, maybe this is a bad way to open this general thread... but I'd like to here people's opinions on this.

Sat, 07/14/2007 - 2:45am

xcriteria

Posts: 92
Joined: 2006-12-04

...

First off, I agree with everything in this post.

The term "community" has a lot of specific meanings, from a particular neighborhood, to various subcultures, to what Misled Youth -- as a network -- wants to create. And, we do need to distinguish between basically private spaces that MYN can use, and more public spaces like what part of the original space idea included.

Definitely we need to keep in mind our goal of a larger and more ideal space, and a huge part of bringing that about is raising a very large amount of money over the next few years. At first we are going to be struggling to just pay rent on this temporary space, but we need to get to the point of not just breaking even and making some money for MYN to operate, but also saving up a lot more.

And in terms of communities, we need to keep in mind the goal of reaching out to people interested in MYN -- wherever they live and whatever scene or subculture they associate with.

I was out of town during the last space meeting, and I may or may not make it to the one on Saturday, but I think we need to communicate what we are trying to do to the others working on this space, and figure out a good balance between MYN's goals, the goals of other orgs involved in the space, and meshing with the neighborhood the space is in in some ways that still need to be worked out.

So what does everyone else think about all this?

Sat, 07/14/2007 - 11:46pm

CeCeDe

Posts: 49
Joined: 2007-04-18

As far as building and

As far as building and working on the space,
How does everyone feel about wednesdays?
I don't remember if anyone said they had a problem with working wednesdays but I'm free all day wednesday and Gabe is free wednesday all night.

I agree with what you're saying about it being a community center. It is a private space, however if it's gonna have a bookstore, there's no way that we'll make it a day without some positive connection to the community, to state the obvious. Even if we kept misled youth space private, it could still get all fucked up unless we get some kind of mutual respect going with our neighbors. It doesn't however, have to overpower our space.

And I'm so sorry that I can't make a meeting at the space that I helped schedule, but I will really try hard to move my schedule around.

Sun, 07/15/2007 - 12:27pm

mRg

Posts: 5
Joined: 2007-07-15

two and one half cents

hmmm, we were calling our plans a by youth for youth community space. what is your/our definition of that? what is IOHs'? i think the crux of the issue lies in collaboration/connection with people from the neighborhood vs. compromising our vision and handing over control for things we can't connect with. most of the priorities mentioned can be used as ways of engaging young people in the community. don't forget that we are always needing to do outreach to young people to connect each other through education, the arts, and a general sense of empowerment and accomplishment. we can have the structure mentioned, engage young people in the area, and then boom, that's a community center/space. sure, maybe not the classical example, but mixing things up is always exciting. i say WE won't/don't need to get burned out on outreach in the "community" because we know who we are and what we want to do. i also feel we have a more straightforward and practical way of connecting to people with our ideals, philosophies, projects than say IOH. quite frankly, yeah, let them do what they see as in line with their mission, and we will simply do the same. this is merely then an opportunity to continue growing our network. we really needn't take on too much/feel as if we're moving in a different direction if we stay grounded in OUR mission. MYN does need/will always need to reach out to young people anywhere, everywhere.

the cultural crossover: yes it is indeed difficult. but no reason to ever give up. i'm sure you're just being more of a realist on this one, but i just will never accept the idea of "scenes" and identifying with just one group. i will always work toward breaking down these artificial barriers created by a controlling society and a brainwashing media. [and you know this. i saw that pic from when you were a little "gangsta" with your hat all tilted backward and to the side and shit ;)] i will always look to our common humanity. that said, i totally agree that we should not "canvass"/survey at least not in the ways suggested. and that more "real," organic connections should/can be made. don't always wear an activist hat for example. don't always throw politics and lofty notions around. we can totally find other ways of allowing people to connect with us that don't sound like a lecture or a speech or something. we can have workshops and speakouts for heady discussions.

anywho, just some change off the top of my head. don't think these are final thoughts. i have so much shit swimming in my head today/so many different things to write about: diff. icarus stuff, myn space, myn future, agendas for two diff. groups, workshops for a conference, individual emails on diff. shit, and i gotta fire someone Eye-wink , so bear with me.

CrAZy, mAd, PhAT, dOPe, LOVE,

-mikeG

Sun, 07/15/2007 - 3:34pm

kid_prototype

Posts: 126
Joined: 2006-12-17

thoughts on the space and our future

first -- hey ceecee, yeah, we ended up cancelling the work day at the space today, which i think is sorta a good things because i think we all need time to step back and think about what we're doing and have a chill sunday. In general i am free wednesdays, though this wednesday i have some modelling work to do.

So anyway most of what i have to say is in regards to the sorta big picture and long term goal of the space and misled youth and all of us. We have been running around stressing about square footage and money and meetings and all of that, and i started asking myself how this space will really serve the needs of everyone in misled youth and help us reach our goals of community, learning, and creativity. I was thinking about the evolution of misled youth over the past couple years. we started out essentially as a media project -- our first project was writing a book expressing youth's outrage at being locked up and shut down, and laying down principals for how we can free ourselves through taking charge of our health and well being. learning, creative expression, and community. We designed posters and stickers and did a lot with messages. We evolved to be more action-oriented last year when we did the festival and started meeting with more students and youth. So these days misled youth meetings often look like a big to do list and we kinda lost sight of discussing issues and things we believe in and analyzing things around us.

Anyways I was up thinking about all these things at 4am and trying to put all these pieces together, seeing if we could come up with a plan to use the space that would encompass all these issues and concerns. Relating to forming and expressing youth-related messages, I think we can use the screenprinting and art making facilities in the space to create posters, t shirts, zines, etc that we could sell in the store and bring to table at events, thus outreaching like michael was saying. The other thing I would really like to see us doing is developing and presenting workshop based both on messages/ideas we want to explore as well as hands on skills we have learned though self education. I think that the two workshops we did together were probably the most interesting and meaningful projects we have taken on as of yet. Doing these workshop will make us more conscious of our learning process in everything we do.

So those are my thoughts, me and leanne talked about this a little on the phone today and want to make these issues the focus of our meeting next week.

--sarah

Sun, 07/15/2007 - 11:21pm

SystemReject

Posts: 62
Joined: 2006-12-31

all the plans sound really

all the plans sound really great guys, just save some work for when i move up there haha. i dont wanna feel like i didnt help get the place up and running at all. plus you were saying theres a room that youre going to rent out right? that sounds like the perfect place for me to stay. i could probably make $500 a month for rent once i got a job. im not saying save it for me, but it would be a huge help if i didnt have to worry about a place to live.

Mon, 07/16/2007 - 6:00pm

Gabe W

Posts: 71
Joined: 2007-04-18

ah!

Wow, everything does seem like a big to do list, i mean i'm enjoying some of it, i've never built shit and i've never opened a space, so some of the to do stuff really isn't that bad, i'm excited to see what we create and how we evolve. Once we are able to get this shit up and running, we can do our art and our meetings, workshops etc. As long as we dont loose our vision, it can change and evolve and grow, but it cant be lost. Lets do what we can with this space.
Everything we do is another opportunity to learn something new, and once we set all this up, well have something to give to people, a place to operate and to learn new things. Its a little sad we haven't been able to concentrate on actual youth related things and issues, lets try and think of a time when we can do some of this kind of stuff, conference, workshop, some other kind of event?
We don't need to CONNECT with the community, but we can try and get some respect and provide maybe some kinda of something. We need to be able to exist in this area without trouble.
I have faith that MYN will get back to the roots but in the mean time, lets have fun doin alll this new shit with out new space, always learning, maybe not everything is the most fun thing in the world, but everything is a different opportunity to learn something new. Lets think of some stuff to do after the space is operational.

Gabe W

Thu, 07/19/2007 - 4:00am

mRg

Posts: 5
Joined: 2007-07-15

energy and commitment

i love the energy and enthusiasm that you bring to the table. after reading this again just now, i am with you until the last graph. you wanna create, learn, and evolve. you see a vision (we should try and find out everyone's vision). you want a space for workshops (education outlets).
you wanna help with the space and see opportunities for gaining new and valuable knowledge. yes, youth related "things" and issues. these are important areas of thought being that two foundational issues of misled youth are the institutionalization of youth a.k.a. kids being "sent away" to really fucked up places where they get mistreated to say the least, and, providing alternatives and/or outlets to young people feeling disillusioned or misled by an extremely poor/lacking/straight up wrong standardized education system.

other important areas of thought include what you all as individuals want to do with your lives. what do i want to do with mine? i don't mean in the way your parents may say it. we all have goals/aspirations. most times the things we want to learn are helping to enrich our lives and working to move us toward an idea of self. a real question is how do we incorporate who we are and what we want out of life into learning and sharing and building the educated, mentally healthy, socially conscious, DIY community we want to see? can we bring something "real" to our connections? we want to create more natural, more organic settings. meaning, we may get lost in scheduling particulars, which can lead to a contrived feeling. ex. "oh, it's 2pm, time to switch over into this mode." really, how can we connect what we wanna do anyway, what we are/will be doing with our time to the ideas of misled youth and strike a balance, that fine balance between personal growth and accomplishment with growing any grassroots organization pretty much about just that? seems simple, right? we've been trying for almost 3 years. a couple of us wanna be artists, writers, teachers, and organizers. so, we must create a more natural way of bridging the divide between what we learn and how we impart it.

so, ummm, yeah, it's late. to get back to that last graph and bring this all back to the very real very important aspect of the space and always continuing to develop our role in it as at least a resource for those involved, in continuing misled youth/growing it, we DO need to try and CONNECT people, especially young people, to our ideas. you don't have to call it the "community" and perceive it in classical terms. we are always wanting to build new/our own communities, the way we see them, out of the broken pieces we so often find ourselves left with. but yeah, i don't wanna over use the term community either. i call people people a.k.a. human beings...and we should always work to connect with one another, but we can make it our own and on our own terms and certainly create/build mutual respect.

shit...gotta sleep. it is the "spice" of life. it is vital for space travel...

cRaZy, mAd, pHAt, dOpE, LOVE

-mikeG

Mon, 07/23/2007 - 10:48pm

kid_prototype

Posts: 126
Joined: 2006-12-17

updates...

Hey, here’s the news

A few of us went to the Tompkins show this past Sunday to sell patches. At the end there was a big rush and we ended up making about 231 bucks. We still have tons of patches and there some upcoming shows we can sell them at, anyone’s invited to print or sell them at shows or both.

Today I sent our a mass email asking people to donate money and supplies to the art space we’re trying to set up right now. There’s a link to the wish list from our homepage, check it out. We’re still looking for lots of things including wall cabinets, lumber, and art supplies. Let us know if you have anything! Also we need to schedule some workdays at the space as soon as we have the supplies we need at hand. It would be great to actually get started. We’re gonna post the updated layout plans soon – definitely express what you think about them.

This Thursday this kid Ethan is visiting NYC with his family and they wanna meet us. We talked about having a potluck at 4pm in the garden – please say if you can make it and maybe if you can bring food!

This Sunday at 1:30pm is gonna be kind of an experiment as our first meeting/discussion where everyone can come together to share, get feedback, and support on whatever educational and creative things they’re doing: you can show people your artwork or read your writing or discuss the book you’re reading or just try and figure out where to start. It should be exciting and inspiring. Also we want to emphasize that anyone should feel free to organize whatever activities they want with other people, you don’t have to get permission or bring it up at a meeting or any of that.

There hasn’t been any discussion about this since last Thursday when we scheduled it. It’s a pretty big deal though, it would be great to start taking about where we are in the process of gaining knowledge and basically becoming who we want to be.

Ok lets keep the conversation going on all this shit – it’s a lot to think about!!

--sarah