This is a learning and practice pod where participants will share knowledge and map experiments centered around co-creating caring and regenerative cultural economies in Los Angeles.

Pod Schedule

Every other Tuesday, 6 PM Pacific 

April 19 - July 12th, 2022

Our Context (Why is NAVEL taking this on?)  

As part of the non-profit industrial complex, and assumed to be part of the broader “capital A” Art World, NAVEL both benefits from and contributes to a system that continues to harm, exclude, and exploit the most vulnerable members of our communities, especially working class, poor, and disabled folks. What would a cultural economy look like in Los Angeles that cared about Black and Indigenous people? 

Pod Purpose

As part of our commitment to supporting artists and cultural workers in so-called Los Angeles seeking to move from extraction to care–this learning and practice pod will study current Just Transition and anti-capitalist experiments in our local, regional, and transnational contexts in order to create a blueprint for a regenerative cultural economy within NAVEL and our larger Los Angeles arts ecology.

Pod Long Term Visions & Intentions

As artists and cultural workers, how might we…

1. Co-create a more participatory, leaderfull, and reparative arts and culture economy within NAVEL and within our broader Los Angeles ecology?

2. Center community wealth, self-determination, and collective ownership to nourish abundant and pleasurable ways of doing cultural work and cultural production?

3. Organize ourselves to demand a thriving living standard for cultural workers?

Who should sign up?

Worker governance rebels with experience incubating coops and collectives, and/or technologists of all kinds exploring decentralized autonomous organizations and building tools to empower the future of work.

Key Dates & Timelines

We imagine a hybrid in-person/zoom format for this pod, but will make a decision based on participants’ availability, location, and comfort with covid safety.

Every other Tuesday, 6 - 8 PM Pacific
Zoom/Virtual/IRL
Max # of participants: 12 people

Session 1 — [April 19, 6 PM]

Session 2 — [May 3, 6 PM]

Session 3 — [May 17, 6 PM]

Session 4 — [May 31, 6 PM]

Session 5 — [June 14, 6PM]

Session 6 — [June 28th, 6 PM]

Session 7 — [July 12, 6 PM]

Facilitators

Irina Contreras (they/them) is a Los Angeles born and based interdisciplinary artist and cultural worker. They are the founder of The Miracle Bookmobile and co-founder of Night Kitchen, a sliding-scale consulting service for queer and trans BIPOC/people of color and communities. Irina guides the LA County Department of Arts and Culture's juvenile justice efforts in community-based settings. They have participated in many different spaces and had many different roles at NAVEL since 2019, including helping to facilitate our transformative process towards worker self direction, as well as researching and writing about improvements for time-banking models alongside documenting abolitionist funding strategies. They have worked for over 15 years at the intersections of community organizing, arts and education and received their MFA/MA in Social Practice and Visual and Critical Studies from California College of the Arts and their BFA from Otis College of Art and Design. Irina has pursued an artistic practice alongside a lifelong dedication to transformative justice practices and spends most of their time with a magnificent 4 year old named Ixi.

Michael Holt (he/they) is an artist, creative strategist, systems designer, and producer with roots in Portland, New York City, Berlin, and now, Los Angeles. Working with artists, collectives, institutions, and values-aligned ventures, Michael plays with process, form, funding, and space to design experiences and tell stories which crack open glimpses at the future world(s) we want to bring into existence. Michael is the Sustainability & Nourishment Lead & a Catalyst at NAVEL. In 2021 he launched FAMILY AFFAIRS, an experience design studio that collaborates with creative brands and cultural institutions to build caring systems and produce immersive, multidisciplinary experiences and content. From 2012-2015, Michael was the Assistant Director of Marketing at Lincoln Center, where he guided all patron loyalty efforts across eleven programs and festivals. He received an MA in Performing Arts Management from New York University and a BS in Business Management Marketing from Brigham Young University.