Please join us for a presentation and discussion with Matt Peterson from Woodbine in New York City, which is currently celebrating its 10 year anniversary. We'd like to have a conversation on the long histories of crisis and disaster we've lived through in the last two decades, from 9/11, to the Financial Crisis, to Hurricane Sandy, to Covid, and our experiments since 2014 with neighborhood self-organization and autonomy in Ridgewood, Queens. Amidst the ongoing deterioration all around us, and with each new catastrophe we face, it's clear that our horizon is one of survival rather than recovery. 

Four years since Covid, we'd like reflect together on what we mean by concepts like mutual aid, disaster relief, and autonomy. We will briefly trace the history of Woodbine since 2014, and our transition in March 2020 to becoming a full-time emergency response hub. We'll highlight our experiments with community organizing around food sovereignty, from our weekly Sunday dinners and BBQ's, community gardens, summer and winter community supported agriculture programs, free community refrigerator, seed library, and food pantry. 

How do we think about the extended timeframes of the political, economic, ecological, social, and biological crises we face, and how does it influence our longer-term visions of a life in common? 

And how do we make room for art, cinema, poetry, and practices to strengthen our creativity, and physical and mental health?

The conversation begins at 8pm. See you there!