This is the announcement list for Mess Hall, an experimental cultural center
in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago. Mess Hall hosts a printed matter
archive, exhibitions, workshops, lectures, public projects, actions, events,
meals, and more.
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| Reading Area |
Mess Hall
6932 N Glenwood, Chicago
just across from the Morse stop on the Red Line
http://www.messhall.org
Don't Mourn. Organize.”[messhall] Mess Hall Closing: Final Months
Joe Hill
Dear Mess Hall friends,
Mess Hall was founded in 2003 by a broad community of artists who were granted free use of a storefront at 6932 N. Glenwood Ave in Rogers Park. “Surfing on surplus,” we sought to
develop a generosity economy in the cultural life of the neighborhood and
city. We wanted cultural spaces run by the people who use them, and to explode
the myth of scarcity byredistributing surplus at every level of production and consumption. Ten years later, private property, following the inevitable trajectories of its calculus, reasserts itself. As of March 31st, Mess Hall will no longer exist.
International Art Group of Rogers Park,
Sunday Dinner and Artist Talk 2011 at MessHall
Over the last decade, Mess Hall has hosted thousands of
exhibits, lectures, workshops, free stores, and other events that don't easily fit within the norms of culture prescribed by neoliberal capitalist society.
The space has seen several generations of “key holders” and has evolved to
meet the needs of the neighborhood and the challenges of organizing freedom
during the Great Recession. Now, in our final months in this
incarnation, we invite you to participate in a series of public events that address
our beloved experimental center in the past and future tenses. What was this?
What might it become?
Some events are directed to the past, in order to
consolidate the knowledge the space has helped to create and mourn its passing.
Others turn away from closure in order to extend the spirit of Mess Hall
into the future. Now more than ever, we need to create practices, spaces, and counter-institutions that resist the reification of our daily lives, relations, and aspirations.
We welcome your participation in these events:
*Saturday 16 February – Friday 23 March*
Mess Hall 2003-13 / Our Collective Future
This ongoing exhibit will display selections from the Mess Hall archives alongside your own memories of the space and community responses to a questionnaire about what Mess Hall was to residents of Rogers Park and what places will take its place once it's gone. The exhibit
will be on display during all Mess Hall events, and questionnaires will be
available in the distribution box by our door. Please send us your
memories of Mess Hall, or stop by to fill out a questionnaire.
Chicago Calling Arts Festival- 2007
Saturday, February 23, 2:00 – 5:00 pm*
The Material Production of Cultural Space I.
The first of two workshops exploring practical models for building counter-institutions that are non-commercial, consensual, and community-driven. Two guest speakers will offer concise presentations on the
labor, tactics, skills, and monetary investments required to forge/forage
alternative cultural spaces in Chicago. The focus of our discussion to follow will
be on concrete models or building worker-owned co-operatives, liberated
houses, and counter-economies. As Mess Hall closes its doors, we wish to
think in practical terms about how to establish and maintain spaces reclaimed
from the dictates of private ownership.
Saturday, March 2, 2:00 – 5:00 PM*
The Material Production of Cultural Space II.
See previous event; different featured groups will
present on the production of alternative spaces and economies.
*Saturday, March 16, 12:00 – 7:00 pm*
First Drafts for an Uncertain Future that May Kick Ass
if We Work Together
A day-long conference for everyone interested in the
future of alternative cultural spaces in Chicago. We will mix practicality
with dreams, fantasies, and hallucinations to brainstorm the future
shapes the spirit of Mess Hall might assume. We will ask a multitude of participants with practical knowledge about the development of anti-commercial, community-oriented counter-institutions to diagram their wildest dreams for spaces/sites/programs that defy the logic of the marketplace. A brunch-luck will
be served from 12:00 –1:00, followed by several round-table discussions
designed to explore the realities of the present by reflecting upon our dreams
for the future. All participants are invited to bring diagrams of their
dreams for free cultural spaces and the freaky communities that might inhabit
them.
*Sunday, 24 March, 10:00 – 4:00 pm*
The Really, Really, Really, Really Free Store Mess Hall's Free Store is closing its doors, so we're
having a Free Store Final Blowout Super Giveaway. Everything must go! It was free to begin with, so just imagine the discounts you'll find at our going-out-of-business sale! This final free store at Mess Hall is brought to you
by the generosity of the White Rose Catholic Workers.
*Friday, 29 March, 7:00 pm – Midnight*
Farewell to Mess Hall: Closing Ceremonies and
Celebration
Join us for our final gathering in the space. We will
say our farewells with a parade, a key-tossing ceremony, and a night-long party.
The current key-holders do not wish to leave the space alone. We will leave it
as we found: together.That about wraps it up, folks. Mark your calendars, and check our website (www.messhall.org) and e-mail announcements in the coming months for these and many other events. In the meantime, we invite you to send us letters to/for/About Mess Hall—we are seeking memories, rants, photographs—anything you can offer us as we say farewell to this haphazard, beloved institution. Please send any memories or materials you may have to info@messhall.org with the subject line “Mess Hall Memories."
It has been a pleasure & honor to sustain this
ongoing experiment with all of you. We will miss seeing you in this space and hope to rediscover each other through new experiments in generosity-driven culture. Our thanks to Al Goldberg, who has given us use of the space for the past ten years and who intends to reopen 6932 N. Glenwood Ave. as a center
for spiritual practices.
Yours in the ongoing struggle to Free Culture, The current Mess Hall key-holders
(Diana, Lora, Lara, Justin, Rozalinda, Amy, Matthias)
This is the announcement list for Mess Hall, an
experimental cultural center in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago. Mess Hall
hosts a printed matter archive, exhibitions, workshops, lectures, public
projects, actions, events, meals, and more.
Chicago Calling Arts Festival- 2007
