Departing from types of ecosystems that live and breathe in the absence or shortage of oxygen, water and fuel, Towards a CSA model in the Arts explores the possibilities for a malleable, mid-sized, draught-surviving, liquid-breathing, adept-at-finding-digestible-foods organism with its-irritable-bowel-syndrome-under-control. The project draws from current discussions on food design and the possibility of decentralization of food production and diversification of the food supply chains to brainstorm on the cultural production and dissemination of local actors in an interconnected, international arts system.

Community-supported agriculture (CSA model) is a system that connects the producer and consumers within the food system more closely by allowing the consumer to subscribe to the harvest of a certain farm or group of farms. It is an alternative socioeconomic model of agriculture and food distribution that allows the producer and consumer to share the risks of farming. The model is a subcategory of civic agriculture that has an overarching goal of strengthening a sense of community through local markets.*

From labor to ethics to sustainability issues, the mechanisms of each of these systems bring up similar contested issues and questions. The model of the CSA can be rethought in light of the Kunstverein model in Germany; the farmers market model with regard to the biennial one; and furthermore, the models of the urban farm’s store, farmers’ cooperatives or a rural regenerative farm in relationship to the models of artist initiatives, studio, residency or educational programs. Such juxtapositions and correlations of food and art ecosystems might lead to further cross pollination, but also will eventually reveal that the issues we highlight are not necessarily industry specific, but rather a symptom of the precarious capitalist systems we find ourselves in, and which are no longer sustainable.

More and more the conversation about the precarity of the (modestly sized) art institutions and art producers takes into account the local perspectives and their vulnerabilities as they interact with globalisms. The conversation about the food producer who is left with surplus product as her mainstream distribution channels crumble under the slightest stress is also about the fragile position of the producers, and it is furthermore informed by the discrepant forces of localization of production and efficiency of global distribution.  

In the face of such precarity and fragility, how do we conceive models of dissemination that are in sync with the modes of production and in which participants are paid decent salaries and the choices they make do not have to be compromised in order to bridge the gaps between production and dissemination? How do we think of sustainability and the shortening of our so-called supply chains in an effort to create organic communities of producers who are in touch with the consumer groups and who feel secure that their products are going to be disseminated in such ways that they will have access to quality seeds, and are thus loyal to the products of their labor and to their communities in turn ensuring the formation and sustainability of biodiverse communities? How do we rethink our local and regional production systems in the creation of communities of conscious consumers? And how do we bridge and blend those communities in their unitary interactions with the global systems of circulation and distribution?

It’s obvious that the way that work gets organized is shifting.  We need to devise and employ new strategies with which to work eliminating the pressure to physically commission, produce and perform in the colossal ways which we have grown accustomed to. We are on the cusp of a change in working methodologies, in the way we think of our professional, personal and societal relationships, and in the way we work and communicate. This is a time in which we are re-negotiating the social contracts that have been forthcoming. Towards a CSA Model in the Arts questions these social and economic contracts through conversations with artists, producers and thinkers in the arts and food systems, and it ruminates on possible other methods and structures.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community-supported_agriculture