Hello, my name is Caroline Woolard. My name is pronounced Care-oh-line Wool-lard and I use she/her pronouns.

I believe that artists and designers can imagine and enact sustainable futures. I build objects as well as networks that prefigure more equitable worlds.

For example, I co-founded and ran the peer-to-peer learning platform TradeSchool.coop from 2008-2018, launched and worked on the NYC Real Estate Investment Cooperative from 2014-2016, served on the Executive Team as CCO of Open Collective from 2021-2023, and co-founded the national network for creative co-ops called Art.coop (2020-present) and Head of Strategy for Pollinator.coop (2024-present).

I am equally comfortable writing a report, making a website, designing a logo, forming a co-op, or making a sculpture. I am recognized in what seem like three disparate areas: (1) art and design, (2) economic justice, and (3) open-source software.

What unites my work is a lifelong commitment to experiences that foster interdisciplinary collaboration. I have co-authored three books about this: Making & Being (for educators), Art, Engagement, Economy (for makers), and a major report about the future of creative and solidarity economies (for wealth holders).

My work has been featured twice on the PBS film series Art21 and a monograph about my practice was published by Onomatopee. 

(June 2014) Written by Aaron Fry, Steven Faerm, and Reina Arakji, professors in art and design at Parsons The New School for Design in New York City.

(May 2014) Jacquelyn Glesisner on BFAMFAPhD in Art21. 

(July 2015) Caroline Woolard on NYC Real Estate Investment Cooperative in Art21.

Art, Engagement, Economy: the Working Practice of Caroline Woolard proposes a politics of transparent production in the arts, whereby heated negotiations and mundane budgets are presented alongside documentation of finished gallery installations. Readers follow the behind-the-scenes work that is required to produce interdisciplinary art projects, from a commission at MoMA to a self-organized, international barter network with over 20,000 participants. With contextual analysis of the political economy of the arts, from the financial crisis of 2008 to the COVID pandemic of 2020, this book suggests that artists can bring studio-based sculptural techniques to an approach to art-making that emphasizes interdisciplinary collaboration and dialogue.

Foreword by Patricia C. Phillips; introduction by Caroline Woolard; texts by D. Graham Burnett, Alison Burstein, Stamatina Gregory, Larissa Harris, Leigh Claire La Berge, Stephanie Owens, Cybele Maylone, Steven Matijcio, Sheetal Prajapati, Caitlin Julia Rubin, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, and Caroline Woolard; interviews by Thyrza Nichols Goodeve and Tina Rivers Ryan; illustrations by Caroline Woolard; design by Angela Lorenzo; and text editing by Helen Hofling. Commissioned by Moore College of Art and Design for the inaugural Walentas Endowed Fellowship of 2018–2020.

https://book.carolinewoolard.com/

Interviews between Caroline Woolard and Mierle Laderman Ukeles and Tina Rivers Ryan

https://book.carolinewoolard.com/chapter-3-ourgoods-and-tradeschool

Welcome & Manifesto

https://book.carolinewoolard.com/welcome

The Meeting

https://book.carolinewoolard.com/chapter-1-the-meeting

The Study Center for Group Work

https://book.carolinewoolard.com/chapter-2-study-center

OurGoods.org and TradeSchool.coop

https://book.carolinewoolard.com/chapter-3-ourgoods-and-tradeschool

Exchange Café

https://book.carolinewoolard.com/chapter-4-exchange-cafe

BFAMFAPhD

https://book.carolinewoolard.com/chapter-5-bfamfaphd

LISTEN

https://book.carolinewoolard.com/chapter-6-listen

Capitoline Wolves and Queer Rocker

https://book.carolinewoolard.com/chapter-7-capitoline-wolves-and-queer-rocker

Carried on Both Sides

https://book.carolinewoolard.com/chapter-8-carried-on-both-sides

(October 2016) Wendy Vogel on The Study Center for Group Work in Artforum.

(February 2014) Reframing the Debt Debate with BFAMFAPhD by Nate Cohan for Art in America.

(October 2016) Cathy Lebowitz on The Study Center for Group Work in Art in America.

Artists Report Back used data about artists’ demographics, occupations, educational attainment, field of degree, and earnings as recorded by The Census Bureau’s 2012 American Community Survey (ACS) to make statements about the current conditions and contradictions of working artists and arts graduates.

(January 2017) These 11 Artists Will Transform the Art World in 2017 by Christian Viveros-Fauné in artnet News. 

(February 2015)

(July 2015) Caroline Woolard by John Haskell in BOMB.

(June 2013) Ray Hu on Exchange Cafe and Barricade Bed in Core 77.

(May 2015) Hundreds join a new kind of co-op to buy commercial property in high-rent areas by Caroline Lewis in Crains New York Business. 

(August 2016) A politics of cooperation: Caroline Woolard on free culture, fine art, and everyday life by Jennie Rose Halperin in Creative Commons.

 (May 2014)

(March 2015) The Cultural Research Network on BFAMFAPhD. 

 from BFAMFAPhD (July 2014) 

(April 2009) Interview with Caroline Woolard in Deep Craft.

Art, Activism and Making With Caroline Woolard by Zoe Romano in Digicult.

(May 2012) Alternative Economies: A Conversation With Caroline Woolard in Hyperallergic. 

(June 2014) Jillian Steinhauser on BFAMFAPhD in Hyperallergic. 

(November 2019) Gabrielle Welsh on Re:Working Labor in Hyperallergic.

 (Solidarity Economy Poster, 2010)

Print this at 11 x 17 / tabloid paper, or order a print to benefit NAACP or SPLC at: http://unterbahn.com/solidarity/

Print this at 11 x 17 / tabloid paper, or order a print to benefit NAACP or SPLC at: http://unterbahn.com/solidarity/

Print this at 11 x 17 / tabloid paper, or order a print to benefit NAACP or SPLC at: http://unterbahn.com/solidarity/

This is a reflection document for LISTEN, a socially engaged art project comissioned by Wave Pool and the Contemporary Art Center from 2017-2018.

Making and Being offers a framework for teaching art that emphasizes contemplation, collaboration, and political economy. Authors Susan Jahoda and Caroline Woolard, two visual arts educators, share ideas and teaching strategies that they have adapted to spaces of learning which range widely, from self-organized workshops for professional artists to Foundations BFA and MFA thesis classes. This hands-on guide includes activities, worksheets, and assignments and is a critical resource for artists and art educators today. Making and Being is a book, a series of videos, a deck of cards, and an interactive website with freely downloadable content.

(June 2016) Online Platforms Are Not Enough. Artists Need Affordable Space. by Caroline Woolard in the National Endowment for the Arts.

(June 2015) Peers Inc written by Robin Chase.

 (2012)

(January 2010) Interview with Caroline Woolard of OurGoods in Rhizome.

 (March 2015)

(May 2012) Tal Berry on Trade School in Shareable. 

(July 2015) Cat Johnson on NYC Real Estate Investment Cooperative in Shareable.

 (February 2013)

This report is about the ways that arts and culture grantmakers can engage in systems-change work that addresses root causes rather than symptoms of cultural inequity. The cultural sector is actively seeking alternatives to business-as-usual to create economic and racial justice in the sector and beyond. Grantmakers can play a role in the transformation of the sector by following the lead of BIPOC creatives who are innovating models for self-determination and community wealth. This work is part of an emergent movement in the United States that is known globally as the Solidarity Economy.

(July 2015) Leigh Claire La Berge on Trade School in the South Atlantic Quarterly.

Art.coop is launching a special interest fund with Movement Strategy Center.

(April 2014) by Caroline Woolard

(August 2015) Manifesto Seires: Measuring Architecture at the Storefront for Art and Architecture.

(November 2013) Jillian Steinhauer on OurGoods, Trade School, and Exchange Cafe for the Brooklyn Quarterly.

(November 2017) Heather Schatz on The Study Center for Group Work in The Brooklyn Rail.

(February 2018) The Art of Institutional Possibility: CAROLINE WOOLARD with Thyrza Nichols Goodeve in The Brooklyn Rail.

(2011) The Edupunks' Guide to a DIY Credential written by Anya Kamenetz and put forth by Smashwords Edition. 

(February 2012) The Mesh: Why the Future of Business is Sharing written by Lisa Gansky put forth by Penguin Press.

(March 2012) Laura Flanders on OurGoods in The Nation. 

(March 2011) Nana Asfour on Trade School in The New Yorker. 

(October 2014) Peter Schjeldahl on BFAMFAPhD in The New Yorker. 

(February 2010) Emily S. Rueb on Trade School in the New York Times. 

(March 2013) Randy Kennedy on Trade School in the New York Times. 

(October 2016) Martha Schwendender on The Study Center for Group Work in The New York Times. 

(May 2016) The Sharing Economy written by Arun Sundararajan and put forth by The MIT Press. 

(October 2015) Madison Margolin on NYC Real Estate Investment Cooperative in The Village Voice. 

(February 2011) V.L. Hendrickson on Trade School in the Wall Street Journal. 

(November 2023) Dreaming Up Collecive Energies from the Editors

(August 2015) Onnesha Roychoudhuri on NYC Real Estate Investment Cooperative in Upworthy. 

(December 2013) Natalie Jeremijenko selects Caroline Woolard for The Wired Smart List.