
A Brick Holds Water / Bridge Table Caroline Woolard, terra cotta, water, commitment to practice, 2.5 x 3.5 x 10 inches each, edition of 9, 2020.

A Stone Holds Water Caroline Woolard, porcelain, water, commitment to practice, 2.5 x 3.5 x 10 inches each, edition of 9, 2020.

A Brick Holds Water / Bridge Table Caroline Woolard, terra cotta, water, commitment to practice, 2.5 x 3.5 x 10 inches each, edition of 9, 2020.

A Brick Holds Water Caroline Woolard, terra cotta, water, commitment to practice, 2.5 x 3.5 x 10 inches each, edition of 9, 2020.

Caroline Woolard A Brick Holds Water, terra cotta, water, commitment to practice, 2.5 x 3.5 x 10 inches each, edition of 9, 2020.

Bridge Table Caroline Woolard, 1x2 pine, marine plywood, hardware, water filter, water, 50 x 30 x 31 inches, 2020.

A Stone Holds Water / Bridge Table Caroline Woolard, porcelain, water, commitment to practice, 3.5 x 2.5 x 4 inches each, edition of 32, 2020.

Caroline Woolard Caroline Woolard, A Brick Holds Water, terra cotta, water, commitment to practice, 2.5 x 3.5 x 10 inches each, edition of 9, 2020.

A Stone Holds Water Caroline Woolard, porcelain, water, commitment to practice, 3.5 x 2.5 x 4 inches each, edition of 32, 2020.

A Stone Holds Water (detail) Caroline Woolard, porcelain, water, commitment to practice, 3.5 x 2.5 x 4 inches each, edition of 32, 2020.

Untitled (installation) Caroline Woolard, power washed stained concrete, water, mycelium, pine, flood light, raw clay (white stoneware), dimensions variable, 2020.

Untitled (installation) Caroline Woolard, power washed stained concrete, water, mycelium, pine, flood light, raw clay (white stoneware), dimensions variable, 2020.

The Meeting Caroline Woolard: The Meeting (installation view), The Galleries at Moore College of Art & Design (August 3 – September 21, 2019). 2019, walnut, nylon, glass, hardware, mycelium. Photo by Joseph Hu.

Countermeasures: Level Caroline Woolard, 2018, blown glass, mineral oil, turned cherry wood, 18 x 8 x 14 inches.

The Meeting (detail) Caroline Woolard: The Meeting (detail), The Galleries at Moore College of Art & Design (August 3 – September 21, 2019). 2019, walnut, nylon, glass, hardware, mycelium. Photo by Joseph Hu.

The Meeting (detail) Caroline Woolard: The Meeting (installation view), The Galleries at Moore College of Art & Design (August 3 – September 21, 2019). 2019, walnut, nylon, glass, hardware, mycelium. Photo by Joseph Hu.

The Meeting (office view) 2019, aluminum, nylon twine, hardware, foam, 24 x 24 x 18 inches. Courtesy of the artist. Foam bust prototype sculpted by Hannah Rawe, final bust to be made in mycelium. Photo by Levi Mandel.

Modular Daybed for Touching Art Caroline Woolard, 2020, Caroline Woolard, Modular Daybed for Touching Art, 2020, 80 x 15 x 38 inches, steel, aluminum, walnut, popular, acrylic, newspaper.

The Meeting Game Caroline Woolard, single-channel video loop, produced in collaboration with Alex Mallis and Meerkat Media, 2019

The Meeting (installation view) 2019, walnut, nylon, glass, hardware, mycelium. Photo by David Chou.

The Meeting (installation view) 2019, aluminum, nylon twine, hardware, foam, 24 x 24 x 18 inches. Courtesy of the artist. Foam bust prototype sculpted by Hannah Rawe, final bust to be made in mycelium. Photo by Levi Mandel.

The Meeting (detail) Caroline Woolard: The Meeting (installation view), The Galleries at Moore College of Art & Design (August 3 – September 21, 2019). 2019, walnut, nylon, glass, hardware, mycelium. Photo by Joseph Hu.

Countermeasures: Water Clock (detail) Caroline Woolard, 2017-2018, Glass and Water, 18 × 10 × 10 in, 2018.

Countermeasures: Water Clock (detail) Caroline Woolard, 2017-2018, Glass and Water, 18 × 10 × 10 in, 2018.

Countermeasures: Level Caroline Woolard, 2018, blown glass, mineral oil, turned cherry wood, 18 x 8 x 14 inches.

Countermeasures: Level (side) Caroline Woolard, 2018, blown glass, mineral oil, turned cherry wood, 18 x 8 x 14 inches.

Ta73060918 Caroline Woolard, 2018, blown glass, outlet, plug, oil painted poplar, 24 ½ x 24 ½ x 7 ½ inches.

Ta73060918 Caroline Woolard, 2018, blown glass, outlet, plug, oil painted poplar, 24 ½ x 24 ½ x 7 ½ inches.

Ta73060918 (orange) Caroline Woolard, 2018, blown glass, outlet, oil painted plug, poplar, 24 ½ x 24 ½ x 7 ½ inches.

Ta73060918 (orange) Caroline Woolard, 2018, blown glass, outlet, oil painted plug, poplar, 24 ½ x 24 ½ x 7 ½ inches.

Capitoline Wolves Caroline Woolard, cherry wood, powder coated steel, dyed stoneware, 39” x 36” x 72” each, edition of 5 (forming a circle), 2016.

Capitoline Wolves Caroline Woolard, cherry wood, powder coated steel, dyed stoneware, 39” x 36” x 72” each, edition of 5 (forming a circle), 2016.

Capitoline Wolves Caroline Woolard, cherry wood, powder coated steel, dyed stoneware, 39” x 36” x 72” each, edition of 5 (forming a circle), 2016.

Capitoline Wolves Caroline Woolard, cherry wood, powder coated steel, dyed stoneware, 39” x 36” x 72” each, edition of 5 (forming a circle), 2016.

Study Center for Group Work (installation view) Caroline Woolard, steel, poplar, study center materials, plexiglass, dimensions variable, 2016.

Study Center for Group Work (rendering) Caroline Woolard, Rhino sketch for 3D printing, dimensions variable, 2016.

Ladders (for the Study Center for Group Work) Caroline Woolard, plywood, steel, paint, dimensions variable, 2016.

Ladders (for the Study Center for Group Work) Caroline Woolard, plywood, steel, paint, dimensions variable, 2016.

LISTEN Caroline Woolard, cast steel and bronze, electroplated with gold, 1" x 2" x 1", 2018, commissioned by the Ohio CAC

Queer Rocker (rendering) Caroline Woolard, Rhino sketch for CNC open access Wo/Manual, dimensions variable, 2014.

Exchange Cafe Caroline Woolard, furniture, currency, educators, tea, milk, honey, dimensions variable, 2013.

Exchange Cafe Caroline Woolard, Installation view and performance at the Museum of Modern Art, New York2013Furniture, local currency, educator-performers, tea, milk, honey, Dimensions variable

Resources (Detail from Exchange Cafe) Caroline Woolard, tyvek, visitor signature and hand written demands, 2.6” x 6.14”, 2013.

The Work Dress Caroline Woolard, cordura, canvas, cotton-denim blend, performance, dimensions variable, 2007-2013.

Barricade to Bed Caroline Woolard, Installation view at the Museum of Modern Art, New York2013, Police barricade, tennis balls, mattress, scrap wood, plumbing hardware 20” × 74” × 30”

Barricade to Bed Caroline Woolard, Installation view at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2013, Police barricade, tennis balls, mattress, scrap wood, plumbing hardware 20” × 74” × 30”
My life's work is to co-create experiences of cooperation. I offer my skills in media-making, research, teaching, sculpture, and project management to the Solidarity Economy movement. For example I have co-written 3 major reports, co-founded 2 barter networks, and created sculptures for facilitators. I love connecting people. I have been told that I have a "witchipoo" ability to manifest the future with a formidable drive. I am an introvert and a Capricorn with a love of boundaries, loyalty, sensitivity, stocism, and accomplishments. My son was born in May of 2020 and is teaching me about the wonders of the present, the flow, and the unpredictable. I am 39 and honored to regularly collaborate with babies and grandmothers of all ages.
Hello, my name is Caroline Woolard [she/her/hers]. I make sculptures, websites, and events to imagine and enact relationships of cooperation and mutual aid. I am a founding core organizer at Art.coop, on the Executive team at the tech-platform Open Collective Inc, and the 2023-2024 W.W. Corcoran Visiting Professor in Community Engagement.
I believe that art can be revolutionary when it is aligned with the global movement for solidarity economies. I work on many scales: from the scale of a sculpture to the scale of a multi-year iniative, connecting Projects, to Systems (or Platforms), to Practices. You can read more about my process, here.
Following the economic crisis of 2007/2008, I co-founded barter networks TradeSchool.coop and OurGoods (2008-2016). Today, I am focused on convening and contributing to the Study Center for Group Work (since 2016) for collaborative methods and on business models for cooperative art schools (since 2020). I helped catalyze the NYC Real Estate Investment Cooperative to democratically finance permanently affordable space (2015). I wrote a book for arts educators about collaboration with Susan Jahoda called Making and Being (2019). In 2021), Grantmakers in the Arts commissioned Nati Linares and me to write a report about the ways that grantmakers can support economic and racial justice in the arts. This led to the formation of Art.coop, which exists to make the Solidarity Economy irresistible. For fun, I make lots of PDFs and I work on MarxforCats.
I try to make art projects within systems that are aligned with my values. This is no easy task. While you are reading this, I am likely teaching, convening a group, speaking at an event, writing a text, or working on an interdisciplinary project. You can hear me talk about my work and my interest in collaboration here.
To find me in real time, you can email me at: Caroline Woolard [at] gmail [dot] com
This is my personal website. Here is a free PDF of a book about my artistic practice. To see a portfolio slideshow, go to Art21. To read a recent interview, go here. To read my CV, go here. To learn more about my work as an educator, read my book about art pedagogy, Making & Being, co-authored by Susan Jahoda. To download my critique menu or other teaching and facilitation guides, go here for PDFs.
My upcoming events, full bio, projects, systems, writing, and video recordings of past talks are below. Download critical writing about my work here. You can learn more about my work on this site or on twitter or instagram.
Why do you advocate for the arts?
I was told not to go into the arts, but I did it anyway. Despite a dominant culture that values reading, writing, and speaking, I made a commitment to drawing, making, and moving — to visual and embodied ways of knowing. I was told that I was stupid, passionate, stubborn, and crazy because I lived in my imagination. I was told that I would never make a living in the arts.
I began to wonder: If the artistic work required in order to collectively celebrate, to communicate without words, to draw, to dance, to sing, to build shared symbols and imagined futures, to raise children, to clean homes, to collect the garbage, to grow food, to heal, to learn, and to connect is not compensated or supported, how does it continue? Life is sustained by gift giving, by mutual aid, by lending, and by informal exchanges.
I learned that this idea — giving power and compensation to the labor that sustains life — is called the solidarity economy, and that it emerged from the global South in the 1990s, as economia solidária to describe economic practices and models which advance values of democracy, mutualism, cooperation, ecological sustainability, justice, and reciprocity. I write more about this in my work here, and you can learn more about Solidarity Economies generally here, and in the arts, here.
I work between conceptual art, service design, and political economy.
My research, practice, and pedagogy have a sculptural emphasis and employ extensive digital technology. Though I am often cited as a socially engaged or conceptual artist, I consider myself to be a cultural producer whose interdisciplinary work facilitates social imagination at the intersection of art, technology, design, and political economy.
What is unusual about my approach to art and design is that I create objects as well as multi-year, public initiatives using both online networks and sculptural environments. I co-create open source web 2.0 technology while also hand-building objects in immersive installations, often using CNC machines and 3D printers. I make objects and also contexts for the circulation of these objects. I made a dress for barter only and also two international barter networks that continue to grow. I built she-wolf tables and also convened investment platforms for community land trusts. I created sculptural objects for facilitation as I also founded a study center for group work. Together, objects and contexts create space for reflection, circulation, and social transformation.
I make speculative objects and systems for interdependence.
The systems I co-create allow the objects I make to exist in community. For example, in 2007 I made a dress for barter only (an object), and I also co-founded two barter networks that ran from 2008-2015 (systems). I made a personal Shaker residence (an object) and I continue work to support co-ops and land trusts (systems). I make timekeeping amulets and tables for group conversation (objects) and I also convene artists to share methods of collaboration (a system). This multi-year approach to artmaking (building objects and systems) aims to create space for slow, transformative action and reflection. I make projects that reflect their own conditions of production. I think of my practice as moving from Projects, to Platforms, to Practices (click on this for a worksheet).
What are you working on now?
Right now I am focused on conflict transformation in groups. My current research asks: Can an object interrupt the unavoidable antagonisms of working together? How do workers without bosses (i.e. worker-owners in cooperative businesses) transform workplace conflict?
In my current project, tentatively called The Meeting, the U.S. Federation of Worker Co-ops and librarians at the Free Library bring sculptural objects to difficult meetings. A water clock, a blue-foam head, and a glass tooth are employed by the co-op movement. To transform present-day, inequitable social structures, groups working for social justice know that we must transform inequitable social relationships in the present moment. How can we do this? The objects I am making aim to demonstrate that interpersonal conflict is always already a reflection of structural inequities.
Even if academics and grassroots organizers acknowledge this on an intellectual level, it is hard to practice transformative organizing on a daily basis. It is my hope that objects can support this work. I believe that group work is both the most necessary and the most difficult endeavor of our time. But most people have no experience of democracy at work, at home, in school, or online. So how can we learn to collaborate? How do we develop a musculature of shared decision making and of shared work? I founded the Study Center for Group Work to share collaborative methods developed by artists, and to create a cohort of artists who are interested in tools for collaboration and deep listening.
I started making objects for meetings because I want the physical environment of the meeting itself to be as wildly imaginative as the conversations that occur in those spaces. Recently, I have focused on furniture-clocks-objects for an intimate and alternative time. I have found that by bringing sculptural objects to community gatherings, like my Capitoline Wolf tables and my Countermeasures: Water Clock timekeeping devices, I make tangible the slow temporality of community-building; people sense the care that has gone into the facilitation practices I bring to group work.
The timekeeping objects I have been making work like this: one large vessel is made, and filled with water. On the waters’ surface, a smaller vessel is placed. The smaller vessel is made with a small hole at the bottom that allows the water to flow in. One interval has passed when the bowl sinks to the bottom of the larger bowl. In this way, the passing of time is seen. Rather than understanding time as neatly divisible, linear, and disciplinary -- the project of capitalist modernization -- my latest work begins with the premise that certain sculptural tools can offer an experience of an intimate time, a time which is specifically marked by our engagement with one another.
What can art and design do?
Art and design have the capacity to shape progressive community building activities. I am interested in world-making, in visionary fictions, in prefigurative politics; my work is one of institutional possibility rather than of institutional critique. I celebrate cultures of playful experimentation and solidarity. I bring an acute attention to form, material, and poetics to visions of interdependence and economic justice. I cultivate cooperative behavior using sculptural installations and service designs that invite people to listen deeply enough to change their minds. I hope that my work contributes to a revolutionary consciousness of interdependence.
Art and design allow people to come together to make ideas tangible in an hour, a month, or over years. I carry out collaborative projects by bringing systems-thinking to traditional studio-based artistic practices. I believe that art and artistic practices can facilitate community cooperation. Great art allows people to move from vision to action, to communicate across differences of opinion, experience, and expertise, and to make something happen. What group can build something that they have not yet imagined, drawn, debated, revised, and yet still desired? To communicate dreams — to create discursive spaces for imagination — art and design are essential.
I like to ask, "What is the economy that art wants?"
I believe that the economy art wants is one of the commons. I define the commons as shared resources that are managed by and for the people who use those resources. The commons involve shared ownership, cooperation, and solidarity; economic justice. For more about this, read my interview in CreativeCommons. Rather than believing that the economy is a monolithic entity which cannot be altered, I aim to co-create equitable systems that privilege communal wellbeing over personal gain.
What motivates you to do this work?
I grew up in Jamestown Rhode Island, but my Dad says all Woolards are from North Carolina. According to family lore, Woolard is a made-up last name. Woolard is Willard misspelled and mispronounced by settler-colonists centuries ago, hoping for a new name and a new life as tobacco farmers on stolen land. My Dad, who claims to be the first Woolard ever to go to college, hid his tobacco-picking hands in books. Scholarships moved my Dad off the tobacco farm.
I was raised on an island in a library of a house, a place where books far outnumbered visitors. I remember my mom amidst boxes of journals and articles, finishing her PhD. I remember my dad fast asleep, a book on his chest. I sensed that, for my parents, books had always been more reliable than people. Books carried my parents out of the childhoods they felt they needed to escape and into a life together. They seemed to say to me: books are the way out. Reading is a practice of freedom.
My grandfather was a tobacco farmer who tried to rob a bank in the Great Depression to pay back debt. He failed and changed his last name; my dad was born with the fictitious surname my grandfather had made up. My dad told me this story, raising me with an acute awareness of the structural violence of poverty and also of the power of reading and imagination to motivate action. My dad was first generation to college. I know the power of learning. For this reason, and for the health of democracy itself, I am dedicated to economic justice and I advocate for cultural equity in art and design education.
How can someone get involved, or learn more?
I made this list of places to find collaborators and interlocutors in NYC, and I helped create this map of great groups in NYC.
From 2008-2015, I co-founded and ran two barter networks:
OurGoods (with Jen, Rich, Louise, and Carl)
and TradeSchool.coop (with Or, Rachel, Rich, Louise, Christhian, Aimee, and many more people).
Today I am focused on:
Art.coop and Open Collective
You can write to me (caroline woolard at gmail dot com) and to current and former collaborators in the projects and systems mentioned above, including: Susan Jahoda, Emilio Martinez Poppe, Or Zubalsky, Rachel Vera Steinberg, Louise Ma, Rich Watts, Christhian Diaz, Aimee Lutkin, Jen Abrams, Carl Tashian, Vicky Virgin, and Agnes Szanyi.
More information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Woolard
https://art21.org/artist/caroline-woolard/
My upcoming events, full bio, projects, systems, writing, and video recordings of past talks are below. You can learn more about my work on this site or on twitter or instagram. You can email me at: Caroline Woolard [at] gmail [dot] com.
PROJECTS
SYSTEMS
MEDIA

Media: A Stone Holds Water (2020)

Media: Bad at Sports

Media: Conversations@Moore

Media: Life After Oxbow

Media: Making and Being 1 min video

Media: NEA introduction

Media: NOW

Media: Ourgoods.org

Media: Photography Expanded

Media: Study Center for Group Work

Media: SVA Video

Media: The Meeting Game

Media: The Remix
EVENTS
Panel @ Symposium in New York City: Critical Stances towards AI
Friday, September 29, 10:00AMCaroline will be participating in a panel discussion with Andre Ullrich, Gergana Vladova, and Dave Rejeski at the Symposium in New York City: Critical Stances towards AI. The panel will be discussing the J. Weizenbaum quote, "Certainly no computer can be made to confront genuine human problems in human terms," from Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation.
Lecture @ ArtEZ
Wednesday, October 11, 12:00PMCaroline will present a lecture to ArtEZ students as part of their Practicing Solidarity series.
TEXTS
Achieving the new graduate dream: building sustainable business success at a small scale
Download PDF(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.
Art21 (2015)
Download PDF(July 2015) Caroline Woolard on NYC Real Estate Investment Cooperative in Art21.
Art Engagement Economy 01 Foreword
Download PDFArt, 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/
Art Engagement Economy 02 Mierle Laderman Ukeles and Tina Rivers Ryan
Download PDFInterviews between Caroline Woolard and Mierle Laderman Ukeles and Tina Rivers Ryan
https://book.carolinewoolard.com/chapter-3-ourgoods-and-tradeschool
Art Engagement Economy 03 Welcome Manifesto
Download PDFWelcome & Manifesto
https://book.carolinewoolard.com/welcome
Art Engagement Economy Chapter 1
Download PDFThe Meeting
https://book.carolinewoolard.com/chapter-1-the-meeting
Art Engagement Economy Chapter 2
Download PDFThe Study Center for Group Work
https://book.carolinewoolard.com/chapter-2-study-center
Art Engagement Economy Chapter 3
Download PDFOurGoods.org and TradeSchool.coop
https://book.carolinewoolard.com/chapter-3-ourgoods-and-tradeschool
Art Engagement Economy Chapter 4
Download PDFExchange Café
https://book.carolinewoolard.com/chapter-4-exchange-cafe
Art Engagement Economy Chapter 5
Download PDFBFAMFAPhD
https://book.carolinewoolard.com/chapter-5-bfamfaphd
Art Engagement Economy Chapter 6
Download PDFLISTEN
https://book.carolinewoolard.com/chapter-6-listen
Art Engagement Economy Chapter 7
Download PDFCapitoline Wolves and Queer Rocker
https://book.carolinewoolard.com/chapter-7-capitoline-wolves-and-queer-rocker
Art Engagement Economy Chapter 8
Download PDFCarried on Both Sides
https://book.carolinewoolard.com/chapter-8-carried-on-both-sides
Artforum (2016)
Download PDF(October 2016) Wendy Vogel on The Study Center for Group Work in Artforum.
Art in America (2014)
(February 2014) Reframing the Debt Debate with BFAMFAPhD by Nate Cohan for Art in America.
Art in America (2016)
Download PDF(October 2016) Cathy Lebowitz on The Study Center for Group Work in Art in America.
Artists Report Back
Download PDFArtists 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.
artnet News (2017)
Download PDF(January 2017) These 11 Artists Will Transform the Art World in 2017 by Christian Viveros-Fauné in artnet News.
Crains New York (2015)
Download PDF(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.
Creative Commons (2016)
Download PDF(August 2016) A politics of cooperation: Caroline Woolard on free culture, fine art, and everyday life by Jennie Rose Halperin in Creative Commons.
Cultural Research Network (2015)
Download PDF(March 2015) The Cultural Research Network on BFAMFAPhD.
Fast Company (2011)
Download PDF(February 2011) Anya Kamenetz on OurGoods and Trade School in Fast Company.
Hyperallergic (2012)
Download PDF(May 2012) Alternative Economies: A Conversation With Caroline Woolard in Hyperallergic.
Hyperallergic (2019)
Download PDF(November 2019) Gabrielle Welsh on Re:Working Labor in Hyperallergic.
J20 Solidarity Economy POSTER (English)
Download PDFPrint this at 11 x 17 / tabloid paper, or order a print to benefit NAACP or SPLC at: http://unterbahn.com/solidarity/
J20 Solidarity Economy POSTER (Mandarin)
Download PDFPrint this at 11 x 17 / tabloid paper, or order a print to benefit NAACP or SPLC at: http://unterbahn.com/solidarity/
J20 Solidarity Economy POSTER (Spanish)
Download PDFPrint this at 11 x 17 / tabloid paper, or order a print to benefit NAACP or SPLC at: http://unterbahn.com/solidarity/
LISTEN: A Case Study in Socially Engaged Art
Download PDFThis 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 full book (2019)
Download PDFMaking 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.
Online Platforms Are Not Enough. Artists Need Affordable Space. (2016)
Download PDF(June 2016) Online Platforms Are Not Enough. Artists Need Affordable Space. by Caroline Woolard in the National Endowment for the Arts.
Pedagogical Possibilities: Arts-Based Practices of Collaborative Time for Teaching the Future
Download PDFSolidarity Not Charity: A Rapid Report (2021)
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.
South Atlantic Quarterly (2015)
Download PDF(July 2015) Leigh Claire La Berge on Trade School in the South Atlantic Quarterly.
Storefront for Art and Architecture (2015)
Download PDF(August 2015) Manifesto Seires: Measuring Architecture at the Storefront for Art and Architecture.
The Brooklyn Quarterly (2013)
Download PDF(November 2013) Jillian Steinhauer on OurGoods, Trade School, and Exchange Cafe for the Brooklyn Quarterly.
The Brooklyn Rail (2017)
Download PDF(November 2017) Heather Schatz on The Study Center for Group Work in The Brooklyn Rail.
The Brooklyn Rail (2018)
Download PDF(February 2018) The Art of Institutional Possibility: CAROLINE WOOLARD with Thyrza Nichols Goodeve in The Brooklyn Rail.
The Edupunks' Guide to a DIY Credential (2011)
Download PDF(2011) The Edupunks' Guide to a DIY Credential written by Anya Kamenetz and put forth by Smashwords Edition.
The Mesh (2012)
Download PDF(February 2012) The Mesh: Why the Future of Business is Sharing written by Lisa Gansky put forth by Penguin Press.
The New York Times (2010)
Download PDF(February 2010) Emily S. Rueb on Trade School in the New York Times.
The New York Times (2013)
Download PDF(March 2013) Randy Kennedy on Trade School in the New York Times.
The New York Times (2016)
Download PDF(October 2016) Martha Schwendender on The Study Center for Group Work in The New York Times.
The Sharing Economy (2016)
Download PDF(May 2016) The Sharing Economy written by Arun Sundararajan and put forth by The MIT Press.
The Village Voice (2015)
Download PDF(October 2015) Madison Margolin on NYC Real Estate Investment Cooperative in The Village Voice.
The Wall Street Journal (2011)
Download PDF(February 2011) V.L. Hendrickson on Trade School in the Wall Street Journal.
Upworthy (2015)
Download PDF(August 2015) Onnesha Roychoudhuri on NYC Real Estate Investment Cooperative in Upworthy.
Wired (2013)
Download PDF(December 2013) Natalie Jeremijenko selects Caroline Woolard for The Wired Smart List.
TEACHING
A Critique Feedback Form - Observe, Analyze, Identify Blind Spots and Generative Contradictions
Download PDFThis feedback form is a meant to guide students as they develop the skills to review their peers' artwork. This worksheet is about how to speak about a project, not about the FORMAT of the critique itself (see Critique Menu for that).
A Discussion Wall
Download PDFThis activity allows people in a group to slow down and make an analog version of the digital experience of sharing images, quotations, and readings. Returning to these materials again and again at each gathering can be a good way to move the group, as a collective body, into itself.
A First Day Welcome! Take Home Form for New Students
Download PDFWhat is your preferred pronoun? What experience do you have with the topics and techniques you image we will cover in this course? Can I tag you in social media? What are your access needs? Do you have experience with self-directed work? These are the sorts of questions I ask to get to know the students I am working with. I tailor activities based upon their feedback. I hand this form out on the first day and have students fill it out a bit in class, and then finish it for homework.
A Framework: Projects, Platforms, and Practices
Download PDFAs artists, we need to learn to think organizationally in order to imagine how our artwork and ideas might circulate in the world, and to take action. This workshop aims to help students and artists think through the platforms and practices that are aligned with their projects.
A Project Review Guide
Download PDFThis is a guide to think through: (1) how a project communicates your intentions (2) how you can best learn and grow as an artist / designer.
Checklist for Good Presentations
Download PDFAs students prepare to speak about their work and create visual presentations, I ask that they use this checklist.
Conversations: What is a successful project?
Download PDFThis activity helps students define success on their own terms, and take actions toward this vision of success.
Excerpts from Making and Being (forthcoming)
Download PDFMaking and Being: a Guide to Embodiment, Collaboration, and Circulation in the Visual Arts is a multi-platform pedagogical project which offers practices of collaboration, contemplation, and circulation in the visual arts. Making and Being is for arts educators who want to connect art to economy; for students who want to make artworks that reflect the conditions of their own production. Making and Being is a book, a series of videos, a deck of cards, and an interactive website with freely downloadable content.
Making and Being: a Guide to Embodiment, Collaboration, and Circulation in the Visual Arts is published by Pioneer Works, distributed by DAP, and is a contribution to BFAMFAPhD from Susan Jahoda and Caroline Woolard with support from Fellow Emilio Martinez Poppe. The website with teaching tools, videos, and presentations to accompany Making and Being is coming soon. PRE-ORDER the book here: https://squareup.com/store/makingandbeing and download the excerpt, printed as a newspaper for our series at Hauser and Wirth, here.
Finding Collaborators and Creative Conversations in NYC
Download PDFA list of places where some of the most kind and generous neighbors, artists, designers, and activists I know gather -- these people make NYC great.
How to Start a Trade School (2012)
Download PDFI wrote this manual for other organizers of Trade School, a self-organized learning platform that runs on barter, after answering the same questions 100s of times. Louise Ma designed it, and Or Zubalsky wrote the open-source software.
ABOUT
Short Bio
Caroline Woolard is the W.W. Corcoran Visiting Professor in Community Engagement, a founding co-organizer of Art.coop and the CCO of OpenCollective. She is the co-author of three books: Making and Being (Pioneer Works, 2019), a book for educators about interdisciplinary collaboration, co-authored with Susan Jahoda; Art, Engagement, Economy (onomatopee, 2020) a book about managing socially-engaged and public art projects; and TRADE SCHOOL: 2009-2019, a book about peer learning that Woolard catalyzed in thirty cities internationally over a decade. Woolard’s artwork has been featured twice on New York Close Up (2014, 2016), a digital film series produced by Art21 and broadcast on PBS. https://carolinewoolard.com/
Longer Bio
Caroline Woolard's work has been commissioned by and exhibited in major national and international museums including MoMA, the Whitney Museum, and Creative Time. Woolard’s work has been featured twice on New York Close Up (2014, 2016), a digital film series produced by Art21 and broadcast on PBS. She was the 2018–20 inaugural Walentas Fellow at Moore College of Art and Design and the inaugural 2019–20 Artist in Residence for INDEX at the Rose Museum, and a 2020-2021 Fellow at the Center for Cultural Innovation.
Her work has been commissioned by and exhibited in major national and international museums, including MoMA, the Whitney Museum, and Creative Time. Recent scholarly writing on her work has been published in The Brooklyn Rail (2018); Artforum (2016); Art in America (2016); The New York Times (2016); and South Atlantic Quarterly (2015). Woolard co-founded barter networks OurGoods.org and TradeSchool.coop (2008-2015), the Study Center for Group Work (since 2016), BFAMFAPhD.com (since 2014), and the NYC Real Estate Investment Cooperative (since 2016). Recent commissions include The Meeting, with a rolling premiere at The New School, Brandeis University, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia, PA (2019); WOUND, Cooper Union, New York, NY (2016); and Capitoline Wolves, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (2016), and Exchange Café, MoMA, New York, NY (2014).
She is the recipient of a number of awards and fellowships including at Moore College of Art and Design (2019), Pilchuck (2018), the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (2016), the Queens Museum (2014), Eyebeam (2013), Rockefeller Cultural Innovation Fund (2010), Watermill (2011), and the MacDowell Colony (2009). She is currently a member of the Guild of Future Architects, and an AmbitioUS Fellow (2021-2022).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Woolard
Woolard's upcoming events, full bio, projects, institutions, writing, and past talks are below. Download a PDF of critical writing about her work here. Email Caroline Woolard [at] gmail [dot] com to request more information. CV: here.
Socially Engaged Art Worksheet: APPROACH
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