“ To see things in the seed, that is genius.” -Lao Tzu
Mission Chinatown Soup is a communion of creatives for collaborative action. We are dedicated to advancing art, justice, historic preservation, and civic engagement in downtown New York. Can’t stop. Won’t stop.
[Gentrification disclaimer] British sociologist Ruth Glass coined the term “gentrification” in 1964 to describe the influx of middle-class people displacing lower-class residents in London’s working-class districts. Chinatown Soup recognizes itself as a gentrifier in New York’s Lower Manhattan area. As such, its founders seek to understand the full meaning and consequences of the term and locate themselves within it so that Chinatown Soup can exist as a selfaware, positively integrated force in the community. This Action Plan is an introduction to Chinatown Soup’s exploration of its role as a place-maker.
Who
Chinatown Soup is the brainchild of four friends who are dissatisfied with the growing sense of alienation and top-down development in their city. Each one of them brings a unique perspective and skill-set to this multi-dimensional space, where they envision neighborhood artists connecting with the residents and roots of their community. J u l i a B l ew i t t
Logistical Mastermind Julia manages operations, coordinates with local establishments to participate in Soup dinners, and keeps a pulse on the community to bring the most innovative and inspired programming to The Studio at Soup. She holds a degree in Communications from Flagler College and has experience in non-profit and corporate environments through her work as a Development & PR Coordinator for The Palm Beach Opera and the Office Manager of Mission Capital Advisors. Julia enjoys traveling uptown to volunteer for The New York City Ballet and acts as an ambassador of the Performing Arts division at Lincoln Center.
M i c h e l l e M a r i e E s tev a
Director of Hacktivism Michelle is a native New Yorker committed to mapping and sharing the city’s stories. She holds a B.A. in Individualized Study with a minor in Environmental Science from New York University’s Gallatin School and is completing a master’s program for urban planning with a concentration in digital cartography. Michelle believes that democratizing access to civic-minded technologies and performing archival research in service of historic preservation and cultural awareness are integral to the longevity and resonance of Chinatown Soup as a neighborhood institution. When she’s not in front of her computer screen, Michelle spends her time walking, sensing, and imagining how people can live creatively in today’s New York. M a r i a Te re s a A s a re - B o a d i
Creative Instigator Maria is in charge of web and print collateral for Soup’s online presence and marketing. She grew up in Italy and attended Cornell and Pratt Universties. Maria pursues the spirit of collaboration and brings her expertise from UNICEF’s New York headquarters to support Chinatown Soup.
Who To m m Z o r n
Promethean Ambassador Tomm draws upon his time spent bouncing around the world to create the multicultural vibe and avant-garde aesthetic of The Shop at Chinatown Soup. His hands-on experience ranges from styling professional shoots in Los Angeles to bathing baby elephants in Thailand. Recently returned to New York from a year studying Fashion Business in Paris, Tomm can be found out and about dancing most nights of the week below Houston Street in a Comme des Garçons skirt, which he rocked over a year before Kanye West. Constance Walsh
Consulting Curator Known to her close friends as Conye, Constance inhabits her alter-ego persona to curate a one-of-a-kind, alternate universe for the community to experience at the Chinatown Soup Gallery. Constance holds a B.A. in Art History from New York University and has worked for independent galleries around town, such as White Columns in the Meatpacking District. Constance’s gypsy spirit and love of travel inspire her daringly discerning eye.
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What Chinatown Soup consists of three distinct but interconnected spaces that embody this collective’s ethos.
THE GALLERY
THE SHOP
The Gallery at Chinatown Soup is a curated space that features the work of undiscovered and under-represented artists from or related to the local community. Chinatown Soup is a place for all New Yorkers—from the Lower East Side’s underground taggers to the Upper East Side’s Koons collectors—to participate in a new, intermingled subculture of the art community that exists outside of “the art world.” Our open approach seeks to showcase a revolving door of New York’s most creative and progressive minds, who use both traditional and/or digital techniques to produce thoughtful and evocative art. A monthly micro-funding reception draws attention to these artists and supports their work.
The Shop at Chinatown Soup is a brickand-mortar home for artistically inclined individuals to sell artisanal goods and gain exposure. From printed zines to handmade crafts, each piece has a story to share with the community. Proceeds will support the merch-makers and Soup operating costs. THE STUDIO
The Studio at Chinatown Soup is where the proverbial magic happens. Soup invites expert presenters to guest-host culturally valuable events and workshops—from poetry slams to tenant rights information sessions—for the public on a regular basis. In addition, this space is available for artist workstations and special-request programming.
When & Where New York City’s Chinatown is home to the largest concentration of Chinese in the western hemisphere and is located on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Passerby marvel at booths brimming with eastern delicacies and follow their spiraling scents towards the fan dancers in Columbus Park, where committed recycling efforts walk to and fro on the backs of wise ladies, pick-up games of body and mind move players and pieces across squares, and the corner pai grow. This is a selected scene of many that define today’s Chinatown. Chinatown is the crossroads where the city’s past and future meet. Here remains one of the few Manhattan communities that fosters a sense of respect for its history while inspiring an artistic energy that speaks to the next phase of urban lifestyles.
Unlike most of the New York neighborhoods that cycle through series of identity-crushing gentrification, Chinatown has maintained its signature aesthetic for over 175 years. At once an enclave of isolated immigrants, New York’s most travelled-to tourist attraction, and the new frontier of artists fighting to live and work in the city, this community is a lab for cultural intermingling. Chinatown Soup seeks to be immersed in this neighborhood transition and offer the community a place where their own jewels are on display.
When & Where (Continued...)
Historian Mario Maffi writes of the intersection at Mulberry and Bayard as “once upon a time the most congested and disreputable area inside Little Italy.” Today, it is a nexus of Lower Manhattan’s intermingling neighborhoods and a microcosm of gentrification. The ITALIAN DIASPORA IN THE 70’S AND 80’S gave rise to the expansion of Chinatown beyond its historic borders to consume the former Five Points district. Following THE CRASH OF 2008, relics from Little Italy lining Mulberry Street along Columbus Park were outfitted with signs featuring Chinese characters, marking the latest borders in downtown’s dizzying cultural shifts.
In THE PAST TWO YEARS, this small strip of street has accommodated a self-described “CHINOISERIE” NIGHTSPOT for downtown scenesters and THE AREA’S FIRST ALLAMERICAN CAFE following the shift from Italian to Chinese merchant ownership of whole-in-the-wall food shops and funeral homes in 2009. These newest arrivals join a community of historical distinction and cultural heritage, anchored by Columbus Park, the New York City Courts Building, and the only Catholic School below Houston Street, founded in the late 19th century.
* A ccessibility: The Canal Street 6, N, Q, J and Z lines are all located less than a mile away from the exhibit site. The exhibit will also enjoy heightened visitor traffic being situated across the street from historic Columbus Park. Please note that an interactive version of this map exists online at http://cdb.io/1vfhGHL.
When & Where (Continued...)
Chinatown Soup seeks to occupy this space following THE 2009 RELOCATION OF THE MUSEUM OF CHINESE IN AMERICA from its cramped quarters on the upper floors of 70 Mulberry Street to a glossy SoHo outpost conceived by visionary architect Maya Lin, whom made clear that the neighborhood left behind was on the verge of a new development phase. This next development phase in 2010 was highlighted by a New York Magazine article that profiled “a smaller version of a Dean & Deluca or Whole Foods” in the newly anointed “CHITALY” at around the same time a Buddakan top chef began leading food tours around the redefined area. 2011 saw the capitalization on this cultural change when the media was
abuzz with the possibility of Chinatown becoming a Bloomberg-designated BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT and what the implications of an unprecedented rezoning would mean for the city’s once forbidden fortress now buttressed by “an amalgam of cut-rate bus companies, dumpling factories, and 99-cents-plus stores,” to quote New York Magazine on the neighborhood’s demographic indicators. 2014, marks the infusion of what New York Magazine calls “HIPSTER GRUB” on the fringes of a newly expanded Chinatown in it’s digital mapping exposé: “Chinatown’s New Immigrants: Why Easternmost Canal Street Is Feeling More and More Like Brooklyn.” Joining this year’s gentrification mix, as publicized in
a splashy New York Times August article, is thirtysomething new-wave curator Emily Sundblad, whom was featured for “reviving the artistic spirit of downtown New York and resisting the cult of self-promotion” with her converted East Broadway storefront gallery, REENA SPAULINGS FINE ART. Chinatown Soup recognizes an opportunity to be a positive part of the changing community landscape. With Chinatown rents trailing the city’s surrounding, most expensive zip codes of SoHo and TriBeCa and developers snatching up properties along the northern fringes of Canal Street, the moment to become established in this space is now, and the opportunity will not last long.
Why Why Soup? It’s not just for eating.
New York’s cultural dynamic has been likened to a melting pot and a salad bowl, but these comparisons miss the key ingredient of our city: agency. This place is powered by the choices of the people who live in it. Yet, politicized and moneyed interests dominate decision-making to produce areas of alienation instead of collaborative communities. In light of this reality, Chinatown Soup is designed as the embodiment of a practical and aspirational food-based metaphor for our city that has existed in the popular consciousness for centuries: the parable of Stone Soup. Stone Soup is an old folk story in which hungry strangers persuade local people of a town to give them food. It is usually told as a lesson in cooperation, especially amid scarcity (such as New York’s current lack of real estate for civic creativity and artistic activities). In varying traditions, the stone has been replaced with other common inedible objects, and therefore the fable is also known as button soup, wood soup, nail soup, and now, Chinatown Soup! The story goes that travellers come to a village, carrying nothing more than an empty
cooking pot. Upon their arrival, the villagers are unwilling to share any of their food with the hungry travellers, so the travellers go to a stream and fill the pot with water, drop a large stone in it, and place it over a fire. One of the villagers becomes curious and asks what they are doing. The travellers answer that they are making “stone soup,” although it still needs more ingredients to improve the flavor. The villager does not mind parting with a few carrots to help them out just as another villager walks by inquiring about the pot. The travellers explain their stone soup, which has not reached its full potential, to more and more villagers, who become inspired and each add another ingredient. Finally, a delicious and nourishing pot of soup is enjoyed by all. In the same way, Chinatown Soup has morphed from few hungry friends living in a village-like New York neighborhood to a passion project that identifies the same hunger on a citywide scale. Claiming a small space to feed the cultural needs of a community gives life to an idea that is bigger than any single place: cities are for people.
How In sum: Sharing meals are embodied and symbolic practices of communion that provide people with a platform for conscientious conversation and connectivity. From the last supper of Christ and his disciples to feasts shared by emissaries of warring fiefdoms to modern incarnations such as diplomatic dinners and communityorganized soup kitchens, the practice of sharing food has been the backdrop of many unexpected and fruitful partnerships. The act of giving and receiving is both dialectical (symbolic) and dialogic (communicative), which inspires sharing and trust among people who would otherwise not have an excuse to come together. We all need to eat!
Chinatown Soup believes: a community that eats together, stays together. Therefore, the foundation of Soup is to facilitate a monthly dinner with food provided by local establishments during which community members present projects that they need help funding. The public pays for a plate and a vote. Diners cast their ballots at the end of the night, and the winner receives the money collected with an invitation to return the following month to talk about her or his project’s progress. The dinners are designed cyclically to sustain community engagement. #feedcreativity
O B J E C T I V E S Empower residents // Help create jobs // Allow people to establish new relationships and networks // Promote action and change // Foster critical dialogue // Instill neighborhood pride // Provide a deeper understanding of democracy // Respond to gentrification
“ The need of the immaterial is the most deeply rooted of all needs. One must have rice; but before rice, one must have the ideal.� -Confucius
Case Study Detroit Soup
The founders of Chinatown Soup were initially inspired by their collective desire to have a space outside each member’s respective tiny apartment where they could focus on craft projects and the exchange of ideas without the typical distractions of public places, namely overcrowding, noise, and money. This want quickly transformed into their mission when Julia noticed that she lived next-door to a vacant commercial space where this type of activity could happen uninterrupted. Beyond the graffitied windows and dingy stairs, these friends saw the opportunity to create an art collective and community center where projects and ideas come to life in an encouraging atmosphere. Soon, they discovered Detroit SOUP, a micro-granting dinner that supports and celebrates creative projects in Detroit. Detroit SOUP’s website explains
how to start neighborhood SOUPs so that was used as the foundation and blueprint for their collective. In 2010, three young women named Kate Daughdrill, Jessica Hernandez, and Amy Kaherl had an idea. Concerned with Detroit’s struggling economy and lack of access for residents hard hit by the 2008 financial crisis, these ladies gathered together on a cold February in 2010 with a small group of friends above a the local Mexicantown Bakery to share ideas. They decided that the people of Detroit, which Kaherl refers to as “a big small town” needed to empower residents, create jobs, enable networks to promote action and change, foster critical dialogue, and instill neighborhood pride.
After hours of discussion, in part inspired by the example of InCUBATE (a Chicago research group dedicated to exploring new approaches to arts administration and arts funding), the group realized that their action needed to proceed in democratic form. From this moment, Detroit SOUP was born in a centralized location with various functions that provide: • • • • •
a collaborative situation a public dinner a platform for connection a theatrical environment a democratic experiment in micro funding • a relational hub bringing together various creative communities • a forum for critical but accessible discussion • an opportunity to support creative people in Detroit
Case Study Detroit Soup
By April, the group had grown and gained traction with its first community project winner (a Rust Belt Architecture photo book). Proposals started coming in and community members started to gather, interact, share a meal and build relationships. Specifically, SOUP operates as a micro-granting dinner celebrating and supporting creative projects in the area. For a donation $5 attendees receive soup, salad, bread and a vote and hear from four presentations ranging from art, urban agriculture, social justice, social entrepreneurs, education, technology and more. Each presenter has four minutes to share their idea and answer four questions from the audience. At
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the event, attendees eat, talk, share resources, enjoy art and vote on the project they think benefits the city the most. At the end of the night, ballots are counted and the winner goes home with all of the money raised to carry out their project. Winners come back to a future SOUP dinner to report their project’s progress.
a permanent home in the Jam Handy Building on E. Grand Blvd, which has a rich history and significance to the city. Chinatown Soup has targeted 60 Mulberry Street, in the heart of historic Chinatown and at the nexus of divergent neighborhood borders, with a like-minded attention to the strategic elements of place-making.
The model is scalable. Working with key partnerships and community leaders, Detroit SOUP has been able to change the way people engage with the democratic process by establishing neighborhood-based hubs across the city. They now average 200 people at each dinner and have found
The scope of the Detroit project has also evolved from funding artists to a wide variety of community members that need a little money to start civic-minded initiatives such as nonprofits, local businesses, after school programs, and park cleanups. In 2013 seven neighborhood SOUPs
and a citywide Youth SOUP became operational, attracting over 4,000 people. As of January 2014, SOUP events have raised more than $55,000 that has gone directly to community projects. As their mission statement explains:
“ SOUP is a powerful tool
to start conversations, practice democracy and fund new projects/people/ ideas in our neighborhood, community or city. There are many models on how to do it and Detroit SOUP has been able to create its own unique model for the redevelopment, reorganization, reimagining of our city.
”
However, gathering for a meal is not a simple act. Kaherl explains that she has encountered resistance from community members to engage with uncomfortable elements of Soup’s bi-monthly fundraising dinners due to differences in cultural traditions. “It has been difficult to reach the Spanish community because they have a rich history of internal rules and we were inadvertently breaking them,” she said. Chinatown Soup faces similar challenges with regard to involving the older Chinese population, which we will address with the help of local activists such as the young Chinese-American volunteers from New York City’s Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP), a nonprofit organization that uses the power of design and art to increase meaningful civic engagement by collaborating with designers, educators, students, and communities to make educational tools that demystify complex policy and planning issues. CUP seeks out pop-up locations around downtown New York to serve as meeting spaces
for alienated community member outreach initiatives. We look forward to hosting them for events and dinners. So when does a dinner work well for everyone? Kaherl believes that a dinner focusing on the needs of the city, rather than drawing borders and re-enforcing sociocultural lines in well intentioned but misguided attempts to mitigate insensitivity is a strategy for adjusting expectations. “A lot of people want to do idea-based soups because it’s logical,” she explained, “It’s not because it alienates people from different communities.” Using food as a tool to bring people together presents opportunities to share new ideas and creates a rare environment of self-aware diversity. When attempting to attract newcomers, it is important to consider economic differences, as well. Brooklyn Feast, a community banquet with an emphasis on promoting local artists, failed because the price of admission was prohibitive to surrounding neighbors.
Case Study Detroit Soup
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Changing the conversation to address community needs as they relate to macro issues of the city and pricing admission for inclusion are two key foundations of a successful dinner party. That way, venue and menu can become the basis for spreading a shared “ideal.” Inspired by Detroit SOUP and the Beautiful Trouble hacktivist tool-kit, Chinatown Soup has identified three actionable meta-categories to structure, inform, and ground our participation in the community.
Tactics
Principles
Theories
• • • • • •
• Brand or be branded • C hallenge patriarchy as you organize • Consider your audience • Delegate • D on’t mistake your group for society • Enable, don’t command • Make new folks welcome • Pace yourself • T ake leadership from the most affected • Use the power of ritual • We are all leaders
• • • • • • •
Advanced leafleting Direct action Distributed action Image theater Occupation Pre-figurative intervention Trek
Action logic Anti-oppression Capitalism The commons Points of intervention The tactics of everyday life Temporary autonomous zone
“ Preserve the old, but know the new.� -Chinese Proverb
Programming The following workshops and events are designed to run on an ongoing basis at The Studio
The Recurring Supper
The event that started it all, Chinatown Soup micro-funding dinners invite the community to come together and dine on a featured dish from local chefs while creatives present projects for community support.
Chef City
A food blog moderator interviews a panel of chefs about their journeys, processes, and passions in the context of community service with Q + A from the audience to follow.
Concert Crew
Chinatown Soup’s weekly podcast announces upcoming events and spotlights artists in-residence. Expect musical interludes from local deejays.
Secret Soup shows feature local and international musicians as well as bands from indie New York labels. Stamps for entry will be given evening-of to those leaving hip nightspot Le Baron down the block.
The Live Poets Society
Comedy Club
Podcasting
Soup slams offer a platform for poets at all levels to share their work.
Chinatown Soup hosts comedy nights throughout the season that showcase local stand-up comedians.
All I See Are Signs
Bob Dylan once said that we all communicate through sign language. This program features professionals discussing various modalities of symbolic communication from hieroglyphics to emojis to street taggers to hand signals.
Cinema
Lights, camera, projector! Chinatown Soup film series focus on culturally resonant and obscure themes.
Sticks, Stones, and Bones
A resident crystal expert reveals the ancient, healing properties of gemstones for post-modern enthusiasts.
Zine-making
This workshop picks up on a trending trade in the LES for the aspiring screen-printer and letterpress novice.
Sip and Sketch
This drawing workshop features a live model for sketching and BYOB for inspiration.
Soap Box Series
Go ahead, rant! The Soap Box Series gives everyone a chance to voice their concerns. Themes range from the civic-minded to the personal.
Cosmic Consciousness
Drawing from ancient eastern meditation, this program combines new-age techniques to teach how we can tap into our surroundings and feel enlightened.
Alternative Medicine
Put the lime in the coconut, or try some fermented citrus tea. This program studies alternative medicine from multicultural traditions and its practice in the community today.
Book Club
Chinatown Soup’s own Reading Rainbow meets once a month to host a panel discussion on its latest pick.
Money Talks
As Wu Tang Clan once said “Cash Rules Everything Around Me.” This program tracks the evolution of currency from trading shells to Bitcoins as a way to conceive of wealth and power in the city with guest speakers galore!
Subaltern Society
This program explores urban subcultures throughout various decades to better understand the dynamics of past and present cultural milieu.
If the Fedora Fits
As Stetson celebrates 150 years in traditional western design, a head milliner will discuss tricks of the trade.
The Art of War 2.0
Boxing, Kung Fu, duels, Muay Thai- there are many culturally choreographed ways that humans release aggression, and this program talks about how people fight to win from a political activist perspective.
Tear Your Heart Out
This collaging workshop promotes a popular emerging art form and encourages beginners to use found materials for therapeutic selfexpression.
Amateur Hour
Studio shows will be the premiere gallery experience for new artists. Visitors will vote on their favorite, and the winner will enjoy a solo show at the upstairs Gallery.
Vision & Growth Chinatown Soup seeks to evolve with its community. Since real estate determines culture, a primary goal is to acquire a space to house the Gallery, Shop, and Studio. Ownership or a long-term lease ensures a sustainable, permanent residency within the fabric of Chinatown. Once this goal is achieved, Chinatown Soup will enjoy more creative opportunities to live its mission on a grander scale. In particular, Chinatown Soup seeks to grow from hosting artists’ work to hosting the artists themselves via a residency program that pairs domestic and international artists with cutting-edge New York-based artists. Resident artists would be housed and offered a monthly stipend, making it possible for them to live in and be inspired by the Chinatown community. This program is designed to preserve the area’s history through cultural immersion and the arts.
Another key goal of Chinatown Soup is to tap the city’s newly developed public resources for tech-based innovation. It is essential for 21st century cultural institutions to be at the forefront of digital humanities, and we seek to deepen our involvement with cloud-based mapping in the service of the arts and historic preservation. Also, we intend to develop an app that will streamline our outreach efforts by facilitating the public purchase of tickets to workshops and programs, artists’ reservations of studio space, and Soup diner virtual voting for microfunding initiatives—all from smart devices of choice. Targeted and effortless user experience through appification directs today’s civic engagement.
C O N T A C T hello@chinatownsoup.com www.chinatownsoup.com www.chinatownsoup.tumblr.com www.instagram.com/chinatownsoup
T H A N K
Y O U
Chinatown Soup thanks our neighbors, visitors, donors, and supporting organizations for contributing to our existence. Also, New York, we love you. Here’s to the beauty of downtown, which inspires us to infinity.