An Idea Grows in Brooklyn
Alumnus Jeff Hnilicka has planted sustainable food practices in the world of art.
By Danny LaChance
Photograph by Jayme Halbritter
Crowded into a small church basement in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighborhood last fall, 275 members of New York City’s creative class buzzed with excitement as they slurped the last remnants of their dinner, a butternut squash soup with herbed mushrooms and balsamic-marinated apples. The din quickly subsided when Jeff Hnilicka (B.A. ’04) walked into the room from the adjacent kitchen and stepped onto the stage.
“I have twelve hundred dollars here!” he yelled to the crowd,thrusting into the air a gray canvas bag with an oversized dollar sign painted on it. The crowd cheered. The bag might have looked cartoonish, but the wads of $10 and $20 bills stuffed inside it were the real deal. Seconds later, amid more cheers, Hnilicka yelled out “The winner is Green My Bodega!” and two local artists bounded up onto the stage to collect the money. They would use it to launch an artistic campaign aimed at getting the city’s convenience store owners to sell produce from local farms, a project they pitched to the crowd earlier in the evening.
If the socially conscious had their own version of American Idol, this would be it. It’s the bimonthly FEAST (Funding Emerging Art with Sustainable Tactics), an event that Hnilicka—who earned his bachelor’s degree in theater arts from the University of Minnesota— cofounded with members of a local artists’ collective called Hit Factorie in February 2009. Inspired by a similar initiative in Chicago called Sunday Soup, FEAST has become a source of funding for local artists who have the skill, but not the means, to complete public art projects.
The setup is simple. Every other month, Hnilicka and members of the collective organize a community meal using seasonal ingredients from local farms. Community members pay a $10 to $20 sliding fee to attend the dinner, receiving, on their way in, supper and a ballot listing local artists and the title of public art projects they need funding to complete. Throughout the evening, participants circulate around the room, mingling with the artists and examining their project proposals on large, wall-mounted posters before casting their ballot for their favorite project. At the end of the evening, Hnilicka and company retreat into the church’s antiquated kitchen, count up the money and the votes, and award the top vote-getters—such as Green My Bodega—the money they’ve collected at the door. The grantees agree to return to the next FEAST event to display the fruits of their labors.
Since FEAST’s inception, approximately 75 New York artists have proposed projects and 14 have received over $8,500 to fund initiatives such as a neighborhood beautification project using custom-made wallpaper; the creation of a local currency among artist and immigrant communities; a video walking tour of a Brooklyn industrial zone to highlight the work of neighborhood manufacturers; and the establishment of a network of neighborhood gardens.
The goals that define FEAST—breaking down the boundaries between producers and consumers, building communities through shared meals, and putting values before profit margins—are similar to those of the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) movement, where members pay local farmers in both cash and labor and, in return, receive a weekly share of the food harvested from their farms. FEAST is, in essence, an application of that model to the world of contemporary art production, where “eat locally and sustainably” has become “create art locally and sustainably.”
That’s particularly important in the face of a global recession, which has drastically reduced the amount of funds available to emerging artists. But even in flush times, it’s a struggle for start-up artists who want to produce experimental, socially conscious, community-oriented artwork that is intended to reach public audiences outside of traditional exhibition spaces.
That’s why FEAST was the perfect funding source for artists Ambre Kelly and Andrew Gori, who received the top number of votes and one thousand dollars at a FEAST dinner. They used the money to underwrite a bookmaking project called “The Underground Library,” in which they made 50 hand-crafted books of an illustrated retelling of the 1970s slasher flick Halloween from the point of view of the killer. Their goal is to explore themes of evil, mental illness, and the way that slasher movies depict criminals. The book—the first of many, they hope—circulates among community members who agree to pass it onto someone else, every two weeks, for a set period of time.
With its emphasis on public art, though, FEAST does more than just feed starving artists. It draws local communities into the world of contemporary art, a genre that can be intimidating to the uninitiated. “FEAST takes art off of a pedestal,” says Gori. “It takes art off the wall and says, ‘This is part of life; this isn’t something in a gallery you’re supposed to silently gawk at.’ ”
The success of that approach is clear. The first FEAST event drew 150 people. Eight months later, attendance had nearly doubled. And with success established in Brooklyn, Hnilicka and his co-creators have been working to spread the project to other cities, including the Twin Cities. Last November, more than 300 people attended its inaugural dinner held at the Traffic Zone Center for Visual Art in Minneapolis’s Warehouse District. Hnilicka, meanwhile, has trips planned to Los Angeles and San Francisco this winter, where he’ll help those cities serve up their own FEASTs.
Hnilicka is not surprised at FEAST’s widespread appeal. The event’s participatory nature, he says, is unique. “We’ve created this system where you need to keep coming back if you want the projects that you think are important to do well. That’s what makes FEAST so different from any other sort of cultural experience,” Hnilicka says. “You’re not just an audience member. You’re the curator. You’re the philanthropist. You’re the artist. You play all the roles.”
And you get balsamic-marinated apples in your soup, to boot.
—Danny LaChance is a freelance writer based in New York City.