Based on two workshops that gathered Baltimore-based cultural organizers, artists, musicians, and community-oriented practitioners, the project explores the challenges of collective cultural work and shares processes, advice, and resources on overcoming various cultural, financial, and structural obstacles. In centering collective working methods that are so counter to the ideologies and frameworks that are encountered daily in a capitalist society, Toolkit aims to honor and embrace our fundamental interconnectivity and interdependence as human beings. At the heart of this work lies the understanding that wellbeing, integrity, equity, and care is a collective responsibility. We, as Press Press and the Institute for Expanded Research, hold this truth close to our hearts right now, as we collectively grapple with the COVID-19 Pandemic and as forms of inequity and injustice persist beyond this moment. We invite you to build, change, and redefine this toolkit as your own: Why and how do you build cooperative, collective, or collaborative-oriented practices that are grounded in equity, liberation, integrity, and difference?

Toolkit is part of Commune Diverge Shift Connect: A Press Press Chronicle, a collaboration between Press Press and the Institute for Expanded Research. The project develops, collects, and shares emergent models and methodologies for collective work that aid in the efforts of cultural organizers, provoking the question: What are the conditions necessary for cultivating and sustaining ethical and compassionate frameworks for being with and cooperating with others in the world? The full publication, which includes contributions by Cameron Shaw, Lynnette Miranda, Devin Morris, Yellow Jackets Collective, among others, will be released in Fall 2020.

Toolkit for Cooperative, Collective, & Collaborative Cultural Work is based on two workshops which gathered Baltimore-based people who are involved in cooperative, collective, or collaborative cultural work, including: Allie Linn, Amy Reid, Bonnie Jones, C Kim (E'NB), E Cadoux, Tanya Garcia, Georgia McCandlish, Adriana Monsalve, Hannah Wides, Jacob Marley, Joseph Lee, Khadija Adell, Lu Zhang, Markele Cullins, N'Deye Diakhate, Priya Bhayana, and Rose Buttress. The workshops were facilitated by Valentina Cabezas, Kimi Hanauer, Bomin Jeon, and Bilphena Yahwon.

Toolkit is initiated and composed by Kimi Hanauer using notes, transcriptions, and audio recordings from the workshops and additional research. Toolkit is edited by Lu Zhang and copyedited by Rebekah Kirkman. The digital publication is designed and engineered by Eleni Agapis and the print publication is designed by Kimi Hanauer.