EAT THIS: Has Greenpoint revolutionized arts funding?

In an economic downturn, the arts world can feel dreary. Galleries go dark, non-profits once doling out grants saw their portfolios crash and collectors are staying home on Thursday nights. Our typically “starving artists” are hungrier.
Bushwick resident Jeff Hnilicka, an arts administrator, saw that the system was broken. His fresh idea of how to fix this machine—Funding Emerging Artists with Sustainable Tactics, or F.E.A.S.T.—relies on the tactics that work in sustainable food fundraising systems. At the second run of the fundraiser in the cluttered back kitchen of a church basement, as he found himself recounting a wad of twenties, he could see that it worked. “Fifteen-eighty?” he asked, surprised at how high the figure was after a night that had just felt like a good party. “Tell you what. I’ll throw in twenty of my own, and we’ll divide it four ways.” The $1600 dollar jackpot was divided to give four local artists cash for fresh ideas. In the next few weeks, their projects would already be all over the neighborhood.
Here’s how it worked: No one was turned away at the door to the green basement below Greenpoint’s Church of the Messiah, but everyone was asked to make some kind of donation. It was worth a few bucks: long candlelit banquet tables were stocked with home-baked bread. There was free beer—donated by local brewery Sixpoint—and local bands rotated off the stage every few songs. Volunteers served what they had made from scratch—not just a spoonful of mac & cheese, but a full meal that included a salad of arugula lightly tossed with lemon and capers and a dessert of sour cherry dark-chocolate brownies. “We’ll feed as many of you as we can,” said Hnilicka. “But there are a lot of you.”

When diners were bored dishing with each other, they rose to pace the perimeter of the room reading posters that artists had written to explain projects for which they sought funding. For instance, a project to build gardens on roofs in Bushwick and another to stand on the corner, offering everyone either a free hot dog or a drawing of a hotdog. The owner of the local comic shop on Metropolitan Avenue wanted to publish a “comic newspaper”; a comedian wanted to stage a performance that featured non-actors reading her jokes, in costume; an artists’ assistant wanted money for super8 film.
Diners read these proposals carefully and voted on project they felt was strongest. The winner would get the night’s earnings and, at the next F.E.A.S.T., would present his or her work with a breakdown of how the money was spent.
“This isn’t like some revolutionary idea to charge them money to raise the money,” Hnilicka said (Nor to fundraise over food: Think bake sales). But something about the idea of art as complicated and lofty has complicated the ways in which people think about its funding. This system, which rewards ideas the majority deems most exciting, is not perfect, but it’s simple and it works.
Plus, it gives everyone a feeling of agency. As prospective artists are only asked for a proposal of a few sentences, you don’t need a degree in art or experience writing grants to win a couple hundred bucks for a good idea. Nowadays, Hnilicka pointed out, a grant you write in 2005 might not see fruition until 2009. “In a world where you’re constantly getting new information, how can art actually be reacting to that world?” An overly complex system, he said, rewards money makers and delays response, resulting in a less exciting art world.
On the back wall last Friday was projected the successful project of F.E.A.S.T’s previous winner, designer Dan Funderburgh, who used $756 dollars raised at the inaugural F.E.A.S.T. to print wallpaper that he used to cover unsightly public walls in Greenpoint—cheekily mocking the idea of ornament and “sightliness” itself.
“This has been an especially long cold and hard winter for everyone across the world,” read a proposal from the artist Lima Lemon. “Migrating birds are a symbol of a new season.” With a tattoo on her arm, the artist—a designer and an immigrant from Barcelona—was wearing a golden badge that showed she was a contender on standby, ready to defend her work. With the money, she proposed constructing hundreds of wooden birds to be placed in Greenpoint trees and taken homeward—to migrate—by her neighbors. “I’ve only been here for six months,” she said. Coming to F.E.A.S.T. was a way for the migrating artist to land herself in the community she saw here. And there was a community here. Everyone knew each other or, over beer and bread, made a few friends—unconsciously networking as they described their own projects, the ideas they had.
“I was looking for something that would be interesting to see when I come back to the next F.E.A.S.T.,” said Avery Miller, from Prospect Heights, who was less likely to vote for Limon’s project (what was there to show but pictures of birds in trees?) than for a project that would hire dancers for the next event as performance art commenting on the nature of group dining. On the project that would dole out either hot dogs or the drawings of hot dogs, Miller said: “What about vegetarians?”
With the money stuffed into a canvas bag that had been marked with a cartoon-y dollar-sign, Jeff Hnilicka walked out onto the low stage. He doled out packets of $200 dollars to three runners-up and then was the grand winner—“I’m excited to say I have one thousand dollars in a bag.” He gave it to Colin McMullen, who with soil-stained hands from his extensive work in rooftop gardens, accepted graciously.
Beaming like an art world Santa, Hnilicka announced that it would be great if everyone could help clean up. Unleashed was a great scurrying. By 9.07—seven minutes later—the food was gone, the paper tablecloths had been trashed, and all that was left to do was put back the furniture as they had found it.