Mutual Aid Is Our Future: Time Salon Free Event Thursday, October 7th 6:30 PM – 8PM  Food and refreshments will be served Click here to register

In partnership with Heaven Gallery and the Kola Nut Collaborative, Equity Arts presents the workshop series "Mutual Aid is Our Future." The first of this series is “Time Salon,” which seeks to create a social marketplace where people engage in reciprocal exchange of services, skills and goods, where the currency is an hour of time for everyone. In this session, we reflect on our social economy and broaden perspectives of where currency is created or exchanged.

Prompts will engage participants in a thoughtful exchange of skills, services, and talents. This exploration of an intangible human capital asks participants to imagine a world without money and all of the opportunities we have to bring some aspects of that world into fruition wherever we are. "Time Salon" will be facilitated by Mike Strode.

Mike Strode is a writer, urban cyclist, facilitator, and solidarity economy organizer with the Kola Nut Collaborative residing in southeast Chicago. The Kola Nut Collaborative is Chicago’s only time-based service and skills exchange (otherwise known as a timebank) providing an open platform for mutual aid, community organizing, and networking.

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Equity Arts is a project that seeks to purchase a historic artists-run property in the Wicker Park neighborhood, preserving its creative and public use. It is a social enterprise at the intersection of real estate, economy, art and social justice, which aims to advance racial equity while cultivating and preserving the arts from displacement.

Heaven Gallery is a non-profit and multi-disciplinary arts space. In order to encourage submissions from a diverse pool of emerging artists and musicians, the gallery widely promotes an open proposal process and does not charge submission or exhibition fees. Heaven strives to make art accessible to all community members by hosting free art exhibitions and pay-what-you-can music events, and by hosting regular community events to help promote public education and discussion.

The Kola Nut Collaborative (KNC) is a mutual support network of people engaged in reciprocal exchange of services, skills, and goods through a timebank where the currency is an hour of time for everyone. Through membership in the Kola Nut Collaborative people: create and strengthen community bonds, create economic freedom by providing an alternative means to get needs and desires met, and encourage creativity in redefining self-sufficiency, interdependence and valuation of time. The Kola Nut Collaborative introduces a paradigm where members reflect on the available resources in their lives moving from a perception of scarcity and lack to abundance and wholeness.