Some folks have been asking for more information about the Alternative Transmissions Soup Kitchen so here's the skinny:

Alternative Transmissions Soup Kitchen is envisioned as a semi-monthly artists salon and micro-financing endeavor in the form of a soup kitchen. The basic equation is: $5 buys you a bowl of soup and one vote on project proposals; votes are tallied and whichever receives the most is awarded the mini-grant of total monies raised.

The project arrives in Los Angeles from the INCUBATE collective in Chicago via New York, where I attended a version of INCUBATE's Sunday Soup Kitchen at Creative Time's Democracy in America exhibition last fall. In Chicago, INCUBATE hosts the Soup Kitchen every Sunday in their space and grants on a monthly basis, with the proposals sent out and votes received via email. Each Sunday is hosted by an artist who makes soup and fund recipients return to present about their project.

It's been a goal of team itch (Taisha Paggett, Sara Wolf, Meg Wolfe) of itch journal/Show Box Productions to generate a version of the SSK here since I returned. We came close to launching it when Meg found a home for Show Box this spring, though that proved to be temporary.

The idea came up again at the Alternative Transmissions panel at the Dance Under Construction conference in May. The panel brought together Anna B. Scott/Afrologica, Ari Hoffman/Earful of Dance Podcast and myself on behalf of itch to discuss local alternative media efforts in generating a discourse around dance in Los Angeles. I can't recall now, but I suppose the idea was broached in conjunction with a discussion about localism and what effect our efforts may have. And in order to extend the reach of the AT panel, Anna tweeted salient points of our conversation and Ari recorded for her podcast with that giant microphone she has.

And the really fantastic thing is that dancer/choreographer Nehara Kalev of Catch Me Bird, who hadn't attended the panel but subsequently listened to our conversation via Ari's podcast, contacted us a few weeks later, offering to host a soup kitchen in order to get the ball rolling--as if to demonstrate that yes, though they may be small our efforts still can have a large impact.

And thus was born the Alternative Transmissions Soup Kitchen.

Since we don't have a space to host @sk (great acronym, right?) on a regular basis, and since we're still developing the project, we have had to think creatively about how to structure the grant-giving process. At our inaugural event today (Sunday, July 5th) we will be posting the two proposals anonymously for attendees to vote on and will be disbursing the mini-grant right then and there.

As we develop @sk into a (for now) mobile and semi-regular artists salon and mini-grant fund, these aspects may change, but one key feature that will remain is the $5 = bowl of soup + 1 vote = mini-grant at the heart of the Soup Kitchen.

Like our event today, which has manifested out of the contributions and efforts of Nehara, Anna B. and myself, the Alternative Transmissions Soup Kitchen is propelled by the metaphor of soup itself.

Do you remember the children's story about stone soup? My one onion and your single carrot don't seem like very much food, but when we combine what little we all have, then we can make enough soup to feed our community. Similarly, my $5 may not go very far in supporting an artist, but combined with yours and the other folks who will attend today, we may be able to raise $100 or more. That's a sizeable chunk of change to apply to a project.

We hope you can make it this afternoon but, if not, stay tuned for future Soup Kitchen events!

—Sara Wolf