SKYDIVE 3400 Montrose Blvd. Suite 907, Houston, TX 77006 713.551.3497 www.theskydive.org
contact: info@theskydive.org open Sat 1-5
Skydive Office of Cultural Affairs Presents:
An Exhibition of Proposals for a Socialist Colony
March 27 – May 22, 2010
2310 Elgin (Eldorado Ballroom @ Project Row Houses)
Houston, TX, 77004
Organized by Sasha Dela, Benison Kilby, Elysa Lozano for Autonomous Organization, and Nancy Zastudil
HOUSTON, March 2, 2010 - The Skydive Office of Cultural Affairs is pleased to present An
Exhibition of Proposals for a Socialist Colony.
In the mid 1800’s a box of national archives went missing during the Archive War
causing Skydive’s land to revert to its original deed. It stipulates that the land be granted to any
group starting a socialist colony on the property. The works in this exhibition are proposals for
this new colony. They contribute a variety of perspectives on the fruitful paradoxes that reside in
the quest for individual freedom and the necessity for social contracts, collective processes and
their sometimes authoritarian implementation.
Mounted in Houston, Texas, the exhibition is set against a backdrop of the state’s historical
independence from Mexico and the United States, and in which a libertarian spirit persists and is
legally protected. There are no zoning laws in Houston: any enterprise can exist within any
building or neighborhood. The premise of this exhibition takes advantage of this lenient civic
stance (without it the proposed colony could never exist), to designate a zone for debate about
where personal necessity ends and public life begins, and what role self-organization can play in
the development of collective processes.
An Exhibition of Proposals for a Socialist Colony has been built from proposals for
systems, tools, communities, communications, resource use, historical research, democratic
gestures, implementation, and a public relations campaign. To produce this project the artists and
curators engaged in a collaborative practice, where artists could operate as organizers and
decisions were subject to the group.
Participating artists include BAW, N55, Aharon, Amy Balkin, Zanny Begg, The Copenhagen
Commune, Chto Delat/What is to be Done?, José Filipe Costa, Erin Elder, Amy Franceschini,
Alex Lockett, David Mabb, Anna Pickering, The Public School, Jon Sack, Temporary Services,
Chin Xaou Ti Won, and Duncan Wooldridge.
Exhibition details and free public events in Houston are as follows:
• Saturday March 20, 2:00-4:00pm
A Saturday Free School presentation: How to Build a Video Projector for $100
Skydive, 3400 Montrose, Suite 907
• Thursday March 25, 7:00pm
In the Freed Auditorium at Glassell School- A discussion with Erin Elder, David Mabb,
José Filipe Costa, Chin Xaou Ti Won and Duncan Wooldridge
Glassell School, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Freed Auditorium, 5101 Montrose
• Friday March 26, 7:30pm
Screening Of Thomas Harlan’s Torre Bela, a documentary of a group of workers that
take over of a privately owned estate to start a collective farm
Domy Books, 1209 Westheimer
• Saturday March 27, 6:00-9:00pm
Exhibition opening reception
Eldorado Ballroom at Project Row Houses, 2310 Elgin (at Dowling)
• Thursday April 15, 7:30pm
Screening of Comuna Under Construction, directed by Dario Azzelini and Oliver Ressler
Domy Books, 1209 Westheimer
For more information: http://skydiveofficeofculturalaffairs.blogspot.com/
http://www.theskydive.org
http://www.autonomousorganization.org/Home.html
