By Rose and Andres [edited for clarity]

 

R: Most people, if they’re reading this, they know you. Can you introduce yourself a little bit?

 

C: Carina Hoyer H-O-Y-E-R

 

R: What are your key characteristics?

 

C: I guess. Uhhh I am a human

 

R: Ok… Two more?

 

C: Human, artist, scientist

 

A: In that order?

 

C: I think so. That’s how it came to me

 

R: What is something you wish people knew about you? That they don’t?

 

C: I guess I am an open book. But, there is something about the human piece I guess. There’s like the way that I spend my time and stuff, the way I do a bunch of things. People do have the sense of ‘oh wow, you this or that’ there is a piece of that… I guess it would be nice if people would just… Oh I guess this is funny… Denali and I were talking about the different types of yourself, you know.. Free Store Carina, art Carina, this Carina, science Carina… making maps Carina, and Im just like what does it make it be me, and I don’t really know, but it is like that.

 

A: But is there a Carina outside of an organizing space outside of science space, and outside of art space?

 

C: Yeah, it's interesting because its all the same. All of those things are so essential to who i am so I think there is an outside organizing space but what is organizing space I guess. Yeah, I think there is something else.

 

R: What do you love doing?

C: I love to read. 

R: Cool, what are you reading?

C: I am reading a Dean Spade book called “Love in a Fucked up World.””

R: Name all of your pets. 

C: My pets are jerry (cat) evelyn (cat) jiffy (dog) miel (gecko) uma (turtle).

R: So how’d you end up in Albany Park

 

C: Good question, I moved here in 2016, across the river, so I guess that’s considered Lincoln Square, like it was Argyle and Francisco. And I lived there for the parks, because I had a dog. I moved here when she was god i dont know 4, she was so active so I moved because of so much green space. I grew up with a lot of green space so it has always been really hard for me to live in Chicago, there’s always been a core missing, of just having some type of open space so the parks were really appealing to me. But I have been up here quite a bit. I dated a guy in college that lived up here, I would take the train and it was really nice. I lived in Albany Park after I lived in Roscoe Village in Lakeview, this really cheap apartment that was haunted. Lilies on Lincoln, you know, right across, kind of by Lincoln Hall, super haunted, 4 of us living there. Kind if by Trader Joe’s on Diversey, right around the corner. Alex had lived there for like 4 years so I moved in with 3 other people, and the rent was like $300. And before then I was living on Wilson, and then Albany PArk. I moved here when I was 22-23. And then I moved across the river. And then I stayed there because I bought a place.

 

R: I guess I am kind of curious because you said a piece of you was missing because of the nature aspect. 

 

C: I grew up in what most chicagoans think is a farm because of the horses, having a lot of dogs, and chickens. I grew up in the west side of michigan

 

C: Anyways, I grew up surrounded by a lot of space, in the woods… Being able to do whatever kinda and that was my creative space, kinda. 

 

R: What do you do for work?

 

C: I work at NORC at the University of Chicago which is like a non-profit survey-research group

 

R: Is there a project you are working on or have worked on in the past that you are particularly proud of or think is the most interesting?`

 

C: It’s hard because my job is different from the type of mapping that I’m interested in doing. So I moved up here, I grew up in a fucking farm, I moved here to go to DePaul, I didn’t know what I was doing, they gave me the most money…I think, I don’t know it was not too much of an issue, because at that point my dad was like ok I can pay for your your school. I got a pretty good scholarship, and then I got a couple of scholarships additionally and then I worked full time. I was able to provide for most of my things I didn’t really know what I wanted to do but my brother was in Chicago so I moved here. 

 

C: It was really hard at first and that is the piece that is in my heart, that whole thing is to get back, that is to grow up with ‘I can just go in the woods and knowing that literally nobody was going to be there besides my dog and sometimes my cat would stalk me and attack me and that was terrifying but then would sleep with me at night and I had a couple of crazy dogs that. But when I moved here I was just taking classes and I had to take a science credit and GIS and mapping seemed really interesting and pretty immediately after I was in my first class I was like oh this is what I was thinking, it is a niche space in my brain of the intersection of space and art, or like visual interpretation of data, and I think data is art, and blah blah blah, and then I got into political ecology, so then I was kind of going down a political ecology route about how we think of space and what that looks in the way in which we relate to eachother and then how with the effects of colonialism and capitalism that’s permeating every part of our being so when its infiltrating our space I think of it as spatial reasoning, so I’m just thinking of space, so I was thinking a lot about that and with the GIS classes that I started taking and then this is how i’m going to get a job in this field where I can actually show what space looks like in relation to people and what that means in a way that maybe we dont have to think so much about how we are communicating with eachother in this way. You know? Like, you can see all these things like spatially, it’s like art that it’s interpreted in a way and it can show you something. Which is why I was very attracted to that, and then I still had to take another science credit and I pretty immediately went into geography as a specialization that is like a social geographer which is a complicated term, whatever, but… a cognitive geographer. DePaul was cool because it had some like service learning. 

 

A: Any project that you’re proud of?

 

C: Im sorry I dont mean as in a financial work but it’s hard because I operate in two different sort of systems of like my work when I think of these things this way, in the ways that I see things spatially, like I can make maps I have this skillset and then in the work as in mapmaking i think of the way in which we get information, and showing that so I have done a couple projects of showing legal aid needs assessments. I guess that would be a good one that I did recently. That was good because it was a really great way to identify how we could use work that I do in a spatial capacity in GIS, in mapping to help us make decisions in organizing. I haven't quite worked fully into that, I have ideas of projects to merge that… The free store is probably the thing that I’m the most proud of right now. And previously I made a mapping route for a Little Village Environmental Justice organization for how we can go see all of the super fund sites and I have done different types of analysis of rooftops to show the heat patches that are going to be created so once we get another heat wave like 1995 when everybody died outside and people were frying in their buildings, we can say these buildings in these areas are the ones at risk and use the tools to identify the actual ways in which we make decisions. However it’s really hard to merge the two, worlds because I work at a massive non-profit that makes a lot of the decision in policy, how we see news, we do all of the statistics in all of the polling that’s behind AP so it is like a big thing, but this is the thing I don’t believe in and it’s difficult to work professionally in this cycle over here, and merge that in my work in community and what’s important for me in living, but I think I’m slowly getting there, and my ultimate goal which is to do things like, my survey, i have a whole survey planned or whatever featured on page 2, please fill it out. It’s hard to intersect the two, and I'm not quite there so I’m not super proud of any project, or like, I have done a lot of really cool shit at work where people go damn! And in other contexts for community organizations but it’s hard to merge it until it feels meaningful to me.

 

R: Is the idea helping people, though? Is that how you came into organizing?

C: Organizing? How I got into organizing… I grew up in a christian, non-christian sort of serving space and we did a lot. I’ve been doing food distros forever and my grandma is very very involved, even in mutual aid ways, very involved in her friendships, bringing dinners, it was a very baseline community space, in a small town in Michigan. My parents lived in a more so the suburbs – and I now know– the suburbs of grand rapids and us more in a small town where you know everybody, so everyone knows what's going on, so they would bring things to people to help them. And it was to bring them hope, and survive so it was just kind of initially indoctrinated organizing, I guess I did a couple of, you know, when I moved here I  was trying to find spaces for that, that fit me… I worked a lot, so that was most of my social stuff, and then I went to Hiroshima and Nagasaki and I guess it was a bigger peace-promotion program and, we did two exchanges with a school in Hiroshima, and then Nagasaki with a different science school. We did different projects about how to interpret mass genocide. How to interpret it in a way that's palpable to permeate what this means. We did a lot of disarmament work, we did a lot of waste work with the community islands with their waste and just like a lot of things there and that kind of got me more into organizing. I started building into trying to figure out how I fit in the worlds that I want to live in and a world in which we don't think about, I had always felt these things, I have always been sensitive but that definitely got me into organizing.

 

A: What is the pathway from that perspective that you have into opening a free store?

C: I always really like DIY spaces, in college I did a lot of participating in DIY, that one spot on Clark/Lincoln? Across from the Scientology Church, you know? There’s that big diy space where they did a lot of…There’s three there’s a theater there was that one on top, I did a couple shows at the one in between and then I did…

R: What were they?

C: They were mixed media, and we would have people reading, and people doing some music, and have, pretty big, probably 12 artists or so, sometimes live art, always installation type pieces too. We did 2 or 3 shows that had been.. One was me, Alex, and then one other guy, and he was a writer, the other guy, and like, took off and did a reading series at the whistler for a long time, they might still be doing that. So yeah I was doing a lot of DIY spaces there and then I was doing it up until shutdown and then kind of pretty quickly Albany Park Mutual Aid came in and that became my life for sure. In 2021. I was still walking from the train, and there was a little flyer with a tab and a number, and I took a tab and called the hotline.

 

A: So I wanna know how it became your life,  I want to know kind of what’s the line from that to the free store

C: The free store, we started getting, I don’t really know we just had the hotline and we were monitoring that and then pretty quickly we got the stuff in that was ‘hey, can we donate? Hey, can we do this’ so we just started giving people my address. I have a basement so I was just putting stuff down there, and Dan’s basement at Anna’s we had various basements and we had it all logged in a sheet-thing and then I moved into my art space, in Ravenswood. I started working remotely and I couldn't do art at home, and I needed to get out so I got my art space in Ravenswood, which was pretty cool. It was beautiful. It was a recording studio, a sexier lil street but we were just like small… there were mirrors all over, it was really awesome. I was there for about a year and a half –two years, and then I started having a harder time. I moved into a smaller space for a studio with no windows and I was just having a harder time with thinking more about what I was interested in with the intersection of organizing and work. I met Jax, oh that was another DIY event that I did like an APMA [Albany Park Mutual Aid] fundraiser, it was really fun and we had a bunch of zine people and artists and a silent auction and Margaret got in a bid-off with this other person over this purse that my mom brought and it was crazy. I was like we were always thinking of a free store, we were doing clothing swaps, we were always kind of testing the waters and then 

 

R: It was a natural progression

 

C: It was a natural progression, I walked by the spot the free store is at for years, ever since I moved to Albany Park in 2016, and yeah I contacted the guy, I emailed the person and I was like “hey, I’m interested in the building and he did not take me seriously. And then I sent it to the guy that helped me buy my house, and he was like ‘no, no, no, that guy’s just a dick, I got it’ and he got it and it just naturally progressed. I still had money, I inherited money from my dad, and I just thought in this natural progression as Albany Park Mutual Aid is becoming my life, changing and shaping me, the way that I exist, how I see the world, it felt kind of like natural progression in a way that It felt important that we able to get rid of some of this money and then we wouldn’t need to worry about rent, and then it just kinda started. I mean, pretty much over like a month I feel like. I was moving my stuff in and we had so many donations between the five of us and then, it was a store. I just one day put an open sign on front and Vida walked by and she asked me what it was, and I said it was a free store in really shitty Spanish and we just kind of went all of us running. And then it kinda went a little crazy! So I don’t know, it’s a long winded thing but it’s sort of what it is.

 

R: Did you have a goal in mind?

C: I guess my goal is kind of to prepare…I’m kind of like a philosophical prepper. Sort of what are the ways in which I can exist outside of the systems that exist. My ultimate goal is to be able to live in a world that I see, and that’s just I don't know there’s nothing else. Every year I see how opening a store is like an iterative process, but I think every year I assess how I can align a little bit more to something that I see, as being something that’s worth it. There’s nothing else, I don’t know. That’s the goal. But my goals in general, I don’t have any goals other than that.

 

R: Do you think the free store is a facet of community building? That world that you want to see some day?

C: Yeah I think that it is so easy, outside of the system, the oppressive system a free store is the easiest thing. I think when people think this is crazy, we were already operating as a free store. It’s kind of like when we were talking about what is the name of Albany Park free store, it was this whole fucking thing, and it’s literally just a free store. And anywhere can be a free store, people can do this out of anywhere. 

 

R: I mean, you were operating this out of basements

C: We were running this out of our basements, it was much more, it was community in a different way. And we already had it, and we had it in a solid way, that is of course changing and shaping and morphing, and opening the free store only felt natural. And it really wasn’t, there was a shift for sure, when it was in person there was a shift in time, and energy in like having the in-person thing. Once the in-person component came in, 

 

R: I think it made it better. Like, the connection is stronger once it became an in-person thing

 

C: Yeah, it’s just different. It’s community building. What we had before, we had a network and it was beautiful we had people that believed in, everybody believed in the general principles of fuck cops and liberate. We were generally around here and doing in it together outside of the system and honestly even more so the mutual aid aspect, and it doesn’t even matter that I’m an anarchist and others were not, because we were able to still organize together. And that’s the spirit of mutual aid. It doesn’t matter and that's why my goal.. I’m a philosophical prepper so what is it going to be when we literally have nothing. I’m thinking of a zombie apocalypses and the inevitable demise of the energy structure of this country, or people shooting each other and I don't know if you’ve ever read Random Simple Acts of Violence or something, it’s this child in middle class Manhattan, it’s his journey duringf the demise of capitalism and the american empire and she slowly turns into this crazy,

 

R: Is this a book you recommend?

 

C: Yes! But it’s fucked up, it puts you in this space where you’re like yeah, what are we doing and what for. For me it’s for being this mix of community building and this world I want to see, that is the goal but also I want to be ready, I don't see a world where any of this exists. I’m kind of a little bit of a prepper. Yeah, I am ready… When is the revolution and what is it going to look like. I guess that is what I mean. I guess, sure but in the revolution we will only have free stores and someone is going to have to run the free stores and I’ll do that. And maybe the revolution looks like a bunch of zombies and that is what I meant with the zombie apocalypse. Like, these fuckers–

 

R: We’ll have a free store in the zombie apocalypse. 

 

C: I’m going to be the coward that doesn’t go out, to the fucking protests and runs a free store, 

 

A: So we are talking about the timeline of you kind of getting into the community and getting involved in APMA and the natural progression of “what do you do now” and now after the whole system of underground –basement–freestores and now you’re able to give a physicality to this idea of a network. I guess, how do you see your role within this project that grows and protects a community?

C: Great question! One of my ultimate goals of the things that I could provide would be synthesizing specific systems that could be easily replicated. I do have a bit of a computer brain, hence working in science and math, making data within spatial contexts, I would love to synthesize specific ways of being like “these are ways in which we can run a free store,” and finding ways to replicate these things and make networks. We can actually emulate the natural systems around us. Like we can be mycelium, we can be roots. We can actually figure out how to permeate all the ways in which we are living. Although I would love to be like “oh this capitalistic sense of grow grow grow grow” but I think there is a sense of growing but not in the sense of growing “up” a ladder. But instead like how everybody knows what is best for themselves and therefore what is best for their immediate community. So then why would we try to make structures that are not then repeatable on their own. Because when people see oh this how this free store does their work and then be moved to open another underground network or a free store in my basement, or in their church, they do it on their own someplace else, in their own way. Like the Warming Center idea.* The idea is that we just want to do the thing, to then be like “Here’s the thing or idea, now you do it. And you do the thing how it best fits you and your community.” This is the easiest piece. So, I don't know, I think that's maybe my best fit for being able to run an actual space and be able to be like “this is how I run the space.” and this is how I partake in community protection in this way, but i think that is all that i can provide, because it takes a lot of fucking energy. And I'm really tired and sick sometimes. 

 

*[Parks For All hosted emergency Warming Center Slumber Parties when there was inclement weather and the City of Chicago failed to offer unhoused Park residents safe shelter on at least 3 occasions.]

 

A: Do you see the free store as a hub for community creating?

C: Oh yeah.

R: How do you think the community you built in the free store is different from the network that could have been made prior to that?

C: I think there is a piece of being in an actual physical space, like sure we can all be like in our own space but it is different. 

R: Do you think it invites everybody in?

C: In ways yeah. if they want to be invited in. Everybody goes to the space for  their specific reason, and everybody is different but comes back. There is something about the free store as a community space that allows people to come down. I think that is one of the most important parts of building a community space for me. Like sometimes when im nervous, on a Saturday if i didnt like prep– im usually there all day fridays to prep, then I’ll do the free store on Saturday but if it’s a Saturday and the racks are not full or something like is not done – but then at the end of the day when I think about it, that's not what people are coming in for like sure maybe they'll find something to wear, something to eat, something to do, but people are coming there for safety in a way that is different than going to like someone’s basement in their house. And people hold their own private space and it's more like an idea around how we share space and what that actually feels like and looks like and why we would keep coming back into it. Or why we might not come back. That’s really why I am specifically interested in mutual aid work. That's what makes me feel like something like a free store is essential to a community because it makes you look a little bit more inward, like you have to ask yourself why things are bringing up certain things for you and if you then can't participate in the space. If you can't, there is something that is of course then discussed and how we deal with that changes, but then it's different because we have to confront the feelings that come up when we live in community with each other. And I think that a community space like a free store brings up a lot of that stuff because it's like a pretty crazy spread of people. 

 

A: From your perspective, is a free store a political statement or is just a practical material need to distribute resources to your community?

C: It's hard, because everything is inherently politicized. I was reading something the other day about how grief is political. For me, if I'm living in a world that I want to see, and actualizing that in my life, there is a practical element of community building and exchange. In my art practice i work with the idea of reuse and with a lot of textiles, and in that i think about the ideas of what we should be doing and how we should be exchanging goods with each other but it is hard when its politicized and you add in what it means to people for that exchange to be politicized and how everybody comes into the space differently thinking about what they should and shouldn't be participating in. That can make it hard because I see it as this practical tool but then forced into this position of being a political statement. And it's like ya i guess sure. 

 

R: Do you have a political viewpoint?

C: Well i guess. I mean what does that mean?

R: I mean earlier you said you were an anarchist. 

C: But is that political?

R: I guess it's just how you see it. 

C: Right and I guess that's just how I see things and view the world. I don't see this as a political entity, I just see the world this way and this includes seeing that a free life is possible. 

R: Do you feel like it lives outside of any broader context?

C: I was just thinking about this today. I was thinking about snapping at the moms on Monday, I felt bad. I guess it's just a symptom of deep somatic trauma in our bodies.The idea that you can come into the freestore and get your diapers, and if you can't you can for sure next time. There is this idea that we can slowly build these systems and that we can rely on each other. But it doesn't just grow overnight. We are all growing infinitesimally into what we should be. So it's like we all have to rely on that and each other, and so coming into the space with all of your pre-conceived notions can cause all of this energy combustion. So even the platitude of something like “it can be different here” can help people when they first enter into the space of the freestore so it can be something to help people feel they are allowed to pull from. Jane said this week that got me so emotional, she was like “yes I come here and get everything that i need for my community at Eugene but I also come here to like ‘come down’”, and that is really the important part for me! We can't really have any interpersonal relationship that is sustainable without being able to check ourselves, and reset that system. 

 

R: If there is all this conflicting energy and it takes a lot of work, how do you keep coming back to it? Like why do you keep doing it?

C: I don't really feel like there's another option. I don't know if that sounds weird but like I just believe in it to my core. I'm always trying to like check my blindspots and see other alternatives, like what are we missing here, what more should we do, what should we think about, who should we learn from and all these different things, but at the end of the day i believe that if we can rely on each other and create something different, if we really really commit to it. Like I have to commit to it. And also haha my anger. I was thinking about that talking circle that we did, and I am just sooo angry. Where is the consent in all this? I didn’t ask to be here, if fucking sucks to be here. And something that keeps us grounded into each other, is everything. 

 

A: I think that is one of the more interesting things. There were two things that I thought was interesting in what you were saying. Like that stubbornness that you just have to keep going, and then also the idea you mentioned about this becoming mycelium growing organically and sideways without hierarchy. 

C: Yes, growing where there's no hierarchy. This reminds me of adrienne maree brown. I got into her through like bell hooks and I was reading a lot of Audre Lorde. I have always been into sci-fi and fantasy and that got be into Ursula K Le Guin and Octavia Butler which somehow got me into reading andrea murray browne who writes a lot about replicating the natural order of the world, which is obviously derived from indigenous wisdom, but she focuses her writing on urban organizing in Detroit. She writes imaginative sci-fi that looks at how we actually operating, but within this new world. Like N.K. Jemisin who wrote “The City We Became” where like New York becomes like this giant monster. Octavia Butler writes a lot about recreating the world out of the ashes of the old. And I think that is a big piece that I felt attached to. adrienne maree brown talks a lot about emulating the natural structure. Like look at our ancestors, I mean we don't have to look far, and think that tendency to do more is always present, it's like the capitalism surrounding us, but we don't really need to look that far away, we just have to reach within. It's really the core of this type of being. And I think it's really captured by a lot of these sci-fi writers who think about it in a different way, like adrienne maree brown who is talking specifically about organizing, how we can act like roots, and act like mycelium, and that goes a long way towards taking the capitalistic ideas out. Like I don't have to look to something that is personalized, because I can just be growing together with everything. 

A: Is everything that you do, in your organizing, activism life is there a specific thing that you are trying to fight? If you could change one thing, what would you change? 

 

C: It's a hard question. I’m thinking about a lot. My mind goes first to of course these oppressive systems and this carceral life and the way we are trapped. But then you go deeper and I think about what is that is that a lack of, what are we missing, why is it this way and I think that would be the thing to change you know. I think there's this thing about creating space and sharing knowledge with each other that grabs at each other and we can be connective forces, so it is about breaking or opposing that maybe. It is about breaking those bonds. I mean there are all these ways to fight that and oh well we can create a space without all of these carceral forces, but then what is it actually fighting?

R: I mean I think then in a sense then, carcerality itself seems like the root?

C: Yea there's something there, innate. I could see that. 

 

R: what would you say to a baby carina in a different place? 

C: I think just like slow down. Which is dumb, because I can't. But it's a goal. You know its cheesy shit but there's something in there about confronting yourself. There's a piece of truth in your heart, and trusting in that and then letting what you can't control out. If you trust who you are in your core and be able to fight these systems in that way and if you really think about what that brings up for you. Then I think its ok to just feel the stuff, feel the feelings and emotions. Like get mad at people. It's ok you don't have to be fighting yourself all the time, maybe it's like just keep focusing on fighting empire or something you know. 

R: Haha. That's awesome. 

C: Aww kinda poor baby carina though. 

R: It’s good advice haha. Kind of related though, if you could just leave something behind for future generations what would it be?

C: I’m really interested in participatory mapping. That is what the mapping survey project in this newsletter issue is. Within  this “data world,” people are so detached from their relationship with data and are always on this defense like “someones downloading this thing on your computer and they're gonna AI you” but like what does your relationship with data actually look like and what that is. And so it's something I would like to create more of a framework for, to have more participatory data and have people have more agency in that way. 

 

R: Why do you think it's hard for people to grasp?

C: I think its because we don't see it and people don't see it in this spatial way. We have these little bots and these little things that we buy. Like we don't see money as data, and especially with swiping/tapping cards and not to mean we should be using cash all the time, but i wish there was –  in a leave behind sense – and of course I’d love to leave behind the free store and I hope that it runs forever, but I think that if I’m actually thinking about it, there's something around those relationships. I'm interested in the permeability of technology and what that looks like, why are we not interested in having a relationship with the data that's being collected. 

R: Do you feel like there are obstacles to getting that kind of knowledge?

C: Yes absolutely. Like you have to be able to think in the context of data and I think that's really confusing. I think in the same context of like i will never understand how a fucking cell works in the body, where I’m just like that doesnt make sense, it’s fake and I hate it and if you ever show it be again I will panic and die hahaha.

 

R: Do people have that reaction when you talk about data?

C: Definitely. Like when people ask me what I do for work? They're just like glazed over. But if I'm thinking about my own interest  or if I'm writing or doing my own projects it would be in something in participatory data, like people giving data that could actually create some type of change. Like hypothetically we could use it to take the Gary Carlsons of the world down.

 

R: Since it’s difficult to understand, do you feel like there are ways to make it more accessible?

C: Yes I think the problem is that there is really not an accessibility lens. There are a lot of tech groups,, where I think that inherently the environments are just pretty brutal, like tech- bro-life. But there are spaces like repair cafes or freestores where we can come together and think of other ways. If we are interested in giving information to each other and what that looks like as a data point, and  filling out data in your own community ,could be what accessibility looks like.

 

R: So if accessibility is expanded, how would you want it to fit within organizing? 

C: I wish people would participate in stuff. And what it looks like to have more people participating, what makes people feel like they shouldn't be participating? I would just want people to use it as tools to make decisions for organizing. Like where are all these spots that we are all interested in having spaces. When I say participation I don't just mean participation in the surveys but that people have agency to participate in decision making. And if there is a way to show people how their answers to specific questions about what they want to see in certain spaces would point to those decisions. Like you said you want freestores here, you said you want to see grocery stores here, or everyone right here is lacking childcare and then say “we need childcare,” then how do we get childcare here? If we show people that spatially, in a way that people can relate to, because it's literally their own neighborhood,  life, the area around their free store, then maybe there would be interest in participating. There would then be some agency around these decisions. Like “woah, hey everyone lets start a childcare collective right here.” And maybe there is something there. I think with things like diaper distro and creating intergenerational organizing spaces, which we don't have enough of in Chicago, well thats not true but like larger ones, but because a lot of them are primarily focused on younger people we don't have a lot of capacity for hearing people where they are at. Like at the free store we can have children or really old people, all participating together in their own ways. 

 

R: How do you feel like creativity plays into organizing?

C: I love that. We are not creative enough. We are not having enough fun, creativity is fun. People have to let go. My friend’s mom always said to us growing up “creative solutions” like we'd be whining “we don't know what to do” and she would say “that's not a creative solution!” so we were always just like “alright, well that's true, we gotta have creative solutions.” But also creativity in the sense of doing, and like queering everything. Where is the creativity in the brain? Kind of tying back to my interests in sci-fi and fantasy too, Mariame Kaba wrote in a newsletter about how the lack of creativity in our organizing spaces is one of the last remaining carceral pierces within it. Like we literally cannot imagine a world without a prison, and it’s like that IS carceral. We have to imagine these worlds, and unlocking that is creative. So when we are thinking about creativity, like sure there's the art and the spaces we create together and finding creative solutions but I think at that deeper piece it's about imagining something new is organizing, it's the essence of organizing.

R: Thank you for doing this. 

C: Omg  it's over? Thank god.