neighborhood: bushwick | space type: art collective | active since: 2011 | links: website, facebook, twitter
During this year’s Bushwick
Open Studios, I had an ambitious roster of spaces to hit, and by a
fortuitous chance, one of those was Hive NYC, a nonprofit multidisciplinary art
space that is home to a collective of musicians, visual artists, writers,
actors, photographers, and aerialists. There was fantastic art on display, by Jewel Lim, Tamar Meir, Our
Guy, Sigal Arad Inbar, and Fumie Eshii. And the artists who were there—Yula, Isaac,
Kate, and Melanie—were just amazingly warm and welcoming.
Yula, Isaac, Kate, and
Melanie, photo by Maximus Comissar
They showed us all around the space, then brought out a lovely little impromptu
lunch: salad and couscous, hummus and boiled eggs, avocados and cheese and
coffee. They were bubbling over with excitement about their space, their
projects, their bands, and the life they’re making for themselves. In addition
to art and music, they have plas to green their home with a rooftop garden,
compost, a water accumulation system, and doing more buiding with salvaged and
reused materials. They even have their own living metaphor: an actual beehive on
the roof.
photo by Maximus
Comissar
brooklyn spaces: How did the space get
started?
Kate: There was a group of us all playing
music together, and we were all into different forms of art as well, like I
write, Isaac does theatre productions, we have a saw-player who paints, our
trombone player is working on a rooftop garden, stuff like that. So the idea was
just to bring in as many people as possible and give them a place to create
whatever they wanted to create.
photo by Alix Piorun
brooklyn spaces: How did you find the
space?
Yula: It was so amazing, it happened really
fast. About a year ago, I told a friend, “What I want is to have a little
sanctuary for the people I know and love, so they could do whatever they want to
do.” And in no more than a year, the Hive started coming together. All these
people started being drawn in, our friends brought more friends, and each one of
them were geniuses in their little ways. So we were like, “Okay, we need a
home.” And a month later, I found this place on Craigslist. Isaac
came here, and he was like, “It’s amazing. It’s amazing. It’s amazing!” The
landlords are awesome, they’re artists, they said, “As long as you don’t burn
the place down, you can do anything you want.” And so we moved in and started
doing things. It’s a lot of hard work, but it’s also really rewarding and fun.
photo by Maximus
Comissar
brooklyn spaces: What was the last show you
had?
Yula: We had a show last night, and our
band The eXtended Family played with Dolchnakov
Brigade. There were so many people here, it was ridiculous.
Kate: It was so overwhelmingly positive
too, everyone was just having a great time. I think there’s a mutual
understanding that this isn’t a club, this is a place where people live. We had
so many people dancing, and all this artwork all around, and nothing got
disturbed, there were no problems at all, there was just a really beautiful,
positive energy.
Yula and the eXtended
Family, photo from streetcredmusic
brooklyn spaces: What are some of the other
projects people here do?
Yula: The eXtended Family is the heart,
it’s all of us. The music is very eclectic. We call it ro-punk, romantic punk,
but you can’t really define it, it’s a mix of a lot of shit thrown together with
a kind of punchy attitude, but in a positive way. And then Dolchnakov Brigade is
just like a megalomaniac onion, an underdog-ish, fascist kick in the face. There
are several other bands who work with us too, there’s Crooks &
Perverts, Gato
Loco, This
Way to the Egress, Torcher Chamber Ensemble.
photo by Maximus
Comissar
Kate: We have a website that features
writers, artists, music, sustainability projects, and humor, as well as allowing
members to barter for goods and services.
Yula: There’s also a Philly Hive.
They’re doing events in a place called BookSpace,
with aerialists and circus-ish type stuff and book readings and poetry.
Kate: One of our members is the editor of
Helo: The Crisis Story
Magazine. We’re also in the middle of a Kickstarter to try to raise money to get our roof garden
off the ground, ha ha.
Yula: We have bees on our roof now. Thirty
thousand little sweet bees! I never thought I would be so comfortable around so
many bees. But you can be one foot away from this huge swarm, and they
don’t bother you, they just mind their own business.
Kate: Didn’t you name them all
Deborah?
Yula: Yes, Deborah the Hive. It’s one
organism made of many little things, which is a perfect metaphor for us.
photo by Maximus
Comissar
brooklyn spaces: Do you feel like Brooklyn
has influenced the way you conceive the space, or do you think spaces like this
are having an impact on the way that Brooklyn is right now?
Yula: I think the second. For us at least.
You can do pretty much anything you want here if you respect everything else.
And if you set that tone, people respond to it wonderfully. Little by little, if
you just spread it slowly, you might be able to make a difference in a larger
way. As soon as Bushwick Open Studios started and I started walking around the
neighborhood, I was like, “We’re not the only people doing this!” It’s
wonderful. We just need to make some connections and make this trust circle
bigger, broader, and stronger, and then who knows what can happen? I’m hoping
that this is just the beginning, that everybody’s going to pick up from this and
just do more and more.
Kate: There’s been a pretty big snowball
effect since we’ve started. We’ve been picking up more and more people and
having a great time. This space has definitely come together very quickly.
Yula: If we can just continue to do what we
do and enjoy it, that’s all we really want. Just don’t bother us doing it.
World, don’t interfere. If you have any bad intentions, just stay out.
Like this? Read about more communal art spaces: The
Schoolhouse, Swimming
Cities, Arch P&D, Silent
Barn, Monster
Island, Flux
Factory, Bushwick
Project for the Arts