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feasability study for sustained sustenance: Feral Trade Cafe at http gallery
HTTP structure, business plan, financial model
Current conditions
Umbrella company is Catlow & Garrett (unincorporated partnership). Tax entity, deals with rent and overheads, PAYE. HTTP & Furtherfield are not for profits with written constitutions. Furtherfield has an advisory board and is funded by ACE. HTTP is a furtherfield.org project. HTTP compound is zoned a s mixed / live-work.
CAFE motives, structure and infrastructure
Motives for opening a cafe as an art project.
1. HTTP is located in the back of beyond from the point of view of its visitors. Would like to give exhibition goers something more to chew on, such as sustenance and conviviality, space for contemplation, information and reading. Elongate visit.
2. Useful service for local residents and studio occupants. The neighbourhood is changing, it's a way of connecting with the local community that's more fluid and open, a softer and more everyday interface than the gallery.
3. Demonstrate an alternate economy and ecology: so many shops deal with just money. Promote free processes and experiences other than those governed by hegemonic global capitalism. Feral Trade is an economy based on other peoples' activities and how you get from A to B. Even at this small scale it has a polemic value.
- income scenarios
All transactions logged and accounted for. The cafe would be designed as financially self sufficient, although application for seed funding from ACE London agreed as ok. A feral trade project: kate to put in the application, Marc & Ruth to support.
Feral Trade runs at a fabulous loss, in business terms. The investment is in the network.
- hrs of operation, visitor patterns, winter plan
Gallery hours are currently 12-5PM fri-sun, possibly extending to thurs. Average 15-20 visitors per weekend. Mainly they arrive via Manor House tube. There is no cafe between the tube and HTTP although it is possible to take a detour to Costa Coffee. Portuguese cafe in the other direction.
The cafe would not necessarily be linked to shows. The gallery has an exhibit approximately 3/4 of the year. There are gaps between shows. In winter and gaps, the distributed library and Feral Trade cafe could occupy the gallery space. People would visit for the library, or for meetings. Library visitor numbers are low but it's the intensity of the experience that counts.
It would be a coup to overcome geography and keep the cafe open in winter. Without affecting global warming. Patio bonfires are worth looking into. In winter it could be a kiosk, menu devised for creating heat or utilising refrigeration.
- caretaking: human resources as they currently stand
When the gallery is open, there is someone always available to respond to visitors. Sat and sun have more dedicated invigilation, fri can be more hectic. Currently Ale (administration and coordination) does fri+sat, sun there is a paid invigilator.
- roles for cafe: preparation, service, cash-taking, cleaning up, stock management.
Cafe service role should be rotated amongst present core personnel. This kind of distributed culture is integral to the way Furtherfield works as a group. Cafe service should be continuous with natural office life. Disinvest food service of lowered status, advance tea and coffee service as a communications medium.
Weekly stock management would be 1 person's responsibility. Probably Ale who deals with this kind of thing anyway.
- physical setup: service and storage spaces, equipment investment, utensil choices
Decking. Sound the landlord out on this between rent payments.
Landlord relations are distantly friendly. There is a janitor who keeps a close eye on the compound. If landlord rejects decking plans, the parking spaces in front are legally HTTP's, paid for within rent. Cafe could serve from here. Is the back garden an alt possibility?
Liability would need to be thought through either way.
- publicity
Cafe would have its own publicity strand, as a HTTP project. Also promoted as background for exhibitions.
- operating models (positive and negative)
Cafe Kino in Bristol Leila's Shop, Shoreditch . the review covers the for & againsts pretty thoroughly http://londonreviewofbreakfasts.blogspot.com/2008/04/leilas-shop-shoreditch.html
REGULATION
Use existing premises regulations as a template/ jelly mould for evasion or compliance. Produce a Regulatory reading menu as research result / art project.
MENU
- Curatorial guidelines
Coincide with HTTP core curatorial principles Promote Feral Trade experimental trader aims.
Food goods will be informationalised (onboard or on menu)
Stock considerations include: regulatory perimeters, shelf life (perishability), network relations, the facility of the food item to host information. Selection will involve a biodiversity of criteria, none of which should be primary or exclusionary. These include seasonality, locality, information on source, information on carriage, trade relations with source, trade relations of delivery (embodied by courier).
Expand conception of localness beyond the walled citadel model
like the scale-free hubs of the internet.
Ingredients and products with questionable ethics can be included, along with their source information. The priority is to expanding the product monologue to articulate a larger picture of the world it moves through. (The product of the market conceals its relations except for the money one; the product of the commons reveals human relations, although including possibly unpleasant ones). Open up food-labelling as a platform for discussion and adaptation, as VS righteous boasting and promotion of purityconcepts. Undercut profit-motivated product fascism of fresh 'n' wild.
Read-write menu. Open to intervention from random vendors eg. customers can contribute via sell/trade/gifting stock.
Economy of miniaturisation. Enables hosting small batches/single items: ultra seasonality. Menu should be easily adaptable and transmissable perhaps database-driven and list items currently unavailable, in negotiation or pending.
Courier process. Use moving social networks including known and funded travel to HTTP to deliver goods from afar, including store-bought ones. Journey and relationship documented, expands attention to food provenance beyond gourmet-style fetishisation of origin or source to the broader ecology of supply. Promote inter-organisational trade with artistic peers, local and foreign. Balkan and baltic states are a good place to start.
Contenders: Fo.am Brussels. Grappa, Latvian cured meats, computer chocolate biscuits. Mejor Vida Corporation, Mexico City. Hot chocolate
Challenge fresh+wild to a duel.
Commission or collect artists' food projects: eg. Food for Free apple mush on toast
Source producers or recipes from HTTP social networks (cake, jams, herbs, sprouts) incl city farm and allotment, home cultivation.
Regulatory limits: Define and serve emergency food products; outer limits of biscuit. Cream tea variations.
Feral Trade staples start menu. - Coffee from El Salvador - Tea from Bangladesh (TBC) - Cola from Bristol.
OUTPUTS
proposed start time mid-september ( for jeremey bailey show)
local: table menu of contents / protocols / products; launch/event
external: present at fo.am open sauces in brussels in november as part of public diet disucssion