A
cross art, tech and culture, dynamic gathering spaces are inspiring luminaries and creatives to convene, collaborate and connect. In this feature, we’ll explore these communities and the people powering them, starting with a Brooklyn-based cultural center where star artists and locals come together and a globally prestigious organization celebrating collaboration in the kitchen and conversation around the table. Stay tuned throughout the month as we spotlight additional spaces and their networks of achievers and big ideas.
I
n 2011, sculpturist Dustin Yellin purchased a $3.7 million 19th-century brick factory in Brooklyn and dreamed up some lofty plans for its future. He wanted to create a grassroots hub for art and culture, he told the New York Times in 2012, and planned to transform the secluded warehouse into a nonprofit “utopian art center."
Within a year, the unassuming building came to life as Pioneer Works: a vibrant, multifunctional artists' paradise with free admission, dance parties and community lunches. It's an ideas lab, museum, workspace, concert venue, classroom, rentable event hall and more—spread across 24,000 square feet and three sweeping floors. Pioneer Works offers art installations, youth programs, residencies, readings and cultural festivals blending art, music, tech and science. A current exhibit "PÒTOPRENS: The Urban Artists of Port-au-Prince" features the works of 25-plus Haitian artists, including haunting sculptures made with found objects.
Even with Yellin as its founding father, Pioneer Works is widely considered a community-cultivated masterpiece: a space where anyone—from acclaimed musicians and Pulitzer Prize-winning writers to neighborhood creatives and activists—can gather, learn and perform across mediums and disciplines.
W
elcome to Betaworks Studios, a recently-opened members-only club for founders, builders, engineers and designers to convene, power through projects and share ideas in its collaborative workspace. President Daphne Kwon, former CFO of Oxygen Media and Goop, describes the creative hub in Manhattan's meatpacking district as a center for "connection, inspiration and support to local founders." Through its cross-industry programs, workshops, roundtables and other events, betaworks Studios aims to live out its founding philosophy: human connection is a crucial ingredient in building the next big ideas, companies and products.
The broader Betaworks—a tech incubator founded in 2007 by John Borthwick and Andy Weissman—launched this studio space in May 2018 as a homebase for its founder ecosystem to learn and network. In its first year, it's drawing entrepreneurs from all corners of tech, industry leaders and well-known inventors. Kwon's vision for evolving the club? She hopes to launch community-tailored studios in local tech neighborhoods across the country.
I
n 2009, entrepreneur Bernard Smith launched Modellounge, an underground club for models from top-tier agencies. Tucked discretely in the back of a Manhattan diner for nearly ten years, the lounge provided millennial models a place to work, decompress and network between castings and appointments. Early interest from industry icons and partnerships with big-name brands like Microsoft, Puma and Audi eventually helped elevate Modellounge beyond a members-only gathering space: today it's an empowering platform offering resources and programming for what Smith calls the "global, high-priority fashion model community."
Though Modellounge no longer operates out of its original Union Square location, it hosts pop-up-esque events—most recently at Soho's Gelso & Grand—and continues to provide models with career development support, industry mentorship, trainings, housing opportunities, exclusive events and plenty of membership perks through its Modellounge Card.
While Smith hunts for the company's next venue, he's exploring new sponsorships that will help grow the brand's offerings for established and emerging models and promote industry-wide "collaboration and positivity." Even as the Modellounge footprint evolves, Smith considers its core identity mostly unchanged: a "one-of-a-kind" support center for models to cultivate empowering relationships as they build careers in an ultra-competitive industry. "A lot of people think we simply provide a space where models hang and go between castings," says Smith. "But it’s really much more."
S
ituated in New York’s Greenwich Village is an 1840s historic townhouse that blends in with its neighbors—until you catch a glimpse of what's inside. Regular elaborate dinner parties. Over 70 guests indulging in hors d’oeuvres and five-course meals. Strangers mingling like old friends. It's not a restaurant, or the residence of a nonstop host. It's the Beard House: former home and cooking school of culinary legend James Beard and today, center for the prestigious James Beard Foundation. Its kitchen doubles as a performance space for both big-name and rising chefs to showcase their culinary chops, and everyone's welcome for dinner.
Founded in 1986 and currently led by CEO Clare Reichenbach, the Foundation aims to celebrate gastronomy via educational initiatives, scholarships, chef advocacy training, annual awards and—in the Beard House dining room—conversation around the table. Up to 80 guests, Foundation members and the general public, are seated communally and encouraged to engage during a meal that Chief Strategy Officer Mitchell Davis explains is unlike a typical restaurant experience: "You're a part of this moment in time that won't really be replicated anywhere."
Under the guidance of Director of House Programming Izabela Wojcik, the Beard House hosts four to six dinners per week, presented by carefully selected chefs who design menus just for the occasion, interact with diners and inspire discussions about sustainability, nutrition, diversity in the culinary arts and more.
I
n March 2019, artists will convene at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas to celebrate the innovative film projects of critically-acclaimed and emerging actors, directors, screenwriters, comedians and more. The annual star-studded event, held in concert with other SXSW gatherings like SXSW Interactive and SXSW Music, draws thousands of filmmakers and festival guests to a cross-discipline, collaborative nine days of screenings, awards, workshops and discussions.
Overseen by Director of SXSW Film Janet Pierson for the past ten years, the creative conference debuts hundreds of screenings across a variety of categories, including documentary features, animated shorts and festival favorites from previous premieres. Last year, over 8,000 films were submitted.
Credits: Courtesy of the James Beard Foundation; Alberto E. Rodriguez/WireImage; Jolea Brown; Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for SOBEWFF®; Courtesy of Pioneer Works; Evan Agostini/Invision/AP; Joel Ryan; Max Muby/Indigo/GettyImages; Ian Gavan/GettyImages; Aubrie Pick; Michael Loccisano/Staff/GettyImages; Frazer Harrison/Staff/GettyImages; Matt Winkelmeyer/Staff/GettyImages; Angela Weiss/Contributor/GettyImages; Emma McIntyre/Staff/GettyImages; Tim P. Whitby/Stringer/GettyImages; Installation view: PÒTOPRENS: The Urban Artists of Port-au-Prince. Curated by Leah Gordon and Edouard Duval-Carrié. Pioneer Works, New York, September 7 – November 11, 2018. © Dan Bradica; Noam Galai/Stringer/GettyImages; Astrid Stawiarz/Contributor/GettyImages; 2018 Bloomberg Finance LP; Betaworks; C Flanigan/Contributor/GettyImages; Michael Stewart/Contributor/GettyImages; Jeff Spicer/Stringer/GettyImages; Mike Marsland/Contributor/GettyImages; Christian Vierig/Contributor/GettyImages
