Jea Alford and Ariana Jacob’s Precarious People’s Party

Jea Alford and Ariana Jacob’s Precarious People’s Party (PPP) connects members of the contingent economy – those who are without secure full-time work – to envision and advocate for economic and political futures where we can all live and love powerfully.

PPP hosts conversations that link people working in various sectors of the “gig” economy, including artists, adjunct faculty, and workers in the “sharing” economy. This platform provides a place for individuals to gather to discuss contingent worker solidarity, experiment with ways to actualize the potential freedom of underemployment and explore the possible paths forward for the future of work and/or a post-work society.

Building on conversations with organizers, artists and contingent workers in fall 2020 as part of their CFAR residency, PPP will launch Think & Feel Tank, on December 12, 2020  to develop a pragmatic and imaginative policy platform by and for precarious people from diverse work settings. As part of a virtual roundtable, participants will be invited to collectively re-imagine possible futures for our global and local economies—moving through discussions of inequitable and exploitative conditions and towards ones that build a foundation for an empowered personhood and solidarity across sectors of the contingent workforce.

Conversations from the Think & Feel Tank will help shape the PPP platform – a set of policy proposals that will be published in customary ways, including as part of CFAR’s Papers on Power in spring 2021, as well as nontraditional ways, such as weaving projects, sign spinning and social media campaigns, to manifest later in the year. Invited Think & Feel Tank participants include Susan Cuffaro, Sean Cumming, Brian Dolber, Hannah Gioia, Anna Gray, Patricia Vasquez Gomez, Cat Hollis, Anna Neighbor, Larissa Petrucci, Emmett Schlenz, and Lise Soskolne.

PPP is the first in a series of projects, Dismantling the House: Programs on Power, curated by Yaelle S. Amir, 2020-21 Curator-in-Residence and made possible by the Ford Family Foundation.

Jea Alford is an interdisciplinary artist playing with themes of class, labor, the role of aesthetics in economy, and the role of economy in the artist’s studio. Growing up in a trailer park in suburban Oregon, she developed a critical eye toward what our economic system values, and she is interested in how art can work to not only subvert, but regrow the existing structures of economy. She creates ephemeral and poetic performative work, objects, and media, co-runs a sustainably-minded clothing cooperative, and has stewarded projects, such as an artist residency run out of her home, that are based in generosity. She is an adjunct instructor in both the Theater and Studio Art departments at Portland State University. Jea is a Fulbright recipient, winner of the Arlene Schnitzer Visual Arts Prize, and recipient of grants from OAC and RACC to support participation in residencies and exhibitions domestically and internationally.

Ariana Jacob makes artwork that uses conversation to explore political and personal interdependence and disconnection. Prior to working as an artist and academic Ariana managed a farmers market, worked in a cabinet shop, co-ran a secret cafe out of her apartment, and fished for salmon commercially. While being an artist and academic Ariana also does union organizing and group facilitation, alongside being a partner, friend, family member and wonderer. Ariana currently teaches in the Social Practice MFA Program at Portland State University and is the Chair of Bargaining for PSUFA Adjunct Faculty Union. Her work has been included in the NW Biennial at the Tacoma Art Museum, Disjecta’s Portland 2012 Biennial, the Open Engagement Conference, the Discourse and Discord Symposium at the Walker Art Center. She has exhibited work and organized events at apexart and Smack Mellon in New York City, Betonsalon in Paris, France, Broken City Lab in Windsor, ON, Canada, PICA’s TBA Festival, The Portland Art Museum, The Department of Safety in Anacortes, WA, Southern Exposure in San Francisco, CA; and in many public places.

Think & Feel Tank Participants Bios

Susan Cuffaro, Gig Workers Collective – Susan Cuffaro is a Founding Member of Gig Workers’ Collective, a grassroots non-profit entity dedicated to organizing for and around gig workers. She organizes to build worker power from the bottom up because she firmly believes that truly transformative worker movements can only manifest with authentic worker leadership. 

Sean Cumming, Unemployed Workers’ Council Portland – Sean Cumming is an out of work writer, musician , and educator. I am co-chair of the Unemployed Workers’ Council Portland.

Brian Dolber, Rideshare Drivers United – Brian Dolber is Assistant Professor of Communication at Cal State San Marcos and an organizer with Rideshare Drivers United. He is the author of Media and Culture in the US Jewish Labor Movement (Palgrave, 2017) and co-editor of the forthcoming volume The Gig Economy:Media and Workers in the Age of Convergence (Routledge, in press). Dr. Dolber received his PhD from University of Illinois where he served as co-president, and in other leadership roles, with the Graduate Employees Organization, AFT/IFT Local 6300.

Hannah Gioia, Food Service Organizer- Hannah Gioia (she/her) is a queer labor organizer with the Portland branch of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The notable campaigns she has been involved with are the Little Big Union (LBU) and the Crush Bar Workers Collective (CBWC). She has recently been laid-off due to the ongoing pandemic and has since turned her shop floor organizing efforts toward community-oriented mutual aid. 

Anna Gray, Artist, Adjunct Union Organizer – Anna Gray and her partner, Ryan Wilson Paulsen, have worked together as one artistic entity for over ten years. They make project-based work that often focuses on the activities of reading and writing, using art as an expanded form of study and a way to transform the often solitary acts of reading and thinking into collective ones. Anna is also an active member of the adjunct faculty union at Portland State University, which is currently in negotiations for a new contract.

Patricia Vasquez Gomez, Artist, Adjunct, Organizer – Patricia Vázquez Gómez works and lives between the ancient Tenochtitlán and the unceded, occupied, stolen and colonized lands of the Chinook, Clackamas, Multnomah and other Indigenous peoples. Her art practice investigates the social functions of art, the intersections between aesthetics, ethics and politics and the expansion of community based art practices. She uses a variety of media to carry out her research: painting, printmaking, video, exhibitions, music and socially engaged art projects. The purpose and methodologies of her work are deeply informed by her experiences working in the immigrant rights and other social justice movements. Patricia’s work can be explored at http://cargocollective.com/patriciavg

Cat Hollis, Artist, Adult Entertainment Organizer – On the prairies of the Midwest, frozen into the shores of Lake Superior, a stripper rose out of the debris of a broken marriage. The founder of HAYMARKET POLE, a multi ethnic, Black, cis-womxn from a small town; Cat found refuge in the anonymity of adult entertainment. Now wielding a decade’s experience advocating for, and building a reputation within, the adult entertainment industry. An accomplished artist and award winning stripper, Cat has been everything from a sex worker, to sailboat deckhand, to a middle school teacher, to a gallery curator, published playwright, and now a labor rights organizer and now an executive director of a nonprofit.

Anna Neighbor, Artist, Adjunct Union Organizer – Anna Neighbor lives and works in Philadelphia, PA. She is an artist, adjunct, and union organizer.

Larissa Petrucci, Graduate Employee Organizer, Labor Researcher- Larissa is PhD Candidate in the Department of Sociology and Research Assistant at the Labor Education & Research Center at the University of Oregon. Her areas of research expertise include low-wage and unpredictable work, high-technology occupations, labor and labor organizing, postfeminism, and gender and organizations. She has been active in her graduate employee union, and is particularly interested in unique or untraditional labor organizing strategies.

Emmett Schlenz, Burgerville Workers Union – Emmett Schlenz (he/him) organizes with the Burgerville Workers Union, the only (to the BVWU’s knowledge anyway) federally recognized fast food union in the United States. He worked at Burgerville for several years before getting laid off at the beginning of the pandemic.

Lise Soskolne, Artist, Organizer with W.A.G.E. (Working Artists and the Greater Economy) – Lise Soskolne is an artist and core organizer of Working Artists and the Greater Economy (W.A.G.E.). A co-founder of W.A.G.E. and its core organizer since 2012, she began working in arts presenting and development at downtown New York City nonprofits in 1998. Venues have included Anthology Film Archives, Artists Space, Diapason Gallery for Sound, Meredith Monk/The House Foundation for the Arts, Participant Inc, and Roulette Intermedium.