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/futures apr 19 '17
My favorite part of Philadelphia Assembled is the wide range of interesting people I meet and places I visit in the process of making things happen. This month, I had the privilege of spending time at Traction Company, an art studio, mechanic workshop, and all-around mad wizarding collective located in West Philly.

Their space says it all. Piled high with the detritus of past projects, a well-lit wood and metal shop to one side, and tin siding in the corner going up three stories - three separate offices, questionably to code.

Anyone who knows me knows my aesthetic is decidedly post-apocalyptic. Traction Company's warehouse space evokes a dystopian apartment complex made of haphazardly stacked sea boxes and junk perpetually thrown somewhere out of the way to make room for some or other project powered by in-the-moment enthusiasm, all hands on deck, to grasp a vision in its moment and materialize it before it flits away... this warehouse space feels like home.

In the post-America, decolonized good future of indigenous-governed, block-based anarcho-communalism and food forests on every vacant lot, and princess trees busting through the high windows of banks and real estate offices that the revolutionaries' bricks couldn't reach... this warehouse will remain standing strong, its resident wizards still overworked with fascinating projects, still cracking jokes about Mad Max and the end of the world which is the beginning.

Happy spring, everyone! Happy beginnings! Every seasons contains elements of future, whether it's the timeless languor of summer, the awareness of death that comes with autumn, or the hope that sustains hearth fires through winter. But the new shoots of green from the spring hold a special wonder for this dystopian author's heart. Gardenpunk! There's so much possibility - for the bus, for PHLA, and for our collective future - infusing the scrapyards and gallery halls where our visions roam. Entire worlds rest on the tips of our tongues, and we begin.