The Lumpen Times

A deep archive of the secret histories of Chicago’s countercultural milieus over 30 years of community and artistic engagement.Way back in 1991, a freely-circulated zine called The Lumpen Times was
born in Champaign, Illinois. The creators would go on to relaunch it in
Chicago in 1993. Over time, the underground magazine would lead to
building a Community of the Future.
Through the certainty of chance, collective engagement, casual encounters, and accidental actions, The Lumpen Times
became the hub for a series of cultural platforms spawning hundreds of
projects, spaces, happenings, exhibitions, and initiatives. Some were
short-lived, but each project fueled a new one in its wake.
As
an example, they started a record label, which spawned
other publications. Other projects include engaging in dot-communism,
opening community art spaces, hosting international art and activism
festivals, and producing thousands of exhibitions and events. They also
built an FM radio station, opened a bar, restaurants, launched a
brewery, built another beverage company, created an artists’ retail
shop, and started community kitchens. This range of passions has become
an interconnected and deeply inclusive set of ventures now called The
Buddy System.
The Lumpen Times: 30+ Years of Radical Media and Building Communities of the Future
shares stories from a few dozen of the thousands of Lumpen
collaborators over the years. It contains a visual survey of the printed
matter they produced over the past three decades, illustrating the
evolution of the xeroxed-and-stapled zine into an internationally
recognized cultural periodical.  
The
book is also a catalog of strategies, highlighting dozens of “case
studies” demonstrating how artists, activists, educators, and creative
entrepreneurs of all stripes have built community and culture in their
beloved city of Chicago via the printed word, physical spaces, and over
the airwaves and digital networks. Each study includes the reason it
started, examples of its production, and the reasons it failed, mutated,
or continues to this day.