What is the Blacklidge Community Collective (BCC)?

The BCC is a space for experiments in playful autonomy, resilience, and sharing. We are home to an ever-developing set of projects and initiatives. These projects share the aim of cultivating  the practical skills, strategies, and creative thinking necessary for not only surviving the ongoing crises, but re-imagining and asserting what it means to live dignified lives within them. We host events, workshops, skillshares, and meeting space, as well as long term projects. We strive for a space where anyone can build their own life and vision, through their own capacities and self determination. Ultimately, the space is for people to find each other and get organized in the face of an uncertain future.

How

Through the guiding principles of consent, collaboration, harm reduction, and autonomy we hope to build our capacities to support individual and collective needs for health, stability, comfort, joy and knowledge. We hope to foster this collectivity in every encounter, through connecting and expanding networks of care, support and resources outside of our space, linking up with other projects new and old. We also share a vision of bringing people together through art, music, creativity and workshops and desire to make these things accessible, fun, and welcoming. Through all this we hope to put as much distance between us and the police, politicians and the economy as possible, considering they are fundamentally obstacles to freedom and creativity, not defenders of it. We desire a space that is appealing and exciting for people of many backgrounds and experiences; and we hope to foster relationships here that can overcome intolerance, domination, and bigotry in all its forms. To this end we also wish to resolve conflicts and ultimately transform our ways of relating to each other through talking, living, and sharing together, even when that is messy and hard, or even when we don’t all like each other all the time.

Why

The never-ending accumulation of scandal, outrage, hot takes, and criticism of the situation we find ourselves in only serves to numb us and strip us of our agency. This process leaves us feeling that there is nothing to be done, that we must keep our heads down, hold on tight to those we love, and keep scrolling. We refuse to accept this condition. It is past time to get organized. Starting from our own skills, needs, and desires, we must build our capacities together and link up with others attempting to do the same. Our vision of autonomy can not be a pursuit of self-sufficiency, but must come precisely from within our interdependence with each other, the Earth and all the life-forms with whom we share it. We don’t just have to choose between the virtual realities of Silicon Valley or the surveilled castle walls of the Nationalists. Everywhere, we can see others getting organized to outlive this world and give birth to many new ones. We aspire to be among them.

There are several semi-autonomous projects housed at the BCC.

Contact any of them directly or come by during their work hours to get involved! We also host weekly potlucks every Tuesday at 7:30pm.

The BCC Library

The BCC Library is a lending library housed in the west wing of the BCC. Our catalog can be viewed online and we have library hours every Thursday from 3-7PM and Saturday 12-4pm.

We ask that new members who can afford to please consider a $3 monthly subscription or a one-time donation to support the space. No one will be denied access to the library for lack of funds. This donation will help us maintain subscriptions to independent publishers, will help secure requested titles and keep our circulation current, and will help cover cost of materials for library cards and printing materials.

To view our online catalog, go to https://librarika.com/users/register and then once you log in to your account request access to https://bcclibrary.librarika.com. If you don’t see a title that you think would fit well with our catalog, please send a request to info@bcctucson.org. All members will receive a library card upon their first check out.

Perilous Chronicle

Perilous is a project supported by a network of people—including you—who seek to gather and track information on prison uprisings, riots, protests, strikes, and other disturbances within public and private jails, prisons, and detention centers in the US and Canada. In this process, we rely on crowdsourced information in addition to local news outlets and our own reporting. Since 2010, we have seen a wave of prison rebellion which we believe constitutes a nation-wide social movement (similar to the Occupy movement or the Black Lives Matter movement). Our goal is to track this movement comprehensively. Specifically, we track any disturbance within a jail, prison, or detention center since December of 2010 in the US or Canada that occurs as a result of the agency of multiple incarcerated people acting in concert in response to their confinement or the conditions thereof.

The Jewish Zine Archive

An ongoing archival project for zines created by Jewish artists & writers. Find us on Instagram @jewishzinearchive

Church of Safe Injection Tucson

The Church of Safe Injection Tucson (CoSIT) believes in evidence-based harm reduction strategies such as needle exchanges, overdose prevention centers, and sensible drug policy and education.

• Syringe Services
• Wound Care Services
• Hygiene Items

BCC Community Garden

The BCC is now home to a small garden and green space. We have weekly work days, every Thursday 4pm to Sundown. No experience necessary! Come by and see what its about. Bring your own work gloves if you can, supplies limited.

Word of Mouth Print Space

Word of Mouth Print Space is a developing, community accessible screen printing studio with weekly open hours and monthly workshops. This project is open to all skill levels including people with no experience who are interested in learning, seasoned screen printers, and everything in between. Have a printing project that you want to start? Email WORDOFMOUTHPRINTSPACE@GMAIL.COM to let us know that you’re planning to stop by Saturdays 12-4 pm open hours, and we can talk more about how the print space can support the project you have in mind. WOMPS is still a Work-in-Progress with broader dreams of expanding to other print mediums – please reach out if you would like to get involved or help us create those expanded elements of the print studio.

Tucson Mesh

Tucson Mesh is a community-controlled wireless internet network that offers sliding-scale and low-cost internet access. The network is designed, spread, and maintained by a collective of its users and volunteers. The ‘supernode’, or primary internet exchange point, will be housed on the BCC rooftop and will help to spread internet to neighbors through rooftop antennas. To find out more, visit their website linked above or follow them on Instagram @tucsonmesh