Refuse To Live Vicariously – Please Help Support NIMBY

NIMBY (the DIY art space that was recently shut down following a small fire) has secured a new location, but $22,000 $14,700 $12,900 is still needed for the deposit. The deposit is due by December 15th, and NIMBY is in urgent need of additional donations. Please consider giving them your support.

NIMBY NEEDS MONEY FOR DEPOSIT ON NEW LOCATION THIS WEEK!!

NIMBY – the Bay Areas largest DIY/ Industrial Art Space was shut down by a city inspection following a small fire. Community support has poured in and new location secured. NIMBY will move December 15th – but $22,000 is still needed for the deposit.

What is NIMBY?

For the past five years NIMBY has been a space where artists, craftsmen and tinkerers can create the new, the impossible, and the never seen before. Many of the pieces at Burning Man, Coachella, the Maker Fair and The Crucible’s Fire Arts Festival are created and stored at NIMBY.

NIMBY not only offers space to create, but supports its artists with resources, assistance in sourcing re-purposed material, as well as logistical and technical guidance. Snook, the founder of NIMBY, is known in the community as the guy to call when technical or logistical issues seem insurmountable. This supportive culture shared by all members of the NIMBY community is at the root of the amazing art that emerges from its doors.

NIMBY has been the birthplace of Dance Dance Immolation, the Steam Punk Tree House, Colossus, The Kinetic SteamWorks steam ship, Spike’s Vampire Bar and so much more. NIMBY has hosted such epic events as Lost Vegas, Eat Drink and Be Mary, Fight Night, Thunderdome, and the NIMBY Circus. At the new NIMBY we are working to create a 30,000 square foot event/ gallery space with permanent installations of Michael Christian’s IT, The Steam Punk Tree House, Colossus and the Big Rig Jig.

The City of Oakland has rolled out the red carpet to help. Trucking, architectural drawings, contractors, and materials are all lined-up to move in and build-out the new space. We also have 5 years of heart, gumption and making it work behind us – but we need your support of a donation.

Be a part of keeping NIMBY alive – DONATE.

HOW YOU CAN HELP:

PayPal: NIMBYLLC@yahoo.com
website: nimbyspace.org
Contact Rachael at rachael@nimbyspace.org for info on tax-deductible or in-kind donations.

WHY DONATE?

NIMBY has served the community as Bay Areas largest DIY/ Industrial Art Space. Most Bay Area artists who create large-scale work depend on NIMBY for support.

Created at NIMBY:

Colossus – http://zacharycoffin.com/colossus/
Steam Punk Tree House – http://www.steamtreehouse.com/
Kinetic Steam Works – http://www.kineticsteamworks.org/
Dance Dance Immolation – http://www.interpretivearson.com/projects/ddi/
Cleavage in Space – http://images.burningman.com/index.cgi?image=12425
Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea – http://www.switchbacksea.org/

And the current home of:

Flaming Lotus Girls Serpent Mother – http://www.flaminglotus.com/serpent_mother/Serpent_image_gallery/
Michael Christians IT – http://www.michaelchristian.com/

Check out more of our photos:
http://www.nimbyspace.org/?page_id=46

And artists:
http://www.nimbyspace.org/?page_id=32NIMBY

For a more poetic account of the role NIMBY plays in the Bay Area arts community, here is a comment from noted showman (and former Mayoral Candidate) “Chicken” John Rinaldi:

The space that I use from time to time to build got closed. From [their email] you would think boy scouts ran the place or something. Well let me tell you that NIMBY has always been dirty rotten. Dangerous. Stupid. Filthy. Drunk. Stacked. Sharp edges. Broken truck. Shit everywhere. Flat tire. Tweeker going through the dumpster. Dog bite. Cute girl fucking nuts. Weighs too much. Mountain of bullshit. Can’t find a tape measure. Young  dudes sunglasses at night. Toilet from hell. Motorcycle. Cheap rent. Don’t block the fucking driveway. On fire. Closed down.

Wow.

It’s an art space run by a catastrophe, God bless it. We need things like this. We need things like this more than we need a sushi lunch. NIMBY and places like it are part of the infrastructure of our city of Art and Innovation. Without it and other places like it, possibility gives way to consumer culture. The very reason we have the ability to manufacture the culture that we do (and we do), is that people have stepped up and made dirty rotten art spaces.

Give NIMBY $43 today. There are thousands of people on this list. Give NIMBY some money, then go there and make a fucking mess someday. Park in the driveway. Step in dogshit. Or make some art. Help a project. Do a thing. Invest. Win. Gloat.

Or do nothing and complain that our city used to be cooler.

Our city is going to get better because of people who believe, invest and activate. Economic downturn my entire ass. Gavin will cut the budget for arts first to make up for all the cushy do-nothing jobs that he gives people who help him politically… so the “underground” is going to be where all the art is in the next 3 years. Our next mayor will run on an art platform and on and on… but for now, the arts are going to need some energy. And it’s NOT going to come from the DeYoung fuckers who control the SF Art Commission. It’s going to come from me and it’s going to come from you. And it’s going to come now or the window is going to close and we are going to lose more artists and more innovators and we are going to wonder what the fuck we are still doing here.

Get involved. Please be generous with your time or resources with places like NIMBY and other spaces and support cool happenings and people. And they will be supporting you.

Think of it as a bailout, if you’d like… just wind it up, and watch it go.

Also worth reading is Cecily Burt’s recent article for the Oakland Tribune, entitled “Fire arts devotees getting bigger Oakland warehouse“.

More Coverage:

– Inside Bay Area

– Make

See Previously: Save NIMBY! Help The DIY Art Space Relocate After Their Fire

image via Nimbyspace
photo by Scott Beale
photo by Kristen Ankiewicz
photo by Eddie Codel