Cooperation Racine has been engaged in deep cooperative study and business planning for a year, and the founding workers/owners are excited to use Gleaning Quilts (2024), the group’s first public collaboration, to deepen the political education and discourse around cooperative economics.

Cooperation Racine drew inspiration from the Freedom Quilting Bee (FQB), a quilting cooperative established in 1966 by a group of Black women in Rehoboth, Alabama. In response to local employers firing residents who registered to vote, FQB members used their artistic practice to meet political and material needs.

Using quilts as an entry point, Cooperation Racine sought to incorporate botanical motifs, specifically focusing on plants that may be overlooked, discarded, or viewed as nuisances and weeds despite having rich ethnobotany histories, medicinal uses, and spiritual ties. Over two dozen tiles provide viewers the opportunity to forage through annuals, perennials, ferns, mosses, and shrubs while learning about key leaders, themes, and events from Black cooperative history.

All proceeds from Gleaning Quilts support Cooperation Racine’s capital campaign for re-energizing 1201 W. 71st St. as a site of inclusive art-making, progressive civic engagement, and meaningful community celebration.

Learn more at CooperationRacine.org/ecosystem and read about our debut at Chicago Reader.