Our commons are free, a project by Ben Kinmont

Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture presents Ben Kinmont's Our commons are free - an exhibition portrait of the San Francisco Diggers through their publications.

Radical community actors who emerged within the Haight-Ashbury counterculture of the 1960s, the Diggers utilized mimeographs and offset printing to establish a "free" economy, offering free food, medical care, goods, housing, and information. These publications served to build community, share resources, and empower revolutionary living.

Opening Reception: Saturday, June 21, 3-5pm

On view: June 22 - August 10
Location: The Store House, Building D
Admission: FREE (as the Diggers intended)

The show includes a comprehensive collection of rare Digger publications, facsimiles, ephemera, and photography, plus new film, wall, and assembly projects by Kinmont.

Opening the exhibition is a 40-foot timeline piece illustrating the rich artistic, political, and personal histories exhibited in this project: from the Diggers' beginnings in the San Francisco Mime Troupe and the Hunters Point Uprising through pageants and free spaces in Haight Ashbury to the Angels Of Light Free Theater, including performances by Hibiscus and sets by Martin Wong.

Kinmont's new film, "Saints Paradice", which draws from never-before-seen footage of the Angels made by member and filmmaker Jilala Jet von Jalopy. Kinmont's own Antinomian Press appears in the exhibition as a contemporary publisher sharing the Diggers' print legacy, circulating a free essay about the history of the group that was contributed by the Diggers' archivist Eric Noble.

These free texts can be picked up from a free store in the exhibition space and through special printing events on the street throughout the exhibition's run.

Learn more at fortmason.org