Caroline Woolard

Caroline Woolard (born 1984) is an American artist and organizer, whose work explores intersections between art and the solidarity economy. She primarily works collaboratively and collectively and was a founding member of Trade School, OurGoods, BFAMFAPhD and the New York City Real Estate Investment Cooperative. Woolard previously worked as an Assistant Professor of Sculpture at the University of Hartford and a mentor at the School of Visual Arts. She is now working for Open Collective and Open Collective Foundation.

Early life and education Woolard was born in Providence, Rhode Island.

Career and work Woolard's work explores solidarity economics, collaboration, barter, labor, and other forms of monetary and non-monetary exchange. She makes sculptural objects that facilitate communication and also co-creates systems of sharing and exchange. Woolard says that she became involved with social practice art not because she was against commercial or institutional art, but instead because she believes the art world is too isolated. Woolard hopes to promote interdependence between artists. In addition to these economic concerns, Woolard and the other collaborators highlight problems of ethnic, racial and gender diversity in the art world.

The New York City Real Estate Investment Cooperative (founded 2015 with lawyer/organizer Paula Segal and others) aims to collectively buy and maintain permanently affordable space in New York for civic, cultural, and cooperative use.

Other works of art that Woolard has created are public seating, urban campsites and swings for subways. In 2009, Woolard curated a "newspaper exhibition" which highlighted the many economic issues facing workers in the arts. Woolard's Exchange Café was presented at the Museum of Modern Art as part of the Department of Education’s Artists Experiment initiative (2013).

Awards Arts and Social Justice Fellow, Judson Church, New York (2015) Woolard's work has been supported by a fellowship at Eyebeam, residencies at the Queens Museum, MacDowell Colony, Watermill, and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation's NYC Cultural Innovation Fund.