Trade School

The BackgroundThe Trade School network is a collective of self-organised, barter-for-knowledge schools across the world. Trade School began in January of 2009 as an experiment by a group of New York City artists who built OurGoods (Caroline Woolard, Rich Watts, and Louise Ma). They received an opportunity to work with a storefront, and came up with barter for knowledge. Over the course of 35 days, more than 800 people participated in 76 single session classes. Classes ranged from scrabble strategy to composting, from grant writing to ghost hunting. In exchange for instruction, teachers received running shoes to mixed CDs to flowers. In 2012, Or Zubalsky joined the team and built an open-source web platform to share with interested local organisers. Today, a collective of local Trade School organisers in different cities across the world organise the project.