The Club Cultural Matienzo (CCM), initiated in 2008 is a space and a worker-managed cooperative (a hybrid between cooperative and private entrepreneurship) developed by the Matienzo team in the city of Buenos Aires in Argentina. This project was founded by 5 friends Juan Aranovich, Claudio Gorenman, Agustín Jais, Jon Pfennig, and Magalí Singerman who saw the need to promote culture and sport within the community to encourage and support young ones who had the flaming desire to pursue sports. The club serves 3 main purposes for the community:
Firstly, it serves as a venue for arts, community, and community life that hosts a daily program of activities in their 1000 square meters building. These activities consist of music, performance arts, literature, visual arts, cinema, design, education, workshops, an online radio station, a bar, and much more. Secondly, it operates as a collective of creation. Matienzo is a team of 80 members that organize and host events, festivals, exhibitions, and other projects inside and outside Matienzo’s building. Finally, it is a big movement for change, and they view culture as an identity-building process that is capable of generating creative bonds, collective action, and social transformation and they promote a democratic and need/community-based vision of the culture.
Below is a colorful picture of Club Matienzowhich indeed signifies their mission.
The project commenced when a social need was identified and sought to be addressed through innovative art in Buenos Aires. Today, about 80 people co-manage the initiative. Not to even mention the numerous beneficiaries that have benefitted from this project in diverse ways. Between 3,000-3,500 people per week visit the site and it hosts 15 cultural and artistic activities and 12 workshops per week. Private funds (5% of CCM’s annual budget), public funds (5% to 8% of CCM’s annual budget), and (the remaining percentage, 90%) many of the activities developed in the building, such as food, tickets, workshops, renting the spaces and the studio, are all sources of income for the space’s economic sustainability. The project Matienzo is a partnership between private investors and an NGO. Although not every area manager is automatically an owner partner, owners are those who made personal financial contributions during the startup phase and are in positions of authority. Each participant makes a unique contribution. Some of them are paid for their job, but the majority (especially those who produce the materials) work together to complete tasks and are only given a minimal reimbursement for their expenses.
Club Matienzo supports other projects such as the “Abogados Culturales” (the lawyers for the culture, “Yo Reciclo” which is into recycling, “Di Sol” and many others. a member of numerous regional, international, and local networks devoted to culture, including the “MECA-Buenos Aires’ Movement of Culture and Art Spaces”18, a network/platform for cooperation between self-managed and artist-run cultural centers established in 2010 that drafted and promoted the “Ley de centros culturales” (Law on Cultural Centers) legislation.
The Club highlights 3 of the 5 design principles suggested by Foster & Iaione. The Social & Economic pooling element is highly seen and the element of Experimentalism is also visible. The element of Collective governance is reflected also but there is no presence of the government making it a cooperative governance model.
Below is a picture of the summary of the results where 1 signified Weak, 2 signifies Moderate and 3 signifies Strong.
Club Cultural Matienzo” intended to examine a model of shared and collaborative co-creation of the culture, with an emphasis on its birth, governance structure, and sustainability model. We can affirm that a business will be successful if it is founded on local needs, has a positive social influence on the community, helps those who are less fortunate, and offers top-notch cultural material. Regardless of the challenges it is currently facing or may face in the future, it is an innovative and inspiring piece of work. It has provided job opportunities for young people, a source of motivation to pursue dreams, and a space for networking and mentoring.