BARDER, A PEER-TO-PEER MATERIAL EXCHANGE PLATFORM FOR THE ARTS  

POST unused items you would like to sell, trade, lend, or give away.

SOURCE items you need from the pool of posted items.

And in doing so, reduce waste, recover valuable space, lower operating costs, foster industry connections, and invest in a circular economy. You can think of Barder as a collective inventory of materials shared across all users – an industry-specific commons.

PRESS & MEDIA

Neue Nationalgalerie: Neue Nationalgalerie hosted a constituting gathering of GCC (Gallery Climate Coalition) Berlin, 06.09.2023

Artsy: How Galleries Are Responding to the Effects of Climate Change, Ayanna Dozier, 04.20.2023

Hauser & Wirth: New Exhibition Climate Impact Report, 02.23.2023

Untitled Art Fair: A Sustainable Shift: How Art Fairs and Exhibitors are Adopting Climate-Conscious Practices, Annabel Keenan, 10.21.2022

The Art Newspaper: Key art world players pledged to go green—but who is sticking to their promises?, Louisa Buck, 10.12.2022

Queen’s: Reducing Waste to Landfill with a New Complimentary Shuttle Service, 09.09.2022

Cultbytes: Artists Discuss Sustainability and Eco-Activism at MOCA Los Angeles, Adrianna Ramsey, 09.07.2022

Getty Museum: Exhibition Making, Sustainability, and Climate Justice, 07.13.2022

Hauser & Wirth: Hosting ‘Sustainability In Action’ conference this summer in Somerset, 06.06.2022

In Transit, the ARTA Blog: Sustainable Company Spotlight: Barder, ARTA, 03.29.2022

Widewalls: New Website Concerned With Art Industry’s Role In the Climate Crisis Launches, 03.10.2022

The Art Newspaper: New resource-sharing website seeks to cut art industry waste and give new life to reusable materials, Annabel Keenan, 03.01.2022

Gallery Climate Coalition: Decarbonisation Action Plan V.1, 11.01.2021

ArtBo & ICA Miami, Panel: Climate Responsibility in the Arts, moderated by Alex Gartenfeld, 10.02.2021

Gallery Climate Coalition: Effective Actions V.2, 09.01.2021

Ursula, Hauser & Wirth: The Art of Conservation, Iwan Wirth and Haley Mellin talk with Tania Bryer about sustainability in the art world, 03.06.2021

NYU Steinhardt, Panel: Impact of Climate Change on the Art Market, Visual Arts Administration Colloquium, moderated by Lauren Hallilej, 02.19.2021

The Art Newspaper: Can Biden's inauguration galvanise the US art world into finally taking action against climate change?, Tess Tackara, 01.22.2021

Cultbytes: Leaders of Climate Change Awareness in the Institutional Art World, Annabel Keenan, 01.21.2021

A COLLECTIVE PROBLEM WITH A COLLECTIVE SOLUTION

We operate in a global network of objects and personnel in perpetual, carbon-emitting motion. Current practice across disciplines maintains the use of materials that are harmful to the environment. Such materials are expensive and often end up in storage areas after initial use. Accumulating such items raises operating costs. Likewise, sending them to landfills is expensive and wasteful as the same objects are duplicated and sold ad infinitum for temporary use.

As we witness the effects of climate change with increasing clarity, we feel a new sense of urgency to change common practices, keep operating costs low, and limit waste. Sharing across organizations, access to vendors previously reserved for higher end clients, creative production without waste – these new realities demand a new infrastructure surrounding sourcing and production.

Instead of duplication and destruction, we propose a new infrastructure rooted in a network designed to disrupt such cycles and investment in a more circular economy. We hope BARDER can act as your partner while we as a cultural community reinvigorate our attention to the fragility of our shared environment.

MUSEOCYCLE

MuseoCycle is BARDER’s first active members CIRCLE. MuseoCycle members can post items to the private and moderated MuseoCycle network and/or to Barder’s public network, which is available to all Barder members.

Registrations to this Circle are manually vetted to ensure relevance to institutional work, whether you represent a museum, company, or personnel.

If you wish to post to the Museo Cycle network, please select the MuseoCycle Circle in the dropdown menu in the POST item form (MY POSTS > POST Item). This will limit the view of your posting to the moderated Circle of MuseoCycle members only. MuseoCycle members can view all posted items while general Barder members only have access to public postings. While we encourage all posts to go to the public Barder network, posts to the MuseoCycle Circle provide an added level of security when that feels right.

BARDER SHUTTLE

Barder Shuttle is complimentary collection and delivery service for items sourced through Barder. The service is currently being piloted within Central London (Zones 1-3) with Queen’s Fine Art with support from Gallery Climate Coalition.

Click HERE for more info or to request a shuttle for an item sourced from Barder.

We hope to be able to expand coverage to other areas soon. If you are a shipper in another Barder hub city interested in supporting a local shuttle, be in touch!

SUPPORT BARDER

We are committed to ensure BARDER remains accessible to all users. Anyone anywhere with an internet connection is welcome to join in this digital commons. But like all enterprises, there are people, labor, and financial investment behind it.

All donations made to BARDER are tax-deductible. BARDER is fiscally sponsored by FRACTURED ATLAS, a non-profit that provides business tools for artists.

Please click on the link below to make an online donation today. If you would like to make a donation by check, wire, or another method of payment please email info@barder.art.

MAKE A DONATION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

BARDER gratefully acknowledges ongoing support from the following organizations.

  • You can see available listings in the SOURCE tab. Use the search bar to filter results by keyword, category, or location. For additional filter options, use Advanced Source. You can source items on a map view under Map Source.

    Once you find the items that fit your criteria, you can click DETAILS to view complete information about the item and the message portal. Sending a message will send an email to both parties with relevant contact information and a link to the item.

    Transactions are peer-to-peer and fully the responsibility of the two parties.

  • Create an account under MY POSTS and click POST Item.

    By filling out a simple form of item descriptors, you can generate an organized item inventory and make that information available for others to search through.

    When posting from your phone, you can use the phone camera to take and upload that photo on the spot.

    You can freely sort and update your inventory with in-line editing or through the DETAILS page. Items marked “unavailable” or “claimed” will no longer appear in searches.

    Please fill out as much relevant information as you think is necessary for someone to be interested in an item beyond the required forms. You can ignore any form boxes that do not apply to your item. Keep your posts updated if they are no longer available, or set an automatic expiration date.

    For bulk item uploads from a .csv list please email support@barder.art.

  • Using BARDER is free.

    You can search for items in SOURCE without an account, however, in order to contact the item holder through the message portal, you will need to register an account.

    To POST your own items you will need to register an account.

  • email: info@barder.art

    instagram: @barder.art

    BARDER was created and is maintained by Jae Cho and Laura Lupton, two New York City gallery workers who saw a collective problem and the potential for a collective solution.

  • Please contact us at info@barder.art for technical support or feedback.

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