Digger Dug

Ben Kinmont, "The Digger Dug", 2004-present.

The archive proposes to examine the difference between helping others in the context of an artistic project and in the context of social work in order to question authorship. The first part of Digger Dug made in 2004 was reactivated during the Kadist exhibition, for instance as an exchange with an anthropologist concerning ethics in projects that are both artistic and social. Thus the archive contained a new text and a series of photographs, videos and notes made during the exhibition. Considering the current program of the foundation that links philanthropy and art, Ben Kinmont's work and particularly the Digger Dug archive appears like a major piece for the collection. This work is simultaneously a theoretical and practical 'toolbox' that can evolve with the program of the foundation. The San Francisco Diggers were a community action group of improvisation actors operating between 1966 and 1968 and mostly based in the district of Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco. Their policies were close to community anarchism mixing claims to liberty with community conscience. They were closely associated and shared members with a guerilla theatre group called San Francisco Mime Troupe. The Diggers proposed a free food service at Golden Gate Park in the Haight-Ashbury district at 4pm everyday generally feeding over 200 people with no other food source. They opened a number of free stores in the Haight-Ashbury district in which any item could be taken or given.