Justseeds Artists' Cooperative is a worker-owned cooperative of 30 North American artists, founded in 1998.[1] Justseeds members primarily produce handmade prints and publications, which are distributed through their website and at events related to social and environmental movements.[2] Members also work individually as graphic designers for and within a broad swath of social and environmental activist causes in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. As a collective body, Justseeds has produced several gallery exhibitions of both print work and collaborative sculptural installation.
Justseeds was founded in 1998 by Josh MacPhee as an internet-based store and distribution platform for graphics produced by MacPhee and his associates.[3] Following the 2006 collapse of Clamor magazine, which was handling Justseeds' mail-order distribution, MacPhee organized several artists who he was already working with into a cooperative entity that could expand to include other artists with equal stakes in the new project. Originally launched as Justseeds/Visual Resistance Collective in 2007, the name was later shortened to Justseeds Artists' Cooperative.
Justseeds ran a distribution center, consisting of an online store and internal archive, from the basement of a private home in Portland, Oregon, from 2007 until 2010. In May 2010, operations were moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Justseeds is a worker-owned, cooperatively structured business entity. The organization's internal structure is focused on consensus decision making. Although the business entity is registered in the state of Pennsylvania, where the shipping office for the internet store is located, Justseeds members are spread across North America. Inter-cooperative communication takes place primarily online, and mission-oriented discussions and project generation occur at occasional large group gatherings.
Justseeds is a collective organization of graphic printmakers, but individual members also work independently as educators, writers, sculptors, designers, and in puppet theater,[4] and have also published books, fanzines, and other graphic works which are informally included within the Justseeds rubric, including the journal Signal (Dunn, Macphee, PM Press) and the Celebrate People’s History Book (MacPhee, Feminist Press 2010). Firebrands: Portraits from the Americas (Microcosm Publishing, 2010) was their first collective publishing project.
As of March 2020, the members of Justseeds are: Favianna Rodriguez, Josh MacPhee, Meredith Stern, Melanie Cervantes, Jesus Barraza, Dylan Miner, Nicolas Lampert, Jess X. Snow, Mary Tremonte, Thea Gahr, Roger Peet, Alec "Icky" Dunn, Pete Yahnke Railand, Shaun Slifer, Bec Young, Chris Stain, Colin Matthes, Molly Fair, Fernando Mati, Jesse Purcell, Chip Thomas, Kevin Caplicki, Kristine Virsis, Lesly Geovanni Mendoza, Mazatl, Sanya Hyand, Paul Kjelland, Aaron Hughes, and Erik Ruin.[1]
Justseeds has collectively produced several print portfolios and collaborative art installations which differ from the individual members’ projects in that they are considered productions of Justseeds as a collective entity. In the case of the print portfolios, Justseeds regularly works with other outside, affiliated artists.