Confidential Seattle Documentary

Our project is ARTIST’S PROOF, a short form documentary which began filming in 2015. We are a group of independent filmmakers, interested and involved in different Seattle arts communities over decades. We’ve come together to document the experience of Equinox Studios as it develops from a working artists’ space, to an artist-owned community in the midst of this city’s economic, racial and social evolution. We began with the hope that our film would spur discussion of a real-life solution to Seattle’s growing problem of disappearing artists and spaces. We saw that the city’s dramatic growth was changing its identity, as the freewheeling creative vanguard that gave the city its reputation for arts and culture was pushed out in favor of office parks, Amazon shipping centers and pot farms. In contrast, we documented what was being built at the same time at Equinox: from one building in a WWII factory to a West Georgetown enclave of buildings and container villages, filled with studio spaces, theaters, small businesses, and over 150 working artists. It also operated as a community space, with cooperative environmental projects, neighborhood programs, and free events like the Georgetown Carnival and the annual Very Open House that attracted thousands; we saw how Equinox had firmly established its place in the Seattle art ecosystem. A $15 million dollar complex, built entirely around art, by artists, and now, for artists – in 2015, founder Sam Farrazaino created an Equinox Studios Social Purpose Corporation and gave away an ownership stake to every artist there; just by paying rent, they became shareholders with a say over the community’s future. The cycle of artists building whole neighborhoods only to be priced out, we saw, was being broken; instead, the work of these artists became the root of their enterprise, and Equinox grew from it. We saw how it could apply to other communities and other businesses. We’ve also seen its challenges. The length of time we’ve been filming and the trust we’ve built with our subjects has given us an unprecedented window into the actual, demanding, daily work of art-making and world-building, and it’s a story we think resonates with the times we’re living.