We re-opened after the pandemic lockdowns relaxed in at the end of 2021 with a generous donation from a donor who previously was able to start a company in community lab spaces and I (having recently acquired work authorization in the USA) decided to take some time off work to experiment with designing and formalizing a way of working in the lab that would let us run as an all-volunteer organization

It's been a big experiment and also a huge learning experience for me in non-profit management and community organizing. I went in with the understanding (borne from "The Revolution Will Not be Funded") that I was seeking to do work that would attempt to catalyze a community around the shared resource of a lab. In my view, if folks didn't see the value in such an operation that it should be flexible to dissolve and try again in another way.

Something that I learned in all this is that there is a whole career's worth of work embedded in articulating for folks what the value of shared lab space could be. A better job needs to be done in proactively reaching out to marginalized communities to help folks understand how low-cost lab access can help nurture opportunities for them and to have those voices represented in the design of programming in community biolab spaces.

I still see the value of community labs as working with folks that are attracted to the lab to build the internal capacity to manage a third space. A space that has the equipment to do bioart, gather proof-of-concept data, explore low-cost/frugal methods, and experience how scientific benchwork is highly related to kitchen work. Being a part of such a space can expand our imagination of what is possible and challenge us to develop new models for using benchwork in service of our communities.