Camb(l)o(g)dia HQ

We here in the offices of Camb(l)o(g)dia HQ, a division of AEM Industries, have been deeply saddened this week by the sudden death of collaborator, friend, and supporter Ben Schaafsma.

Ben was struck by a car early Thursday morning and died two days later at the age of 26. He was a founding member of InCUBATE and enthusiastic soup fan whose Sunday Soup program and grant was regularly inspiring to my continued work in Cambodia. (Ben and I also had non-Cambodia-centric projects in the works over the last year and a half of our acquaintance, but his support of this work, through grants, advising, and collaborative invitations, was particularly fundamental.)

BEfore coming to Chicago, Ben co-founded a number of other community-based programs, including the online community space G-RAD and the DAAC, a multi-use arts venue. Grand Rapids was his first home, and where he first concentrated his community-building efforts. A move to Chicago for graduate school followed, as did many of his Michigan compatriots. In August he went to New York, and while he seemed a bit hesitant about the move (read his own thoughts on it here), his new coworkers at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts seem to have caught on to Ben's vitality immediately.

I visited him at his new office a few weeks ago, to discuss a panel he'd asked me to come back to New York for. While there, he took me on a tour of his own office, the studios he oversaw, and the galleries EFA manages. It was something of an odd meeting—I was in New York City and had plenty of other places to visit. Ben and I had worked together often before that, but had not spent the kind of one-on-one time that friendship usually entails. And here I was visiting his new workspace as if I had an investment in his future and a knowledge of his past. Perhaps it was simply that all relationships have an awkward moment when you transition from acquaintance to friend, but as I was standing in the gallery while he futzed with an electrical art piece, that moment became palpable.

"I, I just wanted you to see it," he said by way of explanation. By which I realized he meant, "I am going to do something great here, and I want you to have known what it was like before." When he died I had to cancel my trip out to visit someone I'd recently come to think of as a friend. It was just, as InCUBATE cofounder Roman Petruniak said last night of their organization, getting cool.

I was regularly inspired by the range and dedication of Ben's work—In fact more than once I was awed by it. And as he once referred to me as "the busiest woman I know," and regularly, even doggedly, supported my work and the work of my 32 young Cambodian collaborators, I cannot help but feel that may have been mutual. I know I am lucky to have known him, and to have been able to complete New Girl Law with his support, as well as the support of InCUBATE cofounders Roman and Abby Satinsky.

Ben's visitation service will be held on Wednesday, October 29, 2008, 3:00 – 5:00 pm at Cascade Fellowship in Ada, Michigan. His funeral will be held on Thursday, October 30, 2008, 4:00 pm at Cascade Fellowship.