Walk around an American city’s busy streets and you’ll find lots of public parking spots for private vehicles, but no public spaces truly dedicated to fostering community. In our society streets are not destinations but places to get through while speeding by encased in hard metal vehicles. For Michael Rakowitz’s P (lot): Proposition I the…
Vietnamese Folk Stories
Jen Hannings doesn’t want to create a world of consensus or a singular global community but rather a multiplicity of diverse communities that exist in a shared global sphere. She builds off and perpetuates cultural differences, a crucial element of democracy. Through Vietnamese Folk Stories, Jen Hannings doesn’t try to build cultural connections through commonality…
Occupy Wallstreet
The mass number of posters, signs, demands, pleas, anger, etc., that arose during Occupy Wallstreet on September 17th, 2011 revealed how this movement didn’t have a singular goal but rather was a multiplicity of diverse voices in the conversation. Zuccotti Park in New York, NY was the primary location where these voices rose up to counter…
#metoo
Fall of 2017 Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. was flooded with #metoo. This #metoo takeover of social media was spurred on by an effort to counter sexual assault and sexual abuse within society. To show support and counter the norms of sexual abuse people began simply posting #metoo or included #metoo in their posts. This use…
Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.)
Taking and eating a piece of candy from a pile of candy in the corner of the museum gallery doesn’t seem like a big deal until you realize the complicated systems of power and oppression you are metaphorically taking part in. Felix Gonzalez-Torres confronts the participant by creating a situation where one must choose to partake…
Freedom Rides
Not content with simply advocating for civil rights locally, these civil rights activists of mixed race got on a bus and drove it to the South to actively protest seating segregation under the Jim Crow laws. Freedom rides were the name of these trips that not only broke and confronted societal standards in the South…
The New England Holocaust Memorial
Erected in 1995 in one of the main public spaces in Boston, The New England Holocaust Memorial is comprised of six glass towers with engravings that represent the six million Jews that were killed in the Holocaust. The memorial can be accessed by the public at any time as it sits on a busy walkway…
The Most Important Meal of the Day
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, right? Yes, by health standards, however, no to people who can not afford three meals a day. Not to say that for some it isn’t their prioritized meal, but as the Black Panther Party discovered in 1969, it was not for many African American school children….
Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Washing, Tracks, Maintenance: Outside, 1973
The upkeep of a high traffic space is important, however it is often unrecognized. Part of the reason for this is that most of the cleaning that takes place in these places happens after hours. People are not directly faced with the image of someone mopping floors or cleaning toilets. The artist, Mierle Laderman Ukeles…
Food & Conversation
Go to New York City today, and expect to hear people complaining about food prices. To eat at a place that has an inherent social atmosphere and doesn’t hastily push you out door is not cheap. In 1971 a group of artists opened a restaurant in SoHo, NYC called FOOD. The concept for the space…
