Archive for the ‘activism’ Category
Posted on March 12th, 2007 in activism, collaboration, project news and
The following Testimony was submitted to the Coalition of Inquiry into the State of the Future on March 9, 2007. The Coalition of Inquiry into the State of the Future recently held a Public Hearing to gather facts, information and testimony as part of an investigation into the propagation and circulation of the allegedly misrepresentative language that has appeared in the public and journalistic record. More contextual information will be available soon.
Next Great City: the Manufacturing of Inferiority and the Myth of Progress
With all of the rhetoric being bestowed upon us about Philadelphia as the “next great city,” we might ask simply: what is a “great city”? How do we know when a city is great? What are the terms of greatness? And, more importantly perhaps, who decides what those terms are?
The origin of this “next great city” obsession seems to originate precisely from an October 2005 article by Andrew Nelson in the National Geographic Traveler magazine. Mr. Nelson romps around Philadelphia with urban hipsters and cognoscenti, attending an anniversary gala and a noisy art opening, sampling Philly delicacies and “mixing it up” in a couple of neighborhoods. The “greatness” Nelson seems to be after depends largely on Richard Florida’s creative class formula: cities only thrive when young, hip, often gay, “creative” workers want to live and play there. In Philadelphia, Nelson finds (or is shown)—amid the backdrop of a picturesque historicism—all the right ingredients: grand, gritty old abandoned buildings ripe for redevelopment (plus some techy-looking new architecture), a restaurant “renaissance” with all the hottest fusion cuisines, an “effervescent” art gallery scene, a burgeoning city wifi program, and so many authentic, distinct neighborhoods (152, to be precise). All of these come together in the nouveau goulash that is Florida’s “open city,” a place inviting to “singles, gays, artists and individuals [who have] excitement and a sense of creative energy.” But open for whom? Great for whom? The subtext here is that 1) the citizenry of Philadelphia is somehow deficient and inferior and needs an injection of “creativity,” and 2) the terms of greatness are generated externally, not by the citizens but by a neoliberal conception of “natural” economic and cultural progress as internalized and spewed forth by a journalist reporting for a corporate travel magazine.
This upper-middle class influx of wealth and investment implied by such definitions of “greatness” for Philadelphia disenfranchises the very backbone of our cities: the folks who have managed to stay put throughout the worst of times when cities were not such inspiring places to live. Special care must be taken to insure that our long-time neighbors, who often may not be able to choose whether to stay or to go, are brought along on this “creative” adventure in urban living through such programs as inclusionary zoning, subsidized, mixed-income housing, intensive education and job-training programs, and the like. Without these economically diverse neighbors living side-by-side with us, we face the prospect of the Homogenous City, a deceptively classless mass of cafe lattes, white earbuds, and excessively priced condos.
Participation ad nauseam: 1,001 Easy Steps to a New Disempowered You
Submitted to an exhausting series of often repetitive public forums, the citizens of Philadelphia have been nearly bludgeoned to death with a particular brand of “civic engagement.” The distinct feeling of déjà vu has been reported at these events, followed by a palpable cynicism regarding the effect of these engagement processes as they have been tried before but have not yielded many tangible results. Participants are asked to respond to simplistic narratives in order to tease out their values about a given subject (eg. “your friend is thinking about moving to Philadelphia; what reasons would you give her to do that?”). The conversations are generally framed in such a way as to emphasize the positive and de-emphasize the negative, thus an attempt is made to to minimize conflict and tension, which are to be avoided for fear of derailing the process or demoralizing the participants.
The civic engagement sessions rely on clear hierarchies that mimic traditional models of representative governance. A small group of facilitators, moderators and experts determines the agenda, the questions and the format of the engagement process. Fractured into small working groups, participants respond on cue to specific queries. Their responses are collected, filtered, and then regurgitated as a presentation of the will of the people. The participants do not have access to the raw data, nor do they have any control over the interpretation and subsequent presentation of the data.
The effect of these restrictions on an organic, citizen-driven conversation coupled with the futility of so many of the same event repeated ad nauseam is to further insitutionalize the very negativity which these civic engagement processes are meant to counteract. Citizens are exhorted to join in but the illusive pay-off never seems to come. The prize of political agency is held out, but without giving the public real tools for self-organization and activism they end up leaving more disempowered then before.
Dopey Optimism: “This is the best (insert noun) ever!”
Let the superlatives fly! As was noted before, a dopey optimism pervades and mischaracterizes the inevitable and necessary conflicts that arise in any dialogic public process. Democracy opens up the space of conflict. While pragmatic democracy may ultimately depend upon a majority, its exceptional value resides in its guarantee that dissenting and minority voices will be heard and acknowledged.
The excess of cheerleading and back-patting displayed by the administrators of these civic engagement processes must be seen as necessary in maintaining the illusion of effective participation so as not to discourage the citizenry. Obviously, the key to these projects’ funding and appearance of success lies in the very participation of the public. For anyone paying attention, however, the rosy-colored reports ring false to the point of condescension, as if we, the fragile Philadelphians, might snap at the mere hint of conflict.
Constructive Negativity: the Transformative Nature of Agency
Philadelphia—or Negadelphia, as one newspaper editor has dubbed us—is “addicted to negativity,” and the administrators of our Next Great City have developed a 12-step program to wean us off the sauce. Negativity is the old, corrupt, backward past. Philadelphia’s great future will be built on that distinctly American superstructure of big ideas, optimism and a positive mental attitude. The public is consistently admonished to sublimate its negativity or forever be denied the status of Next Great City.
I would argue, however, that our negativity is to be embraced as it is a fertile field. The seeds of individual critical consciousness are sown in the soils of skepticism, negativity and dissatisfaction. The space of negation is non-compliance, the withholding of consent—after all, it is the threat of withholding our consent that the authors of the Declaration of Independence expressly invoked as our means to resist destructive forms of government. When faced with the incessant onslaught of trespasses (physical and psychic) against us, self-presercvation requires us to first yell “hell no” before we can safely utter “hell yeah.” My privileging of negativity is not meant to suggest we devolve into a reflexive, immobilizing pathology. Rather, a transformation is necessary to harness to constructive power of negativity.
Negativity, as a fundamental component in critical thinking, must be tempered by political agency. It is not enough for the citizenry to function as passive subjects in the focus group of nominal civic engagement forums and roundtables, just as it is never enough to step into a voting booth every couple of years and choose the lesser of so many evils. The citizens of Philadelphia need to be given the tools of grassroots activism: self-organization, effective lobbying, non-violent direct action, and sustained campaigns. Without them, the endless feedback loop of participation hypnotizes the public into political apathy. With these tools as implements of deep, structural change in the life of the city, Philadelphians can determine for themselves from a position of power what the terms of its greatness are and take the necessary steps to realize them, one hard-won victory at a time.
—Director of the Dept. for the Investigation of Meaning, Think Tank that has yet to be named
Update: This text is also posted at Green City Journal
Posted on January 15th, 2007 in activism, collaboration, project news and
Over the past 6 months, a significant portion of my art practice has been concerned with the Think Tank that has yet to be named, which is an interdisciplinary and collaborative project based here in Philadelphia. As a critical praxis, the Think Tank was formed by a small group of us who saw ourselves and our creative practices being implicated in the dilemma of contemporary urban (re)development strategies—that is, gentrification. With the realization that the so-called “artist” is often a hapless, or even willing, tool of the hipster-fication, sanitization, and homogenization of urban space, we had no choice but to critically acknowledge our roles as gentrifiers and subsequently interrogate and challenge this condition.
The Think Tank is comprised of several Departments, each led by a single Director. (I currently serve as the Director of the Dept. for the Investigation of Meaning (DIM) and the Director of the Dept. for the Investigation of Documentary Subjectivity (DIDS).) There can be no Department without a Director, and there can be no Director without a Department. Directors are both autonomous agents and cooperative collaborators. In this respect, the Think Tank has no members, only directors. The declaration of a directorship in a Department amounts to a statement of that individual’s bias and agenda. Nothing is more offensive to the Think Tank than the pretense of neutrality!
To date, the Think Tank’s Publicly Held Private Meetings (PHPM) have made up the bulk of the work the group has done. As the the named suggests, these meetings are held in public places—a street corner, a subway car, etc—and they are private inasmuch as their locations and times are publicized only after the fact. Anyone who happens by a PHPM is welcome to join the conversation. The only prerequisite is that the newcomer assume a directorship of the department of their choice.
For more about the Think Tank’s work, visit thinktank.boxwith.com.
Posted on November 29th, 2006 in activism, of interest, project news and
A version of this text is printed in the November 29, 2006 edition of the The Spirit community newspaper in Fishtown—hence the slightly awkward journalistic tone.
Philadelphia residents have an unprecedented opportunity to work with local civic leaders and urban planning and design professionals to envision a world-class riverfront along the central Delaware River. In mid-October when Mayor Street issued the executive order creating the Central Delaware Advisory Group, a working body of 45 representatives from various communities, non-profits and offices around the city, he challenged Philadelphians to imagine the very best for the riverfront and to think boldly about the character of the riverfront we would like to live on, work on, and enjoy for generations to come. It is with a great sense of duty and honor that I serve as the liaison between the residents of my neighborhood of Fishtown and this advisory group.
Shortly after the mayor’s executive order, the riverfront visioning process quickly began with a series of 3 walks along the Delaware River from South Philly through Penn’s Landing and north beyond Penn Treaty Park into Port Richmond. These well-attended walks and talks were instrumental in reminding us of the rich history of the riverfront as well as revealing the current condition of the land along the river.
The first meeting of the Central Delaware Advisory Group was held in early November in a packed conference room at the offices of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission. With introductions by Janice Woodcock, executive director of the planning commission, and Harris Steinberg and Harris Sokolof of the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Praxis, the year-long visioning and planning process officially began. We talked with each other about the concerns and hopes our neighborhoods have for the riverfront. We recounted memorable experiences from other waterfronts that we have had in Philadelphia and in other cities around the world. We generated an informal list of uses and features we think it will be important to consider in any riverfront plan: things like a vibrant port industry, open spaces, housing, local businesses, and so on.
We learned that the next year would see numerous civic engagement forums and meetings across the city to gather input from Philadelphians on what they desire for the riverfront. Early next year a team of design professionals will be commissioned to work with the public and advisory group to interpret that vision and mold it into a workable plan. Finally, the entire process as well as the design work will be presented to the city in a prominent, public exhibition in September 2007.
Last week, members of the advisory group embarked on a field trip to New York to view firsthand a few of its recent waterfront development projects and to meet with key leaders who have helped guide it. Our task was not to copy New York’s development model or to find specific, pre-packaged solutions, but rather to learn about the many challenges New York has faced, the kinds of questions New Yorkers have asked and the steps they have taken in their planning processes. I believe that we gained significant insight into our own condition in Philadelphia. We have much to learn from New York’s (and other cities’) successes and failures when it comes to waterfront planning and development.
Our tour of New York began on the west side of Manhattan along a narrow strip next to the Hudson River. A generous bike path connecting a series of small-scale public spaces travels the length of the river and is punctuated by several multi-functional parks that have been created on the existing piers. At least 20 years in the making, this stretch of New York’s waterfront demonstrated the intensity and difficulty of any comprehensive planning process but also the potential rewards of fighting for a collective planning vision.
After a look at the high-end development of Battery Park City with its massive residential and commercial buildings, its focus on green building, and integrated public spaces and public art, we ended the day at the City of New York Planning Commission for presentations by 2 lead planners and remarks by Amanda Burden, executive director. We learned about plans currently underway for the East River waterfront and for a major redevelopment scheme on the waterfront in the Greenpoint-Williamsburg sections of Brooklyn. Certain parallels with Philadelphia can be seen in these projects: the largely post-industrial land in Brooklyn adjacent to thriving residential neighborhoods, and the East River waterfront’s struggle with the FDR elevated highway (like our own I-95).
I came away from the New York trip with two pressing concerns:
1) How do we guarantee access to affordable, humane housing when planning for residential development on the riverfront? We saw two different approaches to this question in New York: in Battery Park City no consideration was giving to affordable housing ($6500/month rents for a one bedroom!)—market forces are left unchecked, pushing the cost of housing to levels unmanageable by all but the very wealthy; in Greenpoint-Williamsburg we saw that the city has rezoned the waterfront area and created an incentive program which uses private development capital to fund a percentage of affordable housing. The former is untenable, the latter a first step but not without problems. My neighbors in Fishtown and Port Richmond—most of whom have lived there for generations—are in danger of being displaced by the wave of gentrification that is creeping north of center city in the form of rising housing costs and property taxes.
2) How do we create truly public, democratic space on the riverfront, knowing that we will need to most likely partner with private developers? Quasi-public spaces like shopping malls present the illusion of a public commons but our rights as citizens are incredibly limited in such spaces. If the city enters into development cooperations with the private sector, we must be careful to ensure that our open spaces on the riverfront are truly public, truly accessible to all citizens, and afford our guaranteed rights as citizens.
Moving forward, it is incredibly important that we participate as fully as we can in crafting and expressing our vision for the riverfront. We will need to consider difficult problems and respond with meaningful, complex solutions. How do we guarantee access to affordable, humane housing when planning for residential development on the riverfront? How do we create truly public, democratic space on the riverfront, knowing that we will most likely need to with private developers? How do we plan for a variety of uses on the riverfront which allow for green space and economic growth, new jobs and new recreational uses, new construction and historic preservation?
For too long the voices of everyday Philadelphians have been ignored while a few have made decisions about our city that do not serve the public good. Here is our chance, by order of Mayor Street, to declare what we desire for our city and to hold those who represent us accountable for realizing our vision. In the coming weeks there will be several public meetings around the city where we can express this vision and work with each other to develop a collective plan for the riverfront. Also, all meetings of the Central Delaware Advisory Group are open to the public. For more information about these events and all other news of the process, visit www.planphilly.com.
Update 12/1/06: Also see The People’s Waterfront at Green City Journal.
Posted on August 27th, 2006 in activism, musings, of interest and
We work within, for, around (and perhaps against) institutions almost on a daily basis. Artists, as cultural producers, may be even more beholden to or dependent on institutions for various kinds of support; we spend a great deal of time and energy writing and submitting applications to these institutions for grants, residencies, exhibition and publication opportunities. These institutions, in turn, frame our work, wrap it up in their taxonomical systems, their politics and cultural agendas. In a conversation from 2001 entitled The Folds of the Institution, Greg Sholette, Cesare Pietroiusti, and Brett Bloom rapped about this predicament and the various possible tactics and practices artists employ to work critically within institutions. Pietroiusti says,
I think that a good way to define an “institution” is to outline the fact that most of its efforts go in the direction of a self-confirmation of the institution itself. Therefore its activities will be, to a large extent, a “celebration,” a continuous effort to give an image of success, of richness, of effectiveness, of power. It’s obvious that any critical position will be seen as a menace; and, as I am convinced that the artist’s position is basically a critical one, there will be an inevitable contradiction between the artist and the institution. Having said that, I also think that not all the institutions are the same, nor that all their activities have always the same character. It’s true that the institution can have the “power,” so to say, of accepting and neutralizing even critical positions (making them become “trends” in the art market), but I do think that “institutional critique” is more interesting than neo-expressionist painting or sleek corporate photography, because in any case its content (especially in the beginning) provoke the public to pose questions. And then, when it has become a successful trend, no big drama. I think it just means that time has come, for another critical position to appear.
A few years later, Sholette wrote in an essay for republicart (now transform.eipcp.net):
Finally, in order to describe oneself as both artist and political being, or what Pier Paolo Pasolini termed a “citizen-poet,” one must remain ill at ease with the neo-liberalism of post-cold war institutions, especially those that seem all too willing to embrace a prudent form of political dissent, including the unstated demand that curators be culturally inclusive and socially progressive. Despite this uncertainty, and regardless of one’s divided loyalties, we might now seriously consider re-approaching the idea of critical autonomy that groups such as PAD/D attempted to establish more than twenty years ago. I’m not referring here to the modernist notion of autonomy in which the art object is celebrated as something solely in and for itself, transcending everyday life. Rather, I want to propose re-introducing the concept of a self-validating mode of cultural production and distribution that is situated at least partially outside the confines of the contemporary art matrix as well as global markets. In other words, a self-conscious autonomous activism in which artists produce and distribute an independent political culture that uses institutional structures as resources rather than points of termination.
After surveying the lay of the land here in Philadelphia since returning last October, it’s very apparent that this town is in serious need of some critical autonomy and institutional critique from the artists who live and work here. A few of us are finding each other. If you’re reading this in Philly and it resonates in any way, please make contact.
Posted on May 30th, 2006 in activism, project news and
I’m working (slowly) with several collaborators (artists and non-artists) to develop the Open Fields Project, which is an interpretive investigation and documentation of urban ecologies in Philadelphia. These urban ecologies exist in countless diverse sites and scales across the city: in sidewalk cracks, decayed brick walls, backyards, vacant lots, long-forgotten junk heaps, expressway shoulders, railroad tracks, and post-industrial brownfields. Some of these sites are interstitial spaces, insinuating themselves in between the hardness of the city; others are much larger and constitute cohesive places with distinct identities that approximate rogue parks.
One thing many us working on the project have come to understand is that the more one observes and photographs these leftover spaces and their varied vegetation, the more one sees the quiet complexity of natural ecologies which happen to thrive in seemingly hostile urban environments. The process of close study allows one to pass through layers of perception and understanding: first scan reveals little more than the distinction between man-made and invasive weeds; second scan perhaps leads one to distinguish a prickly weed from a leafy weed; the third scan provides more detail and understanding of the subtleties nature achieves even in “limited” environments; and so on.
I believe we all also agree that it’s very important to this project that we are non-specialists embarking on a rather “scientific” course of botanical or ecological “study.” We hope to arrive at unconventional methods and systems of classification that maybe begin to challenge received notions of science and the scientific method. Specifically, I think of Thomas Kuhn’s work regarding paradigm shifts in discussing scientific revolutions: the idea that science becomes ensconced in normalized methods and worldviews of which anyone working within a specific paradigm is unaware and therefore unable to see beyond. I don’t mean to claim that our project is pushing us into a new paradigm! But the implications of engaging in a pseudo-scientific investigation, being non-scientists, are that we may work to expand a given paradigm and (who knows) find ourselves in uncharted territory.
What particularly interests me about these thriving urban ecologies we are discovering is how they relate inversely to the entropy of man-made urban environments. Walls crumble, sidewalks crack, buildings fall down–and in this loss, this slowing down of man’s progress, nature asserts itself with much resilience and vigilance. Mankind must work so hard to stay the onslaught of nature! Ours is a technological history; that is, a history of subjugating nature to our needs and desires. And I think for anyone who takes the millennial view, this is a reassuring comfort: that nature, in whatever unfathomable and infinite cycles, will always prevail, will always creep up through the cracks and gaps no matter how we trivial humans attempt to control it and ultimately destroy it. Nature is dead! Long live nature!
View some preliminary work on the Open Fields Project here.
