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Kudos to our friends at JOAAP, who have issued the following statement via their website:
ON STRIKE
This Website Is Closed Today
Read Online Another Day
In Solidarity with the Occupation Movements
occupyca.wordpress.com
www.occupyeverything.com-editors JOAAP.org
We’re very much looking forward to reading the digital parts of Issue #7 when you’re back online.
City Life/Vida Urbana and Greater Four Corners Association have teamed up with Groundswell Journal contributors John Hulsey, Ilaria Minio Paluello and other members of the community, to recapture a group of foreclosed houses in the Four Corners part of Dorchester, a neighborhood of Boston. The intervention begins this Saturday (March 13th, 2010) at 5:00PM, at 21 Bullard Street in Dorchester.
72 Hours, an audiovisual intervention comprised of a series of video projections evoking the personal histories of neighborhood residents, will be seen through the building’s windows, and one unit will be opened to the public for a walk-through sound installation that evokes lives of former owners.
A still from 72 Hours
From the artists’ description:
Walking through an empty foreclosed unit in the building, visitors will encounter sounds of a family in its daily life cycle, relayed by hidden speakers. In the kitchen, people will be heard washing dishes and discussing the day’s events. Upstairs in the bedroom, a father reads his children a story before going to bed. As visitors explore the vacant rooms, they become animated by the sounds of former residents.
The houses, clustered together in the space of a city block, are owned by Deutsche Bank and other international banks. During the Block Rebellion, demands will be made to immediately cease all no-fault post-foreclosure evictions and begin negotiations to sell back the vacant units at real value.
John Hulsey’s portfolio site has more on 72 Hours. Keep up with this and other actions at the City Life/Vida Urbana website.
The Urbano Project and Artists in Context lend a hand to Mel Chin’s collaborative art piece, Fundred, this weekend, as the project celebrates its Boston kick-off. Fundred is an advocacy strategy to garner $300m in federal funding for lead decontamination efforts in New Orleans. Participants draw interpretations of U.S. $100 bills, and after 3,000,000 have been collected, they will be delivered to Congress in a vegetable oil-powered armored car, along with the request that the fake bills be exchanged for real funds.
A hand-drwan Fundred from Fort Wayne, IN
The city of Boston has pledged to raise fifteen thousand Fundreds. Participants needn’t wait for the Fundreds to come to town, as an online template will help you get involved now.
Mel Chin explains the project in his own words in the video below, from Art21.
Somerville’s speculative history/community art project by artist Tim Devin (previously seen on Groundswell here) has launched, offering a rich vision of the next 90 years, from fleets of mobile libraries to population influx due to the flooded streets of neighboring Boston. Grab a free PDF of the book, or browse the full timeline here.
We’re frequently involved in conversations about what comprises an intervention, and what makes interventions effective. The Urban Wilderness Action Center (UWAC) is expanding that line of inquiry further, asking: “What is it in which we’re intervening?”
UWAC is an Eyebeam family project, initiated by alum Jon Cohrs and in collaboration with Eyebeam Student Residents and artist Kai-Oi Jay Yung. It’s a guerrilla gardening effort, combined with a discursive online platform that seeks out the ground beyond the more common manifestations of nonhuman life in urban environments. Beyond those parks, urban farms, and the ivy that grows in abandoned lots, what is urban wilderness?
If you have an answer, submit it to UWAC here.
Some respondents will have the opportunity to present their ideas, selected by UWAC, at the international Electrosmog festival this March.
Via Eyebeam
