For the week of Thanksgiving I will list some of the things I am deeply grateful for. As per usual, they are all over the map, which is reflective, I believe, of an interesting life rather than a scattered brain. Or so I tell myself.

I’ll start with the folks at Dark Inquiry who are living proof that you can marry arts and politics in ways that matter (one of my own quests). They are models for applied activism, not just for moving something in our heads.

They set out with a project called White Collar Crime Risk Zones. https://whitecollar.thenewinquiry.com 

It took the fact that police departments across the US use software to anticipate hot spots of street crime and turned the concept on its head for us to anticipate where white collar crime might occur. The police software is, of course, guided by algorithms that use biased data sets focussed on poor communities and communities of color. Dark Inquiry reappropriates this algorithm applying it to the community at large. If you click the link above, and allow access to your geographical location, the map will provide white crime targets in red. It is funny, cynical, thought-provoking – and based on the systems art of Hans Haacke, who did something along those lines tracking a particular NYC slumlord in the early 70s. Here is the map that came up when I engaged with the website.

Today’s photographs are of some of the PDX sites above in deep red…

The collective has now turned to a practical, political matter – the fact that multitudes in this country cannot put up bail and so linger in jail before their trials. https://bailproject.org/the-approach/

The new app designed by them and offered as rhetorical software, is called Bail Bloc, conceptual art linked to digital activism.If you sign up to the app, a complicated process is started, all out of your sight, not interfering with what you do on the computer, but using its space for complex computations. Your donation of that computing power earns cryptocurrency that is pooled by the collective, exchanged into real money that is donated to the bail project.

The exact details, about the open source process and the collective, can be found here: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/can-a-social-justice-app-be-art?utm_source=Narratively+email+list&utm_campaign=ccb4f74bd3-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_06_25&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f944cd8d3b-ccb4f74bd3-66322689

Full disclosure: If you are like me it will take some time to overcome a hesitancy to sign up for this app, since I have no clue what powers I really support in this process, what entry holes into my computer I offer. But I love – and am grateful for –  the idea that folks are trying to open-source help for those who need it most. I ask myself what is different for me who constantly answers to kick starter projects or some such? Fear of novel concepts like cryptocurrency or just being digitally vulnerable?

Thoughts to be mulled over while preparing the feast.

Yesterday I mused about museums; today I’m thinking about artists. There is so much written about how artists engage in the political process that it is hard to choose what to highlight. In the end, I’ve decided to focus not so much on the making of art with political content, but the ways artists actually influence politics by entering into the public sphere.

My earliest awareness of artists’s political actions was in the 1960’s and 70’s around the persona of Joseph Beuys who taught and worked close to where I then lived. Among other things he was a co-founder of the Green Party, and his lectures focused on the need for space for creative thought which would help bring about structural change in society. His vision of the artist as a social actor has been enormously influential.

Here are some examples of others following later: As mayor of Tirana, Albania, Edi Rama, a former painter, decided to change the city with color (as well as a huge project of planting new green spaces.) The TED talk below has a short video on the project, and it is amazing. It changed the urban, the social and eventually the political landscape, quite literally. https://www.ted.com/talks/edi_rama_take_back_your_city_with_paint

Then there is Tania Bruguera, who announced that she would run for President of Cuba in 2018. Never mind that you can’t run for that office in Cuba…it is the political gesture of entering the public sphere as an artist to promote change. The link below gives an interesting overview of a life devoted to political rebellion.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/10/tania-bruguera-cuban-artist-fights-free-expression-160930124023219.html

An important support network for artists as activist is provided by the Creative Time Summits, annual conventions that gather international artists, writers, philosophers and political activists for thematically structured conferences. Their goal is to promote social change through art activism. Last year they met in D.C. before the election, inviting input to the theme Occupy the Future from citizens and grass root movements working within as well as disrupting the electoral process.  This year they met in Toronto to discuss Of Homelands and Revolutions, with a particular focus on indigenous people leading ongoing movements across continents.

The link gives a programmatic overview http://creativetime.org/summit/toronto-2017/

Here is one of their (timely) projects that caught my attention. It’s called Pledges of Allegiance – a serialized commission of sixteen flags, each created by an acclaimed artist. “We realized we needed a space to resist that was defined not in opposition to a symbol, but in support of one, and so we created a permanent space. The flag seemed an ideal form to build that space around both practically and symbolically,” says Creative Time Artistic Director Nato Thompson. Each flag points to an issue the artist is passionate about, a cause they believe is worth fighting for, and speaks to how we might move forward collectively. Conceived in response to the current political climate, Pledges of Allegiance aims to inspire a sense of community among cultural institutions, and begin articulating the urgent response our political moment demands.   

Pledges of Allegiance officially launched on Flag Day, June 14th. Each month a new flag will be raised on a flagpole atop Creative Time’s headquarters at 59 East 4th Street, and at partner sites nationwide. Here you can see the different flags so far and learn about the contributing artists:

http://creativetime.org/projects/pledgesofallegiance/

Wouldn’t you know it. I thought I knew every major museum in NYC after having lived there for years and visited for many more. Turns out, I don’t – I have never been to the Queens art museum. This is a particularly regrettable fact given that the director of the museum is a woman of courage and deeply held convictions.

http://www.queensmuseum.org

Unlike almost all of her contemporary counterparts she is willing to engage in open politics – more power to her. The link attached below describes the role she has played in the last years and the causes she has fought for since Trump’s inauguration, the plight of the DACA recipients in particular. She is clearly paying a price for her outspoken involvement; although her Board seems to support her, various City councilmen are out to have her removed.

.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/08/arts/design/queens-museum-laura-raicovich-daca.html?_r=0

I know of only one other group of museums who were willing to step up and question the artificial separation between art and reality; see link below.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-entertainment-news-updates-march-museum-directors-react-to-proposed-1489682884-htmlstory.html

One can debate if the role of museums should be one of neutrality, as many insist, particularly the folks at the Smithsonian. The argument for taking the long view, letting art speak for itself rather than the museum speaking for or against political causes seems empty to me, when almost all museums show this or that work of political artists anyhow. If you curate shows that have political content, you might as well be open about where you stand regarding those contents. The viewers are smart enough to form their own assessments, as long as the opportunity to be exposed to differing points of view exist.

There will always be pressure from interest groups to have art suppressed – that has been true for as long as art exists. Just ask around Jewish museums in this country or in Germany, as one example. Or the Guggenheim, recently.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-spertus_21jun21-story.html

What we need now, in times where the role of art is undermined by those who have lots to loose with a more educated public, is individuals who stand up and speak truth; truth through the selection of what they are willing to show, as well as through directly addressing the relevant issues. Laura Raicovich is one of them.

Photographs are of street art found in various boroughs in NYC, most Bed-Stuy.

Show me someone’s blog that opens with an Emma Goldman quote, consider me hooked. If that quote refers to small communal interactions forming the kernel of possible societal change, consider me sold. Let me introduce you to the Reverend Billy and his Stop Shopping Choir.

Who am I talking about? A group of activists/artists who do both concert stage performances and agitprop actions to raise awareness of how we are mistreating our planet and our neighbors. They fight for earth justice, against consumerism, for first amendment rights and much more. Their recent visit to Portland was once again a coup by Boom Arts – bringing progressive artistry to an audience that is in need of and grateful for cutting edge theatre.

The NYC-based troupe is led by Billy Talen, an actor who uses comic theatre and music to get out the message – in ways that often risk persecution by the powers that be who are quite aware of how he lifts the veil on capital’s agenda. The link spells it out in more detail:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/nov/27/reverend-billy-church-of-stop-shopping-black-friday

On Sunday night the artists met with members of our community, including Portland Resistance and Portland Tenants United for a community supper.

And since this week’s blog is dedicated to women’s issues, let’s focus on the women I encountered.

There were young women of the choir who managed to travel across time zones with infants and toddlers, putting in full performances, and still had the energy to meet new folks; young women who sang with beautiful voices.

There was the director of the company, who writes beautifully and provides organization and structure. There was her daughter who clearly shared her mother’s fierceness as well as the theatrical brilliance of her father.

http://www.revbilly.com/about_savitri_d

There were the Portland activists who lead the cause;

There were the folks from Boom Arts who surprise me every year with procuring ever better acts; doing their magic in getting people to return, fostering relationships, helping to keep the company afloat –  a special welcome here to the recent NYC transplant!

And then there was the kind of woman who models for all of us how to bring more peace and justice to the world in everyday life, managing the Sunnyside Community Center. She was celebrated and shown expressions of gratitude that her kind deserves and yet so infrequently receives.

It was an evening that conveyed energy, activism, community and above all hope – so direly needed in these times.

The troupe is off to England for their next adventure – friends over there, be on the look-out. These are performances you might not want to miss.