Las Calles Públicas
The works in “Outlands & Negotiations” address delineations of public space and who it is really “for.” What is a “democratic” public space (a space of broad ideas and actions since the time of the Maori and Aztecs as well as the Greeks)? What are the implications of mapping and accessing interstitial spaces, and how do their uses create a kind of friction against our expectations of what our own experiences in them should be? Recent developments regarding how to manage growing homeless populations in American cities, as well as the crisis in downtown Los Angeles and the 2014 death of NYC citizen Eric Garner, illustrate the relevance of the question. The resulting artworks, whether metal map forms, drawings, photos, or videos, are intentionally fragmentary, reflect the asynchronous nature of presences (including myself) and/or situations that are out of compliance.
“Popsicles & Paletas Public Space Action,” Hutchinson, Kansas, 2019
In July 2019, the exhibition “Outlands & Negotiations” included a public intervention in the middle of a street in downtown Hutchinson. The tshirts read “ACCEPT TOLERANCE LOVE RESPECT EQUALITY FOR ALL” on the front, and, on the back, “REJECT RACISM SEXISM HOMOPHOBIA XENOPHOBIA HATRED TOWARD MINORITIES, IMMIGRANTS, LGBTQ PERSONS, OR ANY OTHER PERSONS FOR REASONS OF IDENTITY, RACE, OR GENDER”. As the date was July 5, I gave away bottles of water and American- and Mexican-style popsicles in a “celebration of the diversity of the USA.”
In one hour about 50 t-shirts were given away, many visitors stopped by, and the Hutchinson police also came by to see what was going on and took shirts themselves. Notably, the police did not stop me or question what I was doing…Photos were taken and extra shirts were left on a table in the exhibition space and on nails on the wall in the show (as a remnant of the action). Remaining tshirts were allowed to be taken as desired by gallery visitors.