On the next Your Call, we'll have a conversation about how a mural or other piece of art can create community and conversation. Where has public art really made a difference? What are the limits on art in public spaces, and how do you go about getting public art made? Join us live at 11 or send us and email at feedback@yourcallradio.org. Do you have favorite mural or public art piece? And what's the public space near you that could use some art? It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.
Guests:
Eric Drooker, a painter, graphic novelist, and illustrator
Susan Cervantes, founding director at Precita Eyes Muralists
Mona Caron, freelance illustrator and muralist
Click to Listen: How Can Art Change Public Space?
Mona made a very crucial point about
ReplyDeletehow artists often function in the gentrification of a neighborhood. Developers and business people whose agenda it is to "gentrify" a neighborhood know, whether consciously or in a subconscious, primitive way, that
art lifts the quality of life wherever it is.
This is a very intangible, visceral kind
of understanding. But it is often used in avery conscious way by people who as she put it, operate by "bait and switch."
As we see in advertising and other mass
communication, psychological information (like knowing art will attract people) about human beings can be
used to advance an exploitative agenda that may be in no way related to the overt message of the communication.
Similarly, it is possible to use artists to pave the way for the transformation of a community and then leave them in the lurch, undoing the genuine community building work they have done. It's called co-opting, and our capitalist society has a long history of it.
The antidote to this peril is to be skeptical, know the true purpose of people operating in your community
(do your research--if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck-developer), know who you are dealing with. The community, with its history and diverse voices, must ultimately exert power regarding its own fate, even if working newcomers or "outsiders."
Mona made a very crucial point about
how artists often function in the gentrification of a neighborhood. Developers and business people whose agenda it is to "gentrify" a neighborhood know, whether consciously or in a subconscious, primitive way, that
art lifts the quality of life wherever it is.
This is a very intangible, visceral kind
of understanding. But it is often used in avery conscious way by people who as she put it, operate by "bait and switch."
As we see in advertising and other mass
communication, psychological information (like knowing art will attract people) about human beings can be
used to advance an exploitative agenda that may be in no way related to the overt message of the communication.
Similarly, it is possible to use artists to pave the way for the transformation of a community and then leave them in the lurch, undoing the genuine community building work they have done. It's called co-opting, and our capitalist society has a long history of it. To employ art to "upgrade" a community and then make it impossible for artists to live there is the cruelest form of exploitation, truly evil.
The antidote to this peril is to be skeptical, know the true purpose of people operating in your community
(do your research--if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck-developer), know who you are dealing with. The community, with its history and diverse voices, must ultimately exert power regarding its own fate, even if working newcomers or "outsiders."
P.S. My apologies for the errors in editing my post (some text is repeated). Sorry.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your thoughts, Barb.
ReplyDelete