DE/TERRITORIALIZED PRACTICES
Oreet Ashery reflects on
The Public Art of Campaigning
Published in Living in the Material World,
Coventry University. ISBN 0905949846 2000
[see ESSAY here]
MDSM primary ethic, I would suggest, is collaboration with other people: ' ... (this project is )... an extended research into the collaborative practices available to us. Within our experience, we acknowledge this can include our engagement in art making activities, eating or cooking a meal. That is, not only the things we do together, but the results of collaborative effort which we can take advantage of... it is drawing on this network that we integrate into a social structure to gain an understanding of how it functions, and in turn locate and speculate on our possible function within it.' More specifically, MDSM have been critically looking at issues of gentrification and regeneration in the city, and in particular, what consultation around public art projects might consist of.
A recent project MDSM developed was connected to Monecriff Place in Peckham, a contested space. The street currently has market stalls for as long as 20 years. The plans for public art project in the street, involve a large screen outside the Premier cinema and leading to it an 'International Carpet of Flowers', consist of a stretch of flowers from all over the world lit with underground lighting. This stretch would mean that the market traders would have to move. The market traders started a campaign against the plans. Emma and paula spoke to the traders, the council and the artists involved, the various arguments materialised on a video called 'The Public Art of Campaigning' and was shown to the market traders and also in a number of public events. The immediate outcome of this intervention put a hold on the plans. These particular plans are part of a larger program of regeneration which has been taking place in Peckham for a while now and resulted in the loss of small business, mainly black, in favour of chain stores and multi-nationals.
contact
paula roush ::: paularoush@gmail.com
msdm studio ::: msdm@msdm.org.uk