Citizen Culture: Artists and Architects Shape Policy
Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA, 2014
Featuring No Blood/No Foul and the Oakland Youth Policy
Citizen Culture explored the intersection of art and politics and doubles as a platform for open dialogue and engagement. It featured the work of artists, architects, designers, creative thinkers, and collectives who have reshaped public policy using aesthetic strategies: Ala Plástica (Silvina Babich and Alejandro Meitín), Tania Bruguera, Suzanne Lacy, Michael Maltzan, The Medellín Diagram (Teddy Cruz, Fonna Forman, Matthias Goerlich, and Alejandro Echeverri), Antanas Mockus with Futuro Moncada, and Tamms Year Ten. Through photographs, videos, maps, drawings, architectural models, performances, and activism, Citizen Culture celebrates the power of art to spark dialogue, create new modes of civic engagement, and transform the laws by which cities and citizens are governed. Organized by independent curator Lucía Sanromán, the exhibition spans projects from six cities in the Americas: Oakland, California; Los Angeles, California; Chicago, Illinois; Medellín, Colombia; Bogotá, Colombia; and La Plata, Argentina. (text source)
No Blood/No Foul is one of eight major works that comprise The Oakland Projects, Lacy’s ten-year series of installations, performances and political activism created in collaboration with multiple artists, high school students, youth activists, educators, law enforcement agencies, and government officials in Oakland, California. In this work, Lacy worked with Oakland City Council members to draft a policy and community process, the culmination of which was celebrated by the performance. The performance at a upscale gym attended by a large public audience included pre-recorded and live video interviews, dance crews, sports commentators, graffiti muralists, a hip-hop heavy sound track and audience participation centered around a “basketball game as performance” between local youth and police officers. No Blood/No Foul received extensive television coverage and was attended by the mayor and city council who subsequently passed the Oakland Youth Policy Initiative and funded an ongoing youth-to-youth granting program. Video from the performance and the people involved in it were presented on monitors positioned atop chain link fences enclosing a half-court within the museum. Footage of the original game was shown via a large-scale projection, next to a series of "game banners" explaining the timeline of The Oakland Projects, including the process of developing, and substance of, the Oakland Youth Policy.
Curated by Lucía Sanromán. Installation produced by Megan Steinman, design by Jessica Fleishmann / still room. Videos by Peter Kirby. Exhibition traveled to The Rubin Center for the Visual Arts, El Paso, TX, 2015.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
MIranda, Carolina A., "From narco-wars to urban basketball, making art out of activism," LA Times, September 17, 2014