A collaborative project by Jeanne van Heeswijk
June 4-7, 2014
For four days, Public Faculty No 8, Los Angeles will be located on and around Hollywood Boulevard, where many segments of the public are to be found. The project will engage in informal conversations with passers-by on the desires and expectations for the future of the neighborhood. It will visually map out a dialog in text and drawings about those who are affected by the redevelopment of Hollywood, exploring the idea of publicness and its relation to active citizenship in our global cities.
Read a write-up on the project here on KCET:
http://www.kcet.org/arts/artbound/counties/los-angeles/jeanne-van-heeswijk-public-faculty-8.html
Public Faculty events are in collaboration with community organizing groups including LA Voice, Cocina Abierta Collective, Restaurant Opportunities Center of Los Angeles (ROC LA), My Friend’s Place, among others. Blogging by Melinda Guillen and Erick Huerta. Drawings by Emilio (EJ) Venegas Jr. and Monica Martinez.
Events are in collaboration with community organizing groups including LA Voice, Yucca Corridor Coalition, Restaurant Opportunities Center of Los Angeles, and My Friend’s Place.
LOCATIONS
Wednesday June 4, noon-4PM – in front of Hollywood High School
with Dont Rhine and Ultra-red
Writing by Melinda Guillen and Drawing by Emilio (EJ) Venegas Jr.
Thursday June 5, 4PM-8PM – corner of Yucca St. and Cahuenga Blvd.,
with LA Voice and Yucca Corridor Coalition
Writing by Melinda Guillen and drawing by Monica Martinez
Friday June 6, 8AM-noon – near LACE
with Karla Diaz and My Friend’s Place.
Writing by Melinda Guillen and drawing Monica Martinez
Saturday June 7, 8PM-midnight – bus stop at Vine St. and Hollywood Blvd,
with Christina Sanchez Juarez and Cayetano Juarez and Restaurant Opportunities Center of Los Angeles
Writing by Erick Huerta and drawing by Emilio (EJ) Venegas Jr.
Public Faculty No.8, Los Angeles was developed through conversations with Christina Sanchez Juarez, Cayetano Juarez and Oakland Bautista (Cocina Abierta Collective), Karla Diaz, Dont Rhine, Carol Zou, Anne Bray, Jacqueline Bell, and former LACE Executive Director Carol Stakenas.
The project is initiated by Dutch artist Jeanne van Heeswijk and organized in collaboration with Carol Zou.
ABOUT THE PUBLIC FACULTY SERIES
The impetus behind the Public Faculty series is to engage in collective learning through a process of knowledge exchange within the context of a certain place. A Public Faculty wants to ‘draw out’ the anticipated conversations and findings, and slowly build a visual analogy of the public faculty’s presence in the city by taking it outside and using strategies to rethink, redefine and re-enter public space through collective cultural action. This learning from a place through a process of knowledge exchange and cohabitation forms the basis of the Public Faculty series.
Canvassing Desires of the Street is the 8th installment of the Public Faculty series. Previous Public Faculties have taken place in Skopje, Macedonie (No.1, October 2008); Rotterdam, the Netherlands (No.2, September 2010); Vranje, Serbia (No.3, March 2012); London, UK (No.4, July 2012); Copenhagen, Denmark (No.5, August 2012); Gent, Belgium (No.6, March 2013), Zurich, Switserland (No.7, June 2013).
MORE ON PUBLIC FACULTY
Public space in most of our contemporary cities is highly regulated. We see more and more people feeling left out in what is often a clinical understanding of public domain. We often forget that public domain is not evident – it is a source of conflict between residents, developers and government. In the center of these processes, and especially where diverse communities intersect, cultural interventions are often the only manner in which to actively create the public domain.
Public Faculty strives to create an understanding of a given place and its dynamics, and identify certain questions that can create a ‘performative action.’ It searches for a model and tools with which people can develop their perceptions and initiate a process of change. This process requires reciprocity, an exchange of knowledge, collectivization and cohabitation.
Public Faculty references to Joseph Beuys’ seminal work ‘Richtkräfte’ (Directive Forces), an installation of 100 blackboards created for public discussions and later held at the Institute for Contemporary Art in London in 1974. Using Steiner’s concept of ‘thought drawings,’ Beuys used chalk on blackboard to communicate to his audience the basic principles of his theory of ‘social sculpture’ – freedom, direct democracy and sustainable economic forms – and illustrate his “anthropologic construct” for a better world.
SUPPORT
Public Faculty No.8, Los Angeles: Canvassing Desires of the Street is made possible through support from the Department of Cultural Affairs: Cultural Exchange International Program. Additional support is provided by Otis College of Art and Design: Public Practice.
