When
discussing creative placemaking, think about marginalization, gentrification,
making people invisible because they represent something the white population
doesn’t want to see or acknowledge, or restricting the movements and futures of
people because they aren’t white, are poor, and live on the edges of larger
communities while living within their own communities. The ways in which
Rasquachification (Bedoya, 2014), Waiting for Godot in New Orleans (Chan,
2007), Redlining (City Life/ Vita Urbana, 2015), A Subtlety (Walker, 2014),
Project Row House (Lowe and Theaster Gates Foundation, 1993), Shamiyaana–Food for Thought: Thought for
Change (Araeen, 2016-17) address these
on-going issues are both subtle and obvious. Creative placemaking,
placekeeping, and deeply historic referencing within the above mentioned works
reflect distinct voices from within marginalized communities. Voices of Black,
Latinx and Chicano, poor, and even sanitation workers chime together, ringing
like church bells calling attention to time.
In each of these cases, it is long past time to pay
attention to the reality faced by these communities. As explained by Bedoya,
Rasquachification is an example of creative placekeeping as some Chicanos paint
and decorate their homes in representations of their vibrant communities,
heritage, and culture. Bedoya (2014) discusses “the white spatial imaginary” as
a way in which the white majority utilize stereotypes and white fragility to
develop gentrification policies disguised as ways to improve areas. These ideas
relate to Bedoya’s (2012) article, “Placemaking and the Politics of Belonging
and Dis-belonging,” in that gentrification uproots families and communities,
scattering them to more marginalized or downtrodden areas in the name of
progress. Ignoring the histories, racial implications, financial statuses, and
relationships of people within these already marginalized communities only
compounds the problems. When this uprooting occurs, people move from a place of
belonging to one where they are new and may not feel as though they belong. As
Bedoya discusses, placemaking or placekeeping is enacting identity, creating
personal and communal histories, and strengthening relationships within
communities. The voices of those impacted by gentrification need to be heard.
Recently, in Lowell, MA, there was a citywide fight about
the public high school (LHS) and how to address the buildings’ issues. One side
wanted to relocate to the outskirts of the city while the other side insisted
the school stay downtown. The new location (Cawley) side focused on a brand new
structure without consideration of the majority of students, who are minorities
and live near the school’s current location. Cawley folks claimed new
businesses and luxury condos could be built, rented or sold, and bring new
funding sources to the city’s tight budget. At the same time, the opposers
(Downtown) focused on the costs, traffic and transportation issues, air and
noise pollution, and the destruction of a small patch of woods. Downtown people
claimed the additional expenses of eminent domain on residents’ homes and
several small businesses, widening streets, adding sidewalks, and new traffic
lights were not considered in the total cost.
Ultimately, the high school is staying downtown, though the
reasoning is attributed to the ballots cast in city elections. The voices
barely heard above the yelling were the ones that represented the people living
near the current LHS location who spoke against gentrification, which has
occurred in the city multiple times over the years, and the resource impacts
for students from low-income families. Why their voices were not given more
attention matters. Undiscussed issues of gentrification and marginalization got
backburnered, yet again. The white people dominated the conversation with white
spatial imaginary (Bedoya, 2014), ignoring the marginalized communities that
had more at stake, more to lose, than anyone else, much like New Orleans’ Lower
Ninth and Gentilly residents who were left stranded after a hurricane decimated
their homes.
Chan’s 2007 outdoor production of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (1953) in two Hurricane
Katrina-damaged neighborhoods in New Orleans reflects the ways these people
were still waiting for the needed assistance to rebuild. Some of the ravaged
areas are still waiting, as is Puerto Rico since Hurricane Irma struck in 2017.
Similarly, the Project Row Houses (DPA interview with Lowe, 1996-98; Theaster
Gates Foundation, 1993) rejuvenates a downtrodden neighborhood. Breathing new
life into dilapidated buildings often associated with poor black families, Project
Row Houses brought multiple communities together through socially
transformational art. By renovating the abandoned shotgun buildings as office,
art, and community spaces, this project honored the history of the building
style, the people that are most often closely associated with row houses, and
relied on community contributions of funding and physical labor to change the
neighborhood’s narrative.
Barriers to necessary aid and improved living conditions are
not always visible. For example, the 1936 Federal Housing Authority’s (FHA)
redlining maps prevented generations from becoming homeowners because of where
they lived when applying for loans. In Redlining
(2015), CLVU draws a visible red line around the Jamaica Plain (JP)
neighborhood near Boston. People living within the redlined district were
denied mortgages, denied a chance of a better future so long as they lived
within those red lines. This line, marked on maps, was given to potential
mortgage lenders and used as tools of federally-sanctioned racism.
Walker’s A Subtlety
(2014) also speaks directly to government-endorsed racism in the forms of
slavery and sugar. Too many people are unaware of the black lives lost to the
growth and refining of sugar. Installed in a Domino Sugar factory, Walker’s
sphinx sculpture with the “mammy” head highlights many of the atrocities
blacks, more specifically black women, endured during a shameful portion of
American history and the resulting stereotypes that persist. The mammy head
speaks to the enslaved women that had to nurse and care for the white slave-owners’’
children, often at the expense of her own— if she was allowed to keep them.
Surrounding the sculpture, smaller figures of children made of and holding
sugar products combine with the sphinx’s large round breasts and protruding
genitalia to represent the rapes (both literal and figurative), genital
mutilation, and resulting generations of children born of slave women. At the
same time, the location refers to gentrification and oppression of not only
black people but also the lower working class that powered the Domino factory,
except for a 20-month strike. Refined sugar is present in many households and
most restaurants, as are the histories of the enslaved people that provided the
food ingredient and pantry staple for centuries.
In
a different approach, Araeen’s (2016-17) installation Shamiyaana–Food for Thought: Thought for Change created an interactive space in which viewers became
visitors under colorful canopies inspired by Pakistani wedding tents. In these
Shamiyaana, discussions of positive social change over freshly cooked
Mediterranean food were encouraged. When people have these necessary
discussions and consider the dynamics of public spaces, as well as the social
problems in the surrounding areas, and the history of the space itself in a
hospitable context, more solutions can naturally unfold. By allowing the discussions
to unfold instead of being forced upon one group by another, more equitable solutions
can be found. While the discussions of marginalization, racism, xenophobia, and
misogyny dominate the reality, not enough is said in public to alter the
course. We, as an increasingly global community, need to have these
conversations and listen to other views, especially those of the people
directly impacted by social injustices.
