written for Artweek in Spring 2001

Are People More Important than Art?
A look at community-based public art projects

The term community or community-based public art is multi-layered and complex. Public projects have different levels of community involvement from mere window dressing to projects deeply committed to having everyone's visions heard. Successful projects mean different things to different people. For some it is the process of opening up dialogue amongst disparate peoples (communities), for others it is an aesthetically sophisticated and pleasing end product that counts. And, of course, if both process and end product "work" then the project has met and exceeded its goals.

Ideological and political concerns of the 60's and 70's inspired Allan Kaprow to collapse the distinction between art and life, fostered Abbie Hoffman's agit-prop style activism and provoked many other responses which brought art into the lives of everyday people, setting the stage for much of the work of artists in communities that we see today. According to Conrad Atkinson, Professor at UC Davis, community art as we know it today came out of the protests of 1968 and Guy Debord and the Situationists examining who and what culture is for and how it relates to the economic base. What then does the present term community-based public art project mean? Is it a limited yet vital response to severely reduced government spending on social services and the arts? For instance, is a public art project in a wealthy neighborhood like Pacific Heights called a community-based project? The idea of community is good says artist Pemi Gill, but the notion of community as a gender and class free area is problematic.

In response to the highly charged political climate of the early 90's when government support for individual artists and new art works was drying up, in 1994 four foundations created the Creative Work Fund to sponsor collaborations between artists and Bay Area non-profit organizations (in order to foster experimentation and collaboration.) Eighteen projects are currently underway with grants ranging from $10-35,000, with over $500K awarded in 2001. The Fund addresses a kind of art making usually unsupported by philanthropy, offering a place for voices of people not usually heard in the context of artists work, and integrating art-life into life says Frances Phillips, Director of the Creative Work Fund. Phillips believes that to create a lasting public piece you need community support in some way, which is a tricky and exciting process - the projects are not always successful, but the best projects have power beyond themselves, they become catalysts for making something else happen.

In some cases, community art at least partially fills the void left by the decimation of arts education funding in high schools. Julio Morales 's Mission Life Project ran from Oct 1999 - June 2000 as part of Mission Voices, a collaboration between Southern Exposure's Artist in Education Program and Horizons Unlimited and La Casa de los Jovenes -two neighborhood centers for underserved youth in the Mission District. In Mission Life, youth from the Mission were mentored by professional graphic designers on the design of posters displayed in public venues such as Muni buses and Bart trains. They created alternative public service announcements by taking back images of youth from the media and showing to their community how they wanted to be portrayed: Issues of violence and gangs, family and superficial value judgements were addressed. Unfortunately only a limited number of youth participated in this program. Another part of this series of workshops was in collaboration with David Goldberg at Beta Lounge. There the youth created an audio CD entitled "What's New" out of street interviews and personal stories about life in SF layered with the history of sound recording, hip-hop and DJ techniques. "One of the most powerful things about public/community/youth art is its ability to create project based work which can take into consideration its audience, content, location, experience and create a dialogue almost in the same way which graffiti or street signage functions in communities", says Morales.

Also focusing on a specific neighborhood are two mural projects organized by the Luggage Store /509 Cultural Center and funded by the Lower Eddy/Leavenworth Task Force. Representatives form the Tenderloin neighborhood approached the Luggage Store with a $20,000 grant from a neighborhood betterment fund. The Luggage Store, which strives to build community through creative arts and education, invited artists Brett Cook-Dizney and Margaret Kilgallen to create works for and with this specific population.

Brett Cook-Dizney photographed and interviewed Tenderloin residents, asking them pointedly political questions about living in the Tenderloin, including their answers in his finished portraits. From the photos he spray-painted realistic large-scale portraits in a glass walled "studio" at 1000 Market Street (across from the Luggage Store) offering increased interaction with members of that specific community. "It was like a spectacle, a performance piece", says Lazer, "and seemed to pique the neighborhood's interest and open up a great deal of dialogue". The murals were done last spring but it has been difficult to secure permission to permanently install the pieces on building walls she adds, as building owners were often unavailable or the sites mired in bureaucracy. However, even this challenge brought people together and got them talking openly about concerns, and the process itself of fulfilling the project has opened up more dialogue about the nature and the meaning of art in our society. And isn't that the aim of community based work? Engaging people (non-artists) in real ways and allowing art to bring people together?

The second half of the Tenderloin project is in its beginning stages. Margaret Kilgallen plans to work as a mentor to a small number of artists who live in the Tenderloin. She's interested in investigating the meaning of signs in our society and their impact. One completed piece, for Andy's Locker and Mail Services, disrupts the standard local signage and like Cook-Dizney's, serves to put issues of class as well as cultural and ethnic boundaries into focus.

Similar in its attention to cultural and ethnic concerns, but on a much larger scale, is the artist involvement in the Third Street Light Rail project. In this large public project, a new light rail system will be constructed along the eastern side of the city from the southern end of San Francisco's downtown to the San Mateo border. The idea behind the public art aspect was to integrate the art into the construction says Jill Manton, Director of the Public Art Program of the SF Arts Commission. Three groups of artists are involved in this project. Artists who have a special affinity to the affected neighborhoods worked with urban designers and Muni to reflect both the characteristics of the neighborhood and the look and feel of the transportation system in their designs for station platforms.

One team led by Horace Washington is working in the Bayview/Hunters Point neighborhood. These artists attended many community meetings for input and direction about what kinds of concepts were desired for inclusion by neighborhood members. Many ideas were proposed including futuristic, ethnic, ecological and Victorian. The artists heard the wants of the community and addressed them in their own studios, developing three main ideas: JoeSam developed a station about birds in the area, Frederick Hayes dealt with Afro-Centric issues in his platform using a kente cloth roof design and African language and cowrie shell symbols and Horace Washington's station represents the tradition of shipbuilding and the history of WWII in the neighborhood. The artists brought their preliminary concepts back to the community, and Washington believes the community involvement in the work to be a success, as the people involved are pleased with the designs. "The challenge is to maintain artistic integrity and create representative work appropriate for that particular community", says Washington, "and to interpret the concept into permanent materials".

"People are more important than art", says Peter Carpou, who has been working with various communities for many years. Carpou, currently working on a sidewalk mosaic mural project with Susan Cervantes of Precita Eyes Mural Project and Carolyna Marks of Worldwalls for Peace for the Mission bus bulb project, believes that "as long as community is involved it is good for artists as it is the backbone of what we are trying to do". The mosaic features mesoamerican god Quetzalcoatl and has been worked on by over 100 adult and youth volunteers. "You do it for love, not the market," says Carpou. "Working with community rehumanizes you and politicizes you which is hard to do in the private sector. Collective art practice fights alienation from society at large. The project defines the individual with a sense of belonging. And of a belonging with others. These metaphors are an attempt to bridge the experience by making sense outside the activity itself."

And isn't it the activity's connection to the outside that makes the experience powerful? Although quite difficult to do without outside support (read $$$), many non-funded, non-bureaucratic community projects do engage and activate various communities, battle alienation and serve as a conflation between art and life, oftentimes taking art literally to the streets. For instance, Art Strikes Back galvanized the Mission District community last summer with a series of situational actions and performative events, mostly taking place along Valencia Street and in Clarion Alley, home of the Clarion Alley Mural Project, (whose headquarters are currently slated for condominium development) founded in 1992, "which has created a real community of artists" according to artist and CAMP member Cynthia Rojas. Art Strikes Back accepted all proposals, presenting over 50 artists and creating a dialogue around gentrification and the unhealthy political climate, perhaps spurring people into political action and serving as a cornerstone for creating real change in the local political scene.

One remnant of that project is Megan Wilson's Project Home. Drawing attention to the importance and fragility of home, she gave away painted signs reading "Home" to local merchants, residents and the homeless to display as a sign of solidarity and community. Taking art into the home is artist Diana Mars who has opened her door every Wednesday for eight years to various peoples, cooking dinner for them. Looking for a way to keep in touch with her own community she found that "this was a way to do it, and food doesn't look like art but it can be." And that's the challenge, finding items that don't look like art but can be, creating art (and community) wherever, whenever and with whomever, and in the process integrating art into everyone's lives.

--Amy Berk

Amy Berk is an artist, writer, educator and founder of the Meridian Interns Program, an after school art making and arts management program serving youth from underserved communities in San Francisco since 1996.

*Creative Work Fund projects are ongoing throughout the Bay Area. For more information contact the Fund at (415) 398-4474.

*Brett Cook-Dizney's murals are located at the Mentone Hotel on Jones Street, near Ellis; the Herald Apartments on Jones near Eddy; and the Hampton Court Apartments on Larkin at Golden Gate (across from the Federal Building). Margaret Kilgallen's existing mural in collaboration with local Tenderloin artists Stella Lai and Alberto Rangle can be seen at Andy's Lockers and Mail Services at 120 Jones Street. More sites will be forthcoming. For more information contact the Luggage Store at 415/255-5971.

*Mission Life projects included a video: Mission Life which was screened at SFMoma, Mill Valley Film Festival and Youth Film Festival at the Victoria Theater; Audio: What's New? distributed to youth art organizations, family and public radio stations in the Bay Area; the poster public service announcements were reproduced and placed in 150 Muni buses and Bart trains in San Francisco. For more information contact Southern Exposure at 415/863-2141.

*Third Street Light Rail artist stations will be installed along the eastern side of the city from the southern end of downtown San Francisco to the San Mateo County border. The project is scheduled to be completed sometime in 2003. For more information contact the San Francisco Arts Commission Public Arts Program at 415/252-2586.

*Quetzalcoatl , the sidewalk mosaic mural project led by Peter Carpou, Susan Cervantes and Carolyna Marks was originally planned for the 24^th Street/Mission MUNI bus bulb project which is no longer happening. Negotiations are ongoing with BART for inclusion in their 24^th Street and Mission Station redesign. Another piece of this project created by the youth at Larkin Street will be installed at a MUNI bus bulb on Otis Street and Mission. For more information on these projects contact the Precita Eyes Mural Center at 285-2287or the Larkin Street Youth Center at 415/673-0911.

*For more information about Any Wednesday contact Diana Mars at 415/221-9144.

*Megan Wilson's Home Project can be seen mostly in the Mission District around 16^th Street and Valencia Street and in home and shop windows throughout San Francisco. For more information about Project Home or Art Strikes Back contact MegAwilson@aol.com.

*For more information on the Meridian Interns Program contact Meridian Gallery at 415/398-7229.