space type: art gallery | neighborhood: wall street | active: october 2011 | links: website
Over the course of doing this site, I’ve gotten away with profiling a few spaces in Ridgewood, since they were only a block or two from Brooklyn. Obviously no such gloss of proximity is possible for Wall Street, but as I’ve watched and participated in the #OWS movement over the past month, I’ve been struck by how it represents so many of the things I love about Brooklyn creative culture, like the familial bonds of those working in close proximity, the willingness to struggle together in the face of bad odds, the tendency toward horizontalism and consensus-based decision-making, the starry-eyed idealism born of the desire to make the world more beautiful, more exciting, more fair. If that’s not enough, the “No Comment” art show put on by #OWS in the old JP Morgan building on Wall Street was by far the Brooklyn-est thing I’ve ever seen in lower Manhattan.
The massive show, which featured art made at and inspired by Occupy Wall Street, was put on in collaboration with Loft in the Red Zone and had all kinds of work, from painting and photography to quilting, from illustrated protest signs to a spray-painted tent, from video installations to a gigantic flag made of actual dollar bills. There were spontaneous performance-art pieces throughout the night, there were bands, there was even on-site screenprinting. There was also, of course, an intense police presence out front, and to get to the show you had to wind through an endless maze of barricaded streets and blocked-off intersections, but the show itself was sprawling, joyous, challenging, beautiful—just like Occupy Wall Street. Just like Brooklyn.
I don’t have an interview in this post, but I do have lots and lots of pictures (sorry for my shitty camera, as always). Interspersed with the photos I’ve shared links to some of the most moving or fascinating or spot-on articles my friends and I have found about the OWS movement. Enjoy—and then get out there and occupy something.
By the way: If anyone knows the names of the artists whose work I’ve posted pictures of, please get in touch so I can give credit! brooklynspacesproject [at] gmail [dot] com.
Douglas Rushkoff’s “Think Occupy Wall Street is a phase? You don’t get it.” on CNN
Keith Boykin’s “Everything the Media Told You About Occupy Wall Street Is Wrong” on Huffington Post
“Why We Support #OccupyWallStreet” by Move On, includes an incredibly galvanizing video.
“Bushwick DIY Takes Wall Street” on BushwickBK (featuring Ray from Bushwick Print Lab!)
Max Udargo’s “Open Letter to that 53% Guy” on Daily Kos
Danny Schechter’s “Why Are So Many in the Media Threatened by Occupy Wall Street?” on Disinformation
“Man Uses Occupy Wall Street’s People’s Mic to Propose to Girlfriend” on The Observer
Joshua Holland’s “The Stunning Victory that Occupy Wall Street Has Already Achieved” on AlterNet
“Protesters Against Wall Street” on New York Times
Matt Taibbibi’s “Wall Street Isn’t Winning—It’s Cheating” on Rolling Stone
imgur’s “What OWS is about and data behind the movement”
favorite feeds from my anarchist sister: OWS official site, Occupy Together, Occupy NYC livestream, Global Revolution livestream
written by my friend Jillian for Guernica: “In Defense of Youth”
recommended by Beka, who runs Not An Alternative: J.A. Myerson’s “Some Unsolicited Advice to the Democratic Party: Cave to the Occupy Wall Street Movement” on truthout
recommended by Megan, lawyer & activist: Justin Elliott’s “Process is politics at Occupy Wall Street” on Salon
recommended by Erica, activist & writer at Free Williamsburg: Josh Harkinson’s “What the NYPD Really Thinks of Occupy Wall Street” on Mother Jones
recommended by Jeanice: David Graeber’s “On Playing By the Rules – The Strange Success of @OccupyWallStreet” on Naked Capitalism
recommended by Miss Scorpio of Gemini & Scorpio: Henry Blodget’s “Here’s What the Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About” on Business Insider
Sally Kohn’s “What will victory look like for Occupy Wall Street?” on CNN
“Here Are Occupy Wall Street’s Plans for a National Convention that Could Change the Face of America” on Business Insider
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Like this? Read about more activism: The Illuminator, Time’s Up, The Brooklyn Free Store, Books Through Bars, No-Space, Trees Not Trash, Bushwick City Farms
