Launching Street Works, public-space galleries for co-creative art

Dec 1

MJN is grateful to announce the launch of Street Works, public-space galleries for participatory art, by and for artists dedicated to making justice normal.

What is it?

An incredible amount of creation happens in our public spaces — our streets, parks, plazas, and more. From graffiti art and performances, to chalk drawings and memorials. Among street creators are artists who center passers-by in co-creation, often in dialog with social and civic action. These artists go beyond interaction to sharing artistic power with audiences in 2-way and 20-way conversation. Quite literally: the audience collectively changes the work. In a small way, isn't this sort of what democracy looks like?

In a time in which democracy is at risk and collective participation is needed more than ever, we believe co-creation in public space is one way civic action can become part of our lived wisdom, rather than an intellectual concept. Over time and scale, we hope this is also one way for democracy to become a personal and joyful experience in which our voices matter. Bridge that with opportunities for policy education or voter registration, and we can lovingly close the gap between joy and pragmatic — more difficult — civic actions.

Principles

Through Street Works, we hope to foster mutual aid space for street artists like us who think the mainstream museum and gallery systems don’t serve justice. We need to re-work how we consume, show, and perceive art — including working beyond admissions turnstiles, bonding in place, and being who we make for. Over time, we hope to open-source the model, so that artists seeking justice can apply it in places and on topics that matter to them and their communities.

Street Works is a BIPOC artist-led art project; we think of the practice itself as work of art. The artistry is not in its sensory aesthetics but in how we work hard to live by MJN’s values in our processes, ways of working with people, and making decisions. This is where we set our most critical benchmarks for success and repair.

Street Works named the principles below as an extra layer on top of MJN’s core values, which broadly apply to any venture emerging from our studio.

Curatorial principles

We don't curate works; we invite artists to participate. Structurally, what this looks like is making the following curatorial principles as clear as possible and prioritizing deeply aligned artists through open calls. Deep alignment shows up in their body of work. Aesthetics, which can invite bias, come second. We do not rely on written language unless artists see writing as their medium. This is particularly important in our work in immigrant communities.

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Co-create

We co-create with audiences and commit to authentically sharing power with audiences as an embodiment of democracy.

Put residents/ people first

We are place-based, see relationship as art, center our “audiences,” — not only self-expression — and center joy as fundamental.

Make for and in public space

We design for and serve public space — like streets, sidewalks, and parks.

Spark action

We aim to spark hopeful, concrete co-actions that our communities can take to transform frustration, fear, sorrow, confusion, unknowns, or uncertainty into solutions.

Structural principles

Our team’s artistic practices reflect our curatorial principles. For example, we ourselves co-create, make on the street, center public space, and center relationship. But we also hold ourselves accountable to specific principles that invited artists aren't involved in, like how we approach production, engage experts in non-arts disciplines, check biases, and more.

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Embody

Authenticity, lived experience, whole personhood, and bodiliness.

Blueprint

Artists and organizers — many of us among them — have been working on the street long before this program existed. We’re listening to develop a “blueprint” to open-source structures behind Street Works.

Respect diverse practice

Practitioners of climate solutions are all around us. We need each other, and we need joy, inspiration, and the freedom of imagination to keep going.

Weave ideas

What we eat, how we breathe, how we rest, how we love are all connected to mother Earth. And our conversations around justice, environmentalism, health, climate, wealth, and more can be re-woven with our local, personal priorities and joys.

Who's behind this?

MJN is a collective that operates in a non hierarchical structure. Our programs are member led and supported by folks who identify as MJN members and broader community. These folks all played different roles and making the program a reality in its first year.

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