"new" ideas for "new" communities
yamani hernandez
..."urban prosthetics"..."inhabitable toys"..."spatial corrections"
ludens,brainchild of ivan hernandez quintela is one i meant to blog a minute ago...actually in addition to the luden's website there are great artist sanctioned pics and an investigation of this guys' work here
when i see work like this, i bow down...yes...and i get excited because A)i think its stuff i want to/should be doing...but also because it gives me ammunition of sorts. there are these massive community development movements with massive amounts of funding attached to them such as the new communities program which is a comprehensive plan to revitalize 16 chicago neighborhoods through a "quality of life" plan created with neighborhood participation and implemented by a lead community organization. i live in one of these communities and have working relationships in 3 others...i actually adore this effort but i do have criticisms. one of which is that in most of the these quality of life plans, "art" is a component at some level but i feel like the murals and plop art that gets incorporated, while often quite beautiful, misses the point or at the very least an opportunity.
interventionist work (artwork some might call it) like the architect ivan hernandez quintela of ludens is virtually non-existent. this is what i pondered in my thesis and continues to baffle me...why is this work often relegated to artistic novelty? why don't community organizers and activists at the most mundane level know that this is a tactic/tool that they can use in galvanizing people to transform their environments? in community "plans" why does the art portion, the education portion the economic development portion etc. have to be segregated endeavors? i see things like...LUDEN's mobile public library, and i'm like hey...this has a place in the community development process its time to use new tools as we rebuild "new" communities.