Curating Public Narratives 2018: Topic of Research

Homeless school age children in New York

The problem here is that there are around 115,000 homeless students in New York, which makes 10% of all. These students either live in temporary housings like homeless shelters or homes of their relatives. It is becoming an issue because the number this year has reached its record high. Many of the students have to travel long distances to go to their school, which is very inconvenient for many. Students need the convenience to be able to study well, because they are the future of the world's economy and society. Every student deserves the right to live comfortably and minimize the commute as much as possible. The problem is that there has not been a significant amount of money dedicated to solve this issue. It is being ghosted. There are so many children that are homeless that it is even out of the shelters' capacity to host them. My suggestion is to create a public street gallery of photographs of homeless students and locate it in Korea Town, Manhattan - this is where the Advocates for Children in New York Headquarters are. The large print photograph posters can be put on fences, walls of buildings and eventually advertisement billboards. The area of Brownsville, Brooklyn area is unfortunately filled with homeless students - more than a quarter students of 347 students of PS. 446 Riverdale Avenue Community School are homeless. This project could bring awareness of the homelessness of school age children.

Total population of Koreatown is 27,000 with median age of 34. Most employments are white collar jobs. The median income of 25-44 y.o is $89,000, and an average household income is $130,000. There are around 4,200 married people in K-Town and 1,500 households with children.
The target audience for this project is Advocates for Children, as well as households with children, art photographers and press.
Anyone volunteering can help me realize this project, photographers can help me take pictures. Riverdale Avenue Community School could help m find information about statistics and get in touch with the homeless children of this school, which could be potentially photographed.
Visionary Initiative - an artist production organization that offer grants to support emerging artists. They offer curatorial fellowships. They have funded many public art projects. Street Art Anarchy - an organization that help commission street art
After I come up with a project outline and create a pitch, the project is ready to be submitted to a local arts agency or a non profit organization. This art project will become a part of development or construction project in Korea Town. It has to be approved by the NYC’s art commission or an art council. RFP and RFQ’s for a public art development will be distributed by a commissioning entity. If my RFP is successful, I get the project.
After the project will be approved, the permission to build the project will go through a city’s building and zoning/permitting department. Since this project will be temporary, it will go through the city’s event permitting department.
City Planning, Parks and Recreation, Economic Development are some public agencies to consider, as they will be potential shareholders in the project. DOT Art & Event Programming is a governmental agency that offers opportunities to artists and has great resources to how successfully develop and fund the project of my own.
Social media will be useful to document the project, post the photographs and bring awareness about student homelessness to all communities around New York and beyond.
The documentation if this project can be done through recording a documentary of student homelessness in Brownsville, featuring interviews of these homeless students. The public part of this project will be documented as a series of printed photographs that will be placed on fences, building wall, advertisement stands.

Street Art and graffiti- is street art legal ?

The idea is to research the public art that was not commissioned to be placed, drawn or installed in a public area, be it a street, an interior, a building or a road. I would like to research the psychology behind this type of art, to find the beauty of it, and raise a question, whether or not, public art that was not allowed by any board is an act of vandalism. The examples are graffiti and street art. Another question that I would like to raise is if street art is just a way for the people and artists to let the world hear about them and their opinions. Can street art in its vandal form in lead to some benefits to the artist or a community? What are the regulations and laws about non-commissioned/ not registered street art, what are some of the punishments that can be? In particular, I would like to research the public art of New York, including graffiti, if I will be able to spot some common threads between the street art and potentially find out some background about several artists. My suggestion is to create an art work, such as a sculpture or a street performance of several street artists working on a large mural to draw an impressive an powerful original artwork that represents street art. A possible site would be in East Village. East Village has a lot of street art visible all over the neighborhood, and could be a great site for celebrating the beauty of street art in a one ‘art piece’.

East Village has a population of 116,000, apx. 55% are female. Occupation employment is 2 thirds white collar (office and consulting) and one third is blue collar (manual labor). The highest percentage of residents have a bachelors degree and the average household income is $110,000. The median home sale price is a bit over a million dollars.
The target audience is the public art commission and fund employees of Manhattan, the residents of the area, street artists, artists of all sort, and younger population below 45.
Some of the groups that can potentially get involved in the realization of my project are DOT Art & Event Programming, they help installing temporary and permanent art. They also have an advisory committee that reviews art proposals. I could pitch in the idea to them. Another organization is Public Art Fund, which is a non-profit fund that relies on contributions from individuals, corporations to fund other projects. They could potentially help me to fund my project. Another group that can potentially aid my project into realization are volunteers, that could help me instal the piece.
Visionary Initiative - an artist production organization that offer grants to support emerging artists. They offer curatorial fellowships. They have funded many public art projects. Street Art Anarchy - an organization that help commission street art
After I come up with a project outline and create a pitch, the project is ready to be submitted to a local arts agency or a non profit organization. This art project will become a part of development or construction project in the East Village area. It has to be approved by the NYC’s art commission or an art council. RFP and RFQ’s for a public art development will be distributed by a commissioning entity. If my RFP is successful, I get the project.
After the project will be approved, the permission to build the project will go through a city’s building and zoning/permitting department. Since this project will be temporary, it will go through the city’s event permitting department.
City Planning, Parks and Recreation, Economic Development are some public agencies to consider, as they will be potential shareholders in the project. DOT Art & Event Programming is a governmental agency that offers opportunities to artists and has great resources to how successfully develop and fund the project of my own.
Social media will be a necessary step to advertise my project. Platforms of advertising can be Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. Social media influencers and major art accounts can potentially help me advertise the project if they will find it interesting.
Documenting the project will be done in all stages of the project development, including research, concept sketches, construction documents (if needed), installation videos, and the final outcome (photographs in site) and later on, videos of how the public interacts with the project. The documentation will go into my portfolio, as the proof of it existence and copyright.

New York City’s trash

New York City always looks like a large dump. It also generates around 14 million tonnes of trash annually. America in general is the most wasteful country in the world. There are two waste management systems - one private and one public - because one is not enough. It would be interesting to explore the journey of NYC waste and inform the public about the scope of the waste disposal. My proposal is to use non-perishable trash to create a 3-D installation or a sculpture of enormous size, to emphasize the scope of the problem. The site that this project could house is somewhere along the Hudson River and FDR, potentially next to Battery Park City. Battery Park City was built in landfill that was generated from the construction of the World Trade Center in the 1970s. My suggestion is either placing it on the greenways along the Hudson, or directly in water, tying it up to mainland.

Battery Park City has a total population of 8,740 residents. The racial makeup is White 66%, Asian 19%, Hispanic 9% and Africanj American 1%, and other 5%. Out of 1420 jobs, 760 are white collar, 660 are blue collar. On average out of 4400 households, each household has 1.98 people. The education statistics are mostly bachelor degree , or graduate degree recipients. 3,270 residents are married. Median income of 25-44 y.o is $209,000; over 65 is 163,000. The least income is received by the age group of below 25 - which is $27,000. Overall consumer spending in Battery Park is well above average.
The audience are:artists that are doing the same type of work DSNY, as well as the residents of Battery Park City. Everyday visitors of BPC and tourists are targeted as well so that they become aware of the fact that BPC was built on man made waste. Private waste management organizations, Battery Park City Authority, Battery City Parks are all targeted as the audience for the project. Nearby colleges and schools are targeted as well to be educated on waste management subject in Manhattan, and to learn about the scope from younger age, to become mindful on future.
Providing Material : Waste management groups like DSNY (public department), City’s Business Integrity Commission (private agency) , recyclables handling and recovery facilities like Sims Municipal Recovery Facilities, New York Trash Solution. Like Architects is a group that focuses on recycling and re-utilization of materials and urban spaces. They believe that art can raise people’s interest in a greater cause.
Justin Gignac is a New York based artist that sells NY trash in beautiful cubes. He has a website called nycgarbage.com where once can buy limited edition garbage collections, as well as original garbage of New York. Another artist that works with trash is Misha Kahn. She curated an exhibition called “Midden Heap” in Chelsea the is made of trash from Dead Horse Bay in the Rockaways.