city.on.wheels

What happens when skateboarding and urban space intersect? Will surfaces be destroyed by unwanted actions, or will the skateboarder's alleged misappropriation of space revitalize cities around the world?

[cityonwheels]

Arts + Public Life (including PlaceLab) @ UChicago recently hosted it's third annual Community Block Party. Since Arts + Public Life' (APL) home (the Arts Incubator), which is UChicago's only building in Washington Park, is still building up recognition among its Washington Park neighbors, the Block Party is an incredible opportunity for engagement with residents of Washington Park (and an opportunity to build awareness about our free and paid programs like teen internships and design apprenticeships). The block party featured DJ sets by Ayana Contreras and our young design apprentices, performance by some incredible young poets and the Honey Pot collective, Frankentoymobile, a live alligator, the Mom & Pops group exhibition, and a double dutch competition hosted by artist James Green and myself!

[cityonwheels]

Community Cataloguing tour at the Stony Island Arts Bank - future home of the #JohnsonLibrary and host location for the first Chicago Architecture Biennale.

[cityonwheels]

Currency Exchange Cafe #artsandpubliclife #chicago #currency exchange

[cityonwheels]

Theaster Gates Studio

[cityonwheels]

Yesterday was my third chance to help out with the Rebuild Foundation’s “Community Cataloguing” workshop. Though I normally work at UChicago Arts & Public Life’s Place Lab as part of my Doebele Fellowship with Theaster Gates, I’ve had a chance each Wednesday this month to switch it up and spend some time with Kate Hadley Toftness (manager of archival collections and public engagement for Rebuild) at the Black Cinema House. The idea for Community Cataloguing came out of a desire to ensure that residents of the South Shore community in Chicago can feel ownership over the collections that will soon inhabit the Stony Island Arts Bank. Those collections include he Frankie Knuckles Record Collection, UChicago’s glass lantern slide art history collection and the Ed Williams collection, but our cataloguing workshops focus on the Johnson Library collection.

Members of the community are invited twice a week to help us curate the books given to Theaster Gates by Johnson Publishing. This collection includes over 70 years worth of archival prints from Jet and Ebony magazine, the Johnson research library and autographed literary pics sent by editors and authors in hopes that Jet or Ebony would review them. What’s most important about this project and its future home in the Stony Island Arts Bank is that a history that was made by Chicago’s Black community can now live on in that same community, avoiding the common fait of becoming entombed by some elitist institution.

[cityonwheels]

On June 1st, I began my Doebele Fellowship (generously funded by Bill Doebele through the Harvard Graduate School of Design Community Service Fellowship Program) at Theaster Gates’ PlaceLab / Rebuild Foundation. My first day was quite the introduction, taking me from Theaster Gates Studios to the Arts Incubator in Washington Park, Chicago to the inaugural ArtHouse Dinner in Gary, Indiana. Attached is a video by Taylor Mckinley of PlaceLab about our time at the ArtHouse Dinner.

I chose to post about this (and will continue to do so) on city.on.wheels because I credit this project with leading me to pursue this unique combination of urban planning (place-making) and community art that Theaster Gates has mastered so well. To catch up on what I’ve been doing between city.on.wheels and my projects today, please visit caramichell.com.

[caramichell]

1933 Slaughterhouse | Part I

Shanghai, China

This work by Cara Michell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

[cityonwheels]

MACBA, Barcelona - Social institutions of control step in when physical barriers fail to prohibit multi-use spaces. Police on motorbikes chase skateboarders off of MACBA's courtyard after a day of seemingly effortless coexistence between skaters, museum visitors and local students.

This work by Cara Michell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

[cityonwheels]

Some pre-thesis experiments...

This work by Cara Michell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

[cityonwheels]

Southbank Skatepark (The Undercroft) has been one of London's most vibrant centres for urban art since 1973. Now it's in danger of being demolished. Watch this amazing video about the history of a street-artist's mecca, recently featured at the VENICE BIENNALE. Maybe with enough support we can help save it!

[cityonwheels]

On our way from Bercy to Palais de Tokyo (Le Dôme), my brother and I picked up five more travelling skaters. One from Senegal/New York, and four from Turin, Italy. 

This work by Cara Michell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

[cityonwheels]

The perfect hiding spot for skaters in Berlin. We heard the telltale sound of wheels grinding, and spotted these Austrian skaters not far from the Neue Nationalgaleri.

This work by Cara Michell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

[cityonwheels]

Olney Manor Skatepark

June 2013

This work by Cara Michell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.”

[cityonwheels]

Palais de Tokyo, Paris

June 2013

This work by Cara Michell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.”

[innoskate]

Skate it. Shred it. SHOW US!

Tag your skateboarding photos with #innoskate now until June 21 for the chance to be featured at the Smithsonian. @si_invention & @theiasc are celebrating innovation in skateboarding at @amhistorymuseum June 21 & 22.

RULES: Please only submit your own photos. All images will be attributed using Instagram usernames. Smithsonian terms of use: http://www.si.edu/Termsofuse.

Featured photo by @allwiley.

[cityonwheels]

If you're in DC, make sure to check out innoskate 2013 June 21-22!

[cityonwheels]

Open-source construction? WikiHouse thinks so.

[org-for-spatial-practice]

Spatial Practice - diagram of disciplinary relativity

[cityonwheels]

As an OSP sympathizer, I urge you to check out Jesse Seegers' blog documenting past, present and future spatial practice.