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  • » Name: Amanda Bassa
  • » Location: VA
  • » Member Since: 09/21/07
  • » Bio: student, future change maker, and everything you wouldn't expect me to be.
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The Undisputed Truth

Art Against Gentrification


July 12, 2008 | Tags: none

There’s two things in life that I can undoubtedly appreciate: a good cause, and some decent graffiti upon the brick walls of a building. Yeah, it’s illegal, but some graffiti is absolutely amazing and dammit, it should be seen and appreciated. So when I stumbled upon this article a few days ago, my interest was immediately piqued:

http://torontoist.com/2008/07/fauxreels_regent_park_portraits.php

Even if you don’t read the article, peep out the pictures. In short, what was going on was that the neighborhood in question was part of a “revitalization” project…meaning that its residents would get kicked the fuck out when their buildings were torn down to build new, fancier housing that would attract a new crowd of people.

You know, the typical story of gentrification that is affecting a hood near you.

So anyway, this guy named Dan Bergeron had the idea to get pictures of some of the residents who were going to be displaced, and then create painted murals depicting the people on the walls of the buildings that are to be torn down. Sure, this won’t stop the buildings from being ripped down, but it is at least causing people to think about what’s going on in a different view.

As the article states…

“Bergeron's project is all about displacement, the people who live in Regent Park being upended while their community is changed without them. With the portraits, Bergeron says, "the community has a face," and he means it literally—they make it so that "people become part of the physical building" even as the buildings, bordered by Gerrard East, Dundas East, Sumach, and Sackville Streets, are steadily cleared of people.”

To put faces to the residents that will be forced out of the neighborhood via art is an interesting approach to the situation. It instantly made me think of graffiti and what that could do as far as positivity is concerned (as well as that guy going around spray painting “vote” pieces around cities for the upcoming election). Then, I came across this piece, which deals with graffiti here in the DC metro area:

http://dcist.com/2008/07/11/murals_dc_celebrates_community_empo.php

The Midnight Forum, a DC non-profit which is “empowering youth through hip hop” has partnered with Jim Graham, the Columbia Heights/Shaw Family Support Collaborative, and Bell Multicultural HS to begin a legal graffiti initiative in the district that would be aimed at the youth. Things like this make me smile.

The program, Murals DC, is essentially covering illegal tags by allowing the kids to create murals of what are considered more appealing things (like the Cluck U chicken?!) over the normally less appealing tags. Now sure, if I was getting my tags painted over I may be a little disappointed, but in this case I gotta give it up for the kids. Encouraging art skills in the youth within a controlled environment, giving them something positive to do on their spare time, making the city they live in look a little more appealing to the eye, and getting the city council to support something like this? That’s a pretty good look right there.

It’s nice to see that the often ignored, most criminal, and sometimes denied element of hip hop is doing some good for our children. And to think, people were saying hip hop was dead! And since all of this put me in a sharing mood, here’s a mixtape from Southeast Slim, whose area of DC is dealing with some gentrification issues of its own. The tape is called “That Dope” and features an appearance a name that most of you are probably familiar with by now – Wale.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/qhbxve

Props to Southeast Slim for repping his city hard, peace to DC and the surrounding areas, and props to everybody that's out getting involved in their communities, voicing their concerns and opinions, and making sure that people are listening.


The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the writer and not necessarily those of HipHopDX.com or Cheri Media Group.

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