Reclaim Market Street! Sidewalk Intervention
Saturday October 8th 1:00- 5:00pm
Sites from UN Plaza to 5th Street on Market
Please register with SPUR
This event is free and open to the public
Donations appreciated
“Poetry is in the streets.” -Situationists
This one-day event examines ways in which we can redefine the social life of the sidewalk. Amidst the hustle and bustle of commerce and business how do we slow to the pace of conversation, interaction or reflection? Can we create places to sit, make or play? How does our relationship to the street change when we tend it, plant it, or perform for it? The day will profile the work of Futurefarmers, Michael Swaine and Paul Benney, Genine Lentine, and Amber Hasselbring.
Futurefarmers
After the Market (Market between 5th and 6th)
Futurefarmers will enliven a derelict marquee between 5th and 6th streets. Passersby will be invited to collectively imagine a new Market Street through play, humor, and dialogue. Drawing upon current instability of the “market,” Futurefarmers will create an abstract language in the form of a set of symbols. Using poles they will compose messages, in collaboration with the public, to hang on the marquee.
Michael Swaine and Paul Benney
BroomTrade (6th and Market)
Who cleans the streets? What is the definition of Civic Pride? What is teamwork? Where did you get that broom??? These are some of the questions that are at the core of BroomTrade, a social experiment/art piece by Michael Swaine and Paul Benney. Join them as they parade down Market St, with a series of hand-crafted, tandem brooms, and an open invitation to join in and help clean up the streets! Swaine and Benney have created a number of brooms that require groups of two, four, and six people to operate, transforming the simple act of sweeping into a collaborative, public dance event. They also invite people to bring a broom from home, and engage in a BroomTrade with other willing participants. Come to Market Street! Bring a broom! Learn a dance! And clean your city!
Genine Lentine
Listening Booth (UN Plaza)
Listening Booth arises out of an abiding interest in the brightening effect of being listened to, even for a brief period of time. Listening Booth is enclosed not by a structure but by regard. Creating a context for heightened attention, the piece emphaizes listening over the product of speech or conversation. Attention itself is the medium. Listening Booth provides an opportunity for face-to-face conversation when much public conversation now happens with either an absent listener, i.e. on a cell phone, or an absent speaker, i.e. a podcast. All are welcome to sit down in “the booth” and talk to an attentive listener for five minutes.
Amber Hasselbring
Urban Hedgerow (UN Plaza)
Join a public think-tank of artists, designers, and plant experts in a discussion and workshop set in a temporary native habitat staged in UN Plaza. The group will scheme ways of creating wild, unmanaged green veins throughout San Francisco made of hedges, sidewalk gardens, treetops and stream corridors — thoroughfares for songbirds, pollinators and other urban wildlife.
Joshua Short
Red Carpet for the Commons (Civic Center BART station)
Joshua Short will facilitate his project, Red Carpet for the Commons at various locations around the Civic Center BART station. Unsuspecting citizens will find themselves walking across the red carpet, greeted by applause and reverence.
This event is part of the exhibition Reclaim Market Street! created by the Studio for Urban Projects and exhibited at SPUR. Please visit the exhibition at 654 Mission Street, San Francisco. Reclaim Market Street! is made possible through the generous support of SPUR and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency.
