Republic
October 11- November 3, 2012
The Republic considers the values underpinning deliberative democracy, popular citizenship, public transparency, accountability, polling, and representation during the final month of the 2012 election cycle. Involving residents participating in research, projects, and actions that animate issues surrounding the national election and democratic process. In particular, the project explores movements and systems that mobilize and govern our electorate.
PROJECTS
Robby Herbst (publishing, writing, contemporary art) from Los Angeles, CA researching the psycho-emotional dimensions of participation in democracy along with non-participation of seccesionists and autonomists
Katie Hargrave (audio works, printing, flag-making) from Minneapolis, MN
researching the participatory geography of Americanness, tourist ideas of democracy
Siobhan Rigg (participatory sculpture) from Washington DC
researching amplification, local representation in DC
Riah Buchanan (writing, graphic design, photography) from Los Angeles, CA
researching SuperPacs, money exchange scenarios the history of campaign funding
EVENTS
FOUNDING BOUNDARIES, KATIE HARGRAVE | FRIDAY OCT 26, 6:30PM
Join Katie Hargrave in a dedication ceremony for a new Boundary Stone for the District of Columbia. The new Boundary Stone re-members and re-marks the original Boundary Stones that demarcated the initial borders of the city, prior to retrocession of Virginia’s portion of the District in 1847. The project investigates the languages of memorial, territory, and politics embedded in the District’s founding. Public research will explore geographical power shifts and potential voting rights for the future of the District.
At 6:30pm, meet at the National Airport Metro southern exit near the moving walkways that lead to parking garage B for a short ceremony at the site of the historic Abingdon Plantation and then afterwards travel by Metro as a group for a conversation at the Boundary Stone Public House (116 Rhode Island Ave) around 8pm. RSVP to khargrav@gmail.com. For directions or questions, call Katie 847-877-9856.
LADDER OF PARTICIPATION, ROBBY HERBST | AN UNDETERMINED TIME NEXT WEEK
Robby Herbst climbs “The Ladder of Participation” alone and with participants on the peripheries of HUD and The Department of Labor. The ladder is clunky and unbalanced, segmented into the rungs described by Sherry Arnstein in her seminal 1969 essay “The Ladder of Citizen Participation”: manipulation, therapy, informing, consultation, placation, partnership, delegated power, citizen participation.
DC SUPERPAC | SIOBAHN RIGG | OFFICIALLY LAUNCHING OCTOBER 28th . . .
No Donations without Representation! District Citizens’ PAC launches its first campaign beginning October 28th. Representatives of the new super PAC will meet with citizens of each of the four quadrants of the city to gather resident’s thoughts on the power of the vote. The campaign will then relay these thoughts to voters in swing districts of swing states. Every donor to the super PAC is entitled to one vote in determining how the funds will be used to advocate for DC voting rights. To participate online, find out where public meetings will take place, or to donate to the PAC, visit onedollaronevote.net.
RE-CONSTITUTION CONVENTION, RIAH BUCHANAN | FRIDAY NOV 2nd 6:30-8:30PM
In order to propose an amendment, Article 5 states that Congress must call a convention if requested by two-thirds of state legislatures. This step has never been taken. The Re-Constitution Convention is a way of modeling intentions for citizen movements that directly affect their future governance.
We invite YOU to attend the first Re-Constitution Convention in Washington DC to propose an amendment, to vote or simply to witness. The convention will be documented through a transcription and video record, and model a nationwide campaign of conventions that will model inspired citizen action in crafting the future of our nation–a call to action to those on college campuses, social justice and citizen rights advocacy groups, progressives and tea-partiers, and political activists of all stripes.
ARTIST TALKS | Monday October 15th 6:30pm
Artist Talks by Provisions research fellows will lay the groundwork for a range of Republic explorations, from the psychology of participatory politics to the geography of American identity. Traditional cocktails will evoke the early days and tastes of the American republic. Space is limited.
Above the Bike Shop* 2503 Champlain St. NW Washington, DC 20009GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY EVENTS | October 18, 2012
12-1pm ARTIST TALKS @ Art/Design Bldg (Rm 2001)
7:30pm-8:30pm WORKSHOPS @ Provisions Library (Rm L001)
- BUILDING SLOGANS with Katie Hargrave (MN)
- WUNDERKAMMER with Riah Buchanan (LA)
- WORLDBUILDING with Siobhan Rigg (DC)
- TOUCHY-FEELY with Robby Herbst (LA)
Final Interventions, performances, and actions TBA.
FELLOWS
Riah Buchanan has a Master of Fine Arts from Cranbrook Academy of Art 2009; Post-Baccalaureate (Graphic Design), Minneapolis College of Art and Design; BA (Psychology), Carleton College. Riah began her career in New York working at R/GA Interactive for corporate clients such as Nike and McDonalds. She chose to leave the corporate world to focus on designing for nonprofit and progressive institutions, beginning with three years at the American Civil Liberties Union. Clients have since included The New York Times, Social Science Research Foundation, Revenue Watch, the U.S. Forest Service and the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Foundation. She has exhibited her work internationally and in Los Angeles, most recently at the Architecture and Design Museum. She is currently a Senior Lecturer at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles.
Katie Hargrave is a visual artist interested in the production of American identity through politics, history, mythology, and narrative. Her work elevates stories from popular culture, those hidden in the archives, and the everyday conversations from passerby’s and participants. Originally from Chicago, Katie received an MA in Cultural Production from Brandeis University and a MFA in Intermedia from the University of Iowa.
Robby Herbst is an interdisciplinarian, broadly interested in socio-political formations, behavioral architecture, languages of dissent, and countercultures. His explorations have led him to visual art, writing, group work, independent media, public theory and organizing. He organizes and contributes to the Llano Del Rio Collective’s guides to Los Angeles. He founded and is a former editor of the Journal of Aesthetics & Protest, an internationally recognized journal and “feral institution”. He is a recipient of a Warhol Foundation Writers Grant. He has contributed to Alan Kaprow: Art As Life, Museum of Contemporary Art, LA; the 2008 California Biennial; Democracy in America: The National Campaign, Creative Time 2008; Fine Print: Alternative Media, P.S.1, New York; NGBK in Berlin; and the Documenta 12 Magazine Project Archive, Kassel Germany. Additionally he’s shown work with Southern Exposure (SF), Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago), The Art Gallery of Knoxville (TN), LACE (LA), David Patton Los Angeles, Dumbo Arts Center (Brooklyn), Monte Vista Projects (LA), and Machine Project (LA). ldrg.wordress.com
Siobhan Rigg is motivated by her curiosity in social and environmental histories of places and stories. Through planned actions, dialogues and objects that engage audiences, her projects strive to provoke curiosity about sites and subjects of friction, revealing the complex narrative unfolding in the present moment. Her recent work has been presented with the Flux Factory and Proteus Gowanus in New York. She is a 2009 recipient of the Washington DC Arts and Humanities Council artist grant. Currently she is based in Washington, DC.