BUREAU OF CHANGE | We Are What We See – Revelry
We are what we see.
New Orleans, public art, institutional critique, education, civil rights, social justice, human rights, higher education, social practice, research based art, digital media, BUREAU of CHANGE, Margot Herster, documentary, New Orleans, collaborative media, social media, art, activism, photography, interactive, social media, Margot Herster, Margot Hester, Margaret, Herster, Hester, education not guaranteed, Louisiana
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December 2016 – ongoing
It’s a jubilee, a play, a party and a fiesta; it is revelry.
Tapping into the collective energy of revelers can liberate the soul. Connecting with the inner child, releasing all inhibitions and allowing us to be ourselves with no regrets. Taking advantage of the experience and owning the movement. Bringing with it noisy celebration, vulgar fabrications and nude spirits. Celebrating life with creativity, unity and joy. Spreading positivity and merriment in knowing that despite the negative there will always be something to revel in.
Why survive when you were born to live?
The poet Andrei Codrescu once said of New Orleans: “you must allow for one fact, we’re awake 20 hours a day, so really we live much longer even if we drop dead at 64.”
BUREAU of CHANGE: Social Services is an interactive intervention. It reframes internet-sourced images and reflects the interplay between what we are shown and what we see. Installed at US|IS, a series of false storefronts that act as containers for integrating art into the street life of the city, Social Services generates its own records. Visitors who choose to participate reflexively respond to selfie-ready mirrored windows, rather than any specific instruction, and photograph their own acts of observing to post to social media.
The newest version focuses on photographs that document and react to “revelry” as defined by New Orleans imagemakers.
Web sources behind the glass | WE ARE WHAT WE SEE
By design and resulting from its interactive, participatory qualities, BUREAU of CHANGE: Social Services is an ongoing and evolving project. It has exhibited continuously since October 2014. Previous versions of the installation focused on trauma, violence and bystander effects.
