An unexpected and stunning visual assembly appeared out of nowhere — with the help of New York activists and artists, along with Miles Grant and his friends. It reminded me so much of the very first visual assembly David and I created about the City of Care, it made my heart ache.
The group just showed up, laid out some materials, and started drawing. They were immediately surrounded by children and passersby who happily joined in. It really shows that all people need is a space to imagine and create — and the number of willing participants becomes endless.
Here are some of the ideas and sketches dreamed up and created in record time (in under 15 minutes!) by a group of complete strangers who had just come together.
Community gardens were the biggest theme. There was big debate about what they should look like and the size they should be but it quickly became clear that all options could exist together. Manhattan has lots of room once you remove unfriendly office buildings! People also quickly built brand new beautiful hospitals, schools, and community centers. Children took to the job of building housing and connecting all the major structures together.
Sadly the event turned out to be very short-lived — it had to be interrupted almost immediately by authorities who enthusiastically erased all traces of collective creativity.
What followed was a rather absurd exchange between the organizers, participants, and the order-keepers:
The head of the next-door building’s security team came up to an organizer and claimed that the chalk was getting complaints from residents who lived around the corner. After some brief explanations the chalkers were told that what they were doing was legal but “don’t push it.” Chalking continued, which must have been seen as pushing – a few minutes later a wordless assistant appeared with a hose, and began spraying the chalk without warning. Participants sang, stood in silence, and continued chalking in defiance but soon the entire puddle grew too strong. The security lead threatened to call the police, but it’s unclear whose side the police would have taken (although chalking in New York City is entirely legal).
For the rest of the time everyone stayed in the space, multiple members of the security team stared on from 50 meters away. Nevertheless, everyone had fun, singing songs and reminiscing about the city we built, and then rapidly lost.
What if we organized many such assemblies everywhere — quickly photographed and documented the ideas, then uploaded them to the Units of Care map (link in brackets)? We’ll start right away with this one and look forward to seeing more!
How to run your own event
Visual Assembly through chalk: Re-Imagining our surroundings collaboratively and without direction
Promotion
We are imagining the future! That’s really exciting and your promotion for the chalking should match that excitement and goofiness. If you’re engaging enough, people won’t mind a poster that is a bit misleading in exchange for thrill.
When selecting your location, think about how the surroundings will affect the event, and try to find a combination of contexts that will have an interesting outcome. Is there a space you know of that’s over (or under) policed? Somewhere that’s especially bleak or otherwise in need of some imagination?
Introduction
This is a show! Your energy will become the energy others put into their chalking. Make a big announcement that chalking is beginning. Have a few trusted friends to immediately get into the act of chalking. Brief them before on the importance of engaging with strangers who come for the event or are merely passing by. Chalk is the medium, however it is the communal aspect that is the real heart of the event. Once chalk is on the ground, it will grow quickly as people have more visions and ideas.
Allow the drawings to stretch as far into physical and conceptual space as they would like. This includes chalking big questions and answers on the ground (“What does good public space look like?” “What are we lacking in our modern neighborhoods?”) Re-imaging our surroundings is not a precise task!
Depending on where you are chalking, you may find it beneficial to designate a region or draw some noticeably large structures from the immediate area to get people’s minds moving.
Conclusion
If nobody bothers you, you now have a beautiful vision for what the area you’re in could look like! Take a picture and upload it to the digital map.
If police, security, or another arm of violence attempts to stop you from drawing chalk on the ground, be sure to document it! Including any attempt of yours to explain the situation to them (if you are comfortable). Be sure to upload this documentation. The act of these forces removing your chalk can look very funny if you react with confusion and awe rather than anger.