About the Project
Visual Assembly is a project of collective decision-making, having fun and drawing together right on the streets. Think of dancing, signing or food sharing – the basic human thing to do. When people draw something together — for example, a playground or migrant center, or think about how affordable cooperative housing will be organized in their city, or anything else — they naturally negotiate with each other and create something much greater than a public art activity. They create social fabric that has been destroyed in our atomized society.
Project History
It all started from a children’s book series that David and I were working on (anthropology for kids, or in the MIT Press version: the “Made Differently” series). The first Visual Assembly street project happened in 2019 in London on Portobello Road, organized by Nika Dubrovsky, David Graeber and the art group Extinction Rebellion.
During the pandemic, we weren’t allowed to gather in real life, so David, myself and our friend Olga were the artists working offline while our friends directed us from Zoom calls. It was so much fun! Passersby joined in, and the drawings actually stayed on Portobello Road for a long time after that day.
Miles and I met through the Interference Archive, where we held visual assemblies online. Our discussions about the “City of Care” quickly turned practical: how do we actually build public transportation? What do we do about police? How do we organize healthcare properly? Meanwhile, two little girls who didn’t talk much just kept drawing enormous amounts of everything they imagined in this city.
Then we met with an even bigger group in the May Day room, and for the past few weeks, Visual Assemblies have been running every Friday on the streets of New York.
Dialog
How are things in New York?
Tensions are high right now. A lot of people are thinking about the upcoming municipal mayor election or primary, the Democratic primary. Obviously, all of the federal news is quite on people’s minds. We have some ICE buildings around. There’s been quite a lot of activity around there the last few weeks. Including US citizens getting arrested by people with no badges. So people are definitely on high alert.
And yeah, you can feel that there’s an antsiness in the air. The weather has also been really fluctuating between pretty cold for the season and then way too hot for the season. So everyone’s pretty on edge. And there’s this collective feeling that something is going to happen, that it’s all building up to something. But it’s unclear what.
Nika
Tell us how we started doing weekly assemblies on the pavement.
Miles
We’ve been doing weekly assemblies on the pavement using chalk because it’s such a graspable thing. People want to talk about their environment and just need the opportunity to. And if you say, “Here’s an event you can go to,” they probably won’t do it. But if they walk past a bunch of people making chalk on the ground, they at the very least stop and look, and in most cases, actually do participate.
So we’ve run it at two locations so far. One was in a pretty friendly neighborhood, a bit more residential on the Lower East Side, and then one was right near Wall Street. So you had a lot of financial types and rich people living in rich buildings.
And so far, it’s been really interesting to see the contrast, where in the richer neighborhoods, obviously, the people who are of the elite, they will scoff and refuse to take part. But they do look. They do look and they do ponder what’s actually going on. Almost no one just ignored it and walked past. So that’s definitely felt powerful enough that the people’s ideas are coming out.
But we’ve really seen the people who have come regularly, so we’ve had two proper… We had one prior that was an experiment of doing this chalking. And the people who come regularly have really been thinking about things and shaping the idea. Because it’s one thing to say, “Oh, we want free housing.” But then when you’re there for a few hours, you have to think about, “Wow, actually, what does that mean? How do we build it? How do we maintain it? How do we do repairs? Who’s responsible for bills that come up or if the side of the wall falls down or something?”
People have really started thinking about that. It’s like, “Where will the money come from? Where will the resources come from?” You’ll see that someone just draws one little house on the ground and it spurs this conversation among people.
That’s been really cool in terms of the people who come regularly. We’ve also had a lot of people come and share their art that they suddenly find relevant. That’s both people who come regularly and just passers by. When we were in, we were on Extra Place, which is an alleyway in the Lower East Side, and we had a woman show up and she lived in one of the houses on the alleyway. And of course, my initial instinct was like, “Oh, no, we’re going to get yelled at now. We’re doing everything wrong.”
Then she was so excited to see it. She was like, “Oh, this is great. I haven’t seen so much activity here in so long.” And she started telling us about the history of the area. And then she suddenly was like, “Oh,” she saw something on the ground. It was like some flowers. “It reminds me of this poem I wrote.” So she ran inside and she got this book of poems that she wrote. And she did a small poetry reading for everyone who was there, which was wonderful.
And we’ve seen that passerbys, obviously, think less about what they want. It’s just very instinctual of what they want. But what’s been interesting is that most of them, even without seeing what other people have drawn, most people, if they just have to ask what they want, they draw plants and animals. That’s what New Yorkers really want to see.
They have these types of animals, various types of plants, very pretty. That’s always the first thing that comes to their mind. And not in the rural way. I don’t think people want to live in a shack, but they’re just like, “You know what? This sidewalk should just have a big tree in the middle of it. There should be a big flower bush.” And that’s just really pretty to see, because at the end of the event, you just have all these… You have big conversations, and you’re working on these different sections, and then you’ll see that three people have just come and drawn beautiful flowers everywhere. And it feels very interesting.
Nika
In our visual assembly with David at Portobello Road, one of the main characters turned out to be Panda. When we were trying to describe this wonderful city on the hill where we all want to live, pandas just naturally came to mind. We were also imagining lots of playgrounds, and of course, lots of pandas everywhere. I mean, no surprise there – we were basically dreaming about what a happy life would look like.
Miles
There’s something about living with animals that just really appeals to people. And I get it. It’s cute.
Nika
Yeah. It’s also because we are living in these deprived places with a very small amount of nature. We’re also in, so we need other animals around us. That’s natural.
Miles
Yeah. Yeah. Because plants make sense. But then animals is like, yeah, no, that makes sense. Even rats. People are like, “What if the rats, if we gave them the respect they deserve, then they might be less aggressive towards us.” I think that’s true.
Nika
Amazing. Cool. So that could be a real fantasy. Describe the place where these invasive animals, like rats, are actually having a decent place, and then not our enemies anymore, maybe.
Miles
Yeah, they have a little house.
Nika
Could we actually move beyond being just another series of activist projects that completely die the moment people stop organizing them? Could this become something that’s just… regular? Like a normal part of life?
David was always pointing out how many cultures have these rituals for making decisions together, for just regularly coming together as a community, and they work very differently from ours. They don’t sit around filling out Excel spreadsheets or voting. They actually have fun! It’s all about singing together, dancing, or storytelling. It’s often really theatrical, but the key thing is – it happens regularly. It’s just what people do.
This is the aim to make it part of everyday life, that could help us to recreate the very social fabric that holds society together. It’s like our alternative to scrolling through news feeds or social media that doesn’t even belong to us anyway. I mean, those platforms are programmed by someone else entirely, and usually in ways that work against what we actually want or need.
Miles
No, it’s funny you say that because a lot of people who come by, they’re like, “Wow, this is so great. Thank you so much for organizing this. When the next one is like, “Well, you can do this. There’s not actually that much that we did to do this. We just showed up with some chalk.”
And there is this moment of, “whoa,” that goes off in their heads. I’m not sure that anyone is brave enough yet to just do it, but we’ve definitely been trying to take people who’ve shown up a few times and say, “Hey, why don’t you take the lead on this one?” It’s really just about bringing some chalk, bringing some food, and then people just start talking and drawing.
So hopefully, as we do it more often, it will feel more regular. Because it does catch people off guard. And it caught me off guard when I first did it. It felt so strange. But after only doing it two major times, it already feels so normal to just show up and start drawing on the ground. And there is something just very tangible to it that people like. So hopefully, people will just start doing it on their own.
What strategies could we use to organize visual assemblies in as many locations as possible?
We can create stencils that people can download, cut out, and use. We’ve developed a map where people can find assemblies happening near where they live, or create their own if there isn’t one in their area yet. We’ll have a QR code that leads to the map of units of care, and we’ll distribute these stickers and leaflets.
Miles
Yeah. And I think putting the stickers in places where the assemblies should happen, that also gives it a bit more of a lasting impact, where it says, “Hey, if you see the sticker, this is a good place to do it. Just start talking around here,” Because obviously it’s temporary. If the rain comes, we’ve also had some time when building managers just come out and they’re like, “No, none of this, none of this.” Which always looks really funny because they’re so serious and intent on clearing away a picture of a horse. That makes the whole thing worth it to get video of that.
But the idea of saying, “Yeah, just come here with your chalk and people will join you.” Because we’ve also seen so many times people who show up and who stay engaged, they’re like, “I’m looking for things to do in New York City that don’t feel so commoditized.” And to just be able to say, “Yeah, just start going. This is the place.” And I think that is the first step.
Miles
And there’s been not quite disappointment, but I’m like, “Okay, when are we going to get to the more nuts and bolts, this specific place. What happens with this specific building? What do we want to do with this square?” People aren’t thinking about that yet. It is still at this higher level. But I think as it happens more often, as people do it more often themselves, I think it’ll naturally become more specific to the place. I think the first step is showing this as a thing that can happen.
Nika
For me, it’s extremely valuable to discuss things at that high level, because the high level is something everyone can relate to. I mean, we’re all living in cities with similar problems: loneliness, healthcare, transportation, gentrification, and so on. To be honest, this is quite an ambitious project—it will only work if many people start doing this regularly. And for that to happen, we can only connect with each other by finding either very similar desires or very opposing ones—points of agreement or disagreement that spark meaningful dialogue.
Miles
So there have been some disagreements, and what’s been shocking is that it’s almost never an issue. People are like, “I’m going to do my thing over here. You do yours over there. That’s fine. It’s okay.” You can have completely opposite things, and it works. And that’s been really cool to see. It’s like, “Oh, it’s actually not that big a deal. You can choose.”
Nika
It will be interesting to try to involve people with opposite points of view. Maybe this is a possibility to talk to right-wing people. Interestingly, right-wing people would be inclined to discuss practical questions because they’re often representing deprived parts of the population.
Miles
I mean, yeah. So it’s interesting you say that we’ve definitely seen people who are more conservative than New York, usually people who have really tight schedule jobs and are always in a hurry, they don’t really have the time to sit down and think about it. They do look, they do look and consider it, but they never accept the invitation to chalk. So definitely still some work to do there on how we get them involved.
I feel in generally what I’ve seen the more conservative things in New York, there’s a bit more of… There is a bit more of structure to it. I think they will respond more to, “Come here at this time and do this.” And if you get some well-respected agency or organization involved, that usually gives it this air of legitimacy that those types of people like. But I think in terms of the activity itself, it would be okay with it if it just had the right framing.
Because even I was talking to the guy last time who was washing everything away. And I was like, “do your kids ever chalk?” And he was like, “yeah, they love it. It’s great.” And I was like, “and you join them?” He’s like, “yeah, it’s my favorite. I’m like, “oh, my God.”
How to make a Visual Assembly
Miles
The way we’ve been doing visual assemblies in New York, as show up with a box of chalk and some food. And maybe three or four people who know what’s going on and are going to be on board. And we start by drawing something in the plaza that we’ve chosen, something very neutral, very basic, maybe something like a pond with an island or a bridge, or sometimes just drawing the building that’s around us, taking the environment and bringing it into this new world that we’re creating with the chalk.
And pretty quickly, people started to take a look and see what’s going on. And then we found it’s really important to have one or two people who have just a stick of chalk in their hand ready to hand it to someone. So if someone’s curious and looking, just be like, “Hey, you want to join? You want to draw something?” And then they’ll usually follow up with, “Well, what should I draw?” And that’s when you can explain, “we’re drawing the world we want to see.” We’ve had themes some week. So we say “the theme this week is a protest,” or “this upcoming week is going to be a complaint.”
So draw something that’s just bothering you. And then how are you going to change it? And then once there’s a few strangers drawing, you’ll have four or five people drawing the different things all over the ground. Then people start coming in much quicker, and you can just talk to them, engage them, talk to them about what’s going on on the ground. We’ve had some people stop by and go off a little bit. And maybe they’re not in the mood to chalk, but they might be in the mood to talk about what’s on the ground.
But I think that the crucial elements are really just bring the chalk, start off with something on the ground, and then have people there holding the chalk in hand to offer it to people. Because it does grow really quickly.
Nika
Amazing. Cool. Now, let’s talk about our wishes. How do you imagine this really viral? How could it be? Let’s fantasize.
Miles
I would like to see it happen in the same place over and over because it’s cool to walk away and you see this huge thing that you’ve created, but then it goes away after a day or two or when it rains. And it would be really cool if people were like, “No, this place is always going to have chalk. We’re always going to draw something here.” And then it’ll respond to the changes in the news and in the weather. And it can be a place where people could express how they’re feeling, what they want to see.
The regular people who show up there to maintain this, that’s the start of trusted organizing group. And that’s my dream of what could come from that is you learn that if you tend to something, you care for it, you do it repeatedly, that that can then grow into something else. It’s like a plant. But I think the tricky thing is, at least right now, the first step is making people confident that they can autonomously do this. And I think that’s just a matter of time, because so many people are like, “this is so cool. Let’s do it again. I want to do it again.” And having a good way to say, “okay, do it.” But that can sometimes be difficult to broach, especially when people really aren’t used to just doing things on their own. So that’s what we’ve been working on is how to engage that.
Nika
Yeah, interesting, because the whole Russian Revolution started from a series of what the Russians call “circles.” It was small groups of people who regularly met to read and discuss books together. It was an alternative education and, at the same time, a regular, almost ritualistic connection with like-minded people who formed each other through dialogue. This was the beginning of ProletCult – one of the biggest social structures underlying the USSR and the entire socialist bloc during the Cold War. Now mostly forgotten, or deliberately swept under the carpet, just after the Russian Revolution the actual membership of Proletkult – a volunteer self-organized horizontal network of cultural centers – was many times bigger than the membership in the Bolshevik Communist Party. Its founder Alexander Bogdanov was the most famous person in Russia after Lenin. By the time of the Revolution he had already been kicked out of the Communist Party, and just after several years of Proletkult’s existence, he was kicked out of Proletkult as well, so the party could change its nature and make it work under central command. But the spirit of Proletkult remained and in some way stays untouched. It created the whole DIY culture and many important Soviet cultural and science projects – from all Russian chess masters to music and math came from there.
We don’t have much of the Proletkult tradition in the West, though we do have open-source communities. Reading groups, as media, are very limited now; most of our collective activity has been relocated online. Sadly, most of our social media platforms are privately owned and exist mostly as manipulation and spying sites. We desperately need real spaces: online with friends that we actually know, or even better, offline where we communicate with real people in a real place where we are living, where most of us don’t travel so much and are grounded in something specific—no, it is quite literally grounding.
That said, I also think that because Visual Assembly was deliberately invented to be extremely easy to implement, we have to try to create a network in all kinds of different places. I’m going to Nairobi in a couple of days. For the festival I am designing “napkins” that will be my art contribution to our future dialogue, but I really love the idea of what you’re doing without any design or predesign—just anywhere, anytime with anybody, just with a bunch of chalk. I think it’s so cool, so minimalistic, and so beautiful as an art project.
Miles
Yeah, it looks really beautiful when it’s done. But I definitely am thinking of if there’s some structure that can help inspire people a bit quicker, because some people just don’t want to have that. I need to do the predefined thing. But it’ll come with time. It’ll come on its own.
It would be wonderful to add stencils — I could put them on the website so people can download them. We used them in our first Assembly with David.
What we did—because it was COVID, so it was just me, David, and one more person in a big square, and we couldn’t draw everything—so what we did was… I cut out paper stencils like pictograms of basic city services and characters—from people to cars, from coffee shop signs to solar panels—and it was very convenient to spray them with chalk sprays. It takes just a few moments.
What’s also simple to do is cut circles out of paper and spray them to mark the territory for the Visual Assembly. Anybody can do that. Just take a scissor and make a stencil with circle.
Then you immediately have this relationship where you can draw inside the circles, outside the circles, or between the circles.
Nika
I’m not sure if this will really work. We already know each other—it all began as an offshoot of the Extinction Rebellion Art Group on Zoom, with people who later helped shape the Graeber Institute.
On July 25, we’re going to try something new: a distributed Visual Assembly. People from different countries will join via Zoom, while also gathering locally—wherever they happen to be, in whatever city or neighborhood they find themselves.
Maybe it will fall apart, but it is fan to try !
Miles
Yeah. No, that’s funny. I’m curious how they would talk about it.
Nika
But it might actually be really interesting—for people just passing by in New York, for example—to suddenly see someone from Nairobi on a screen, joining the conversation. If we can set it up with a computer and show people’s faces, it could create something powerful, unexpected.
Maybe we can plan it well, time it right, and promote it a bit—so we can invite people who are really doing something exciting.
We’ll begin with a short talk by someone who knows the topic we’re gathering around—in this case, migration.
Let’s see how it will go.
