Members of Art Against Displacement talk about strategies for organizing and different campaigns and projects they have been working on. From fighting the luxury megatowers, and the destruction of East River Park, to rallying with our neighbors in support of the Chinatown Working Group plan and City Council candidate Chris Marte, from picketing MOCA with the Jing Fong workers, to organizing with architects and designers of the built environment against inequitable new construction, to organizing with small business owners for commercial rent stabilization, to painting banners in the park with kids, our work takes us to places we never imagined. The recent call to #strikeMoMA has offered a new lens to consider: as we reject the instrumentalization of culture as a tool for ruthless wealth accumulation, what would art look like in a liberated mode? What would an institution that doesn’t harm the community actually look like? On a concrete level, we are connected to the immediate struggles of tenants and workers in our neighborhoods. But the scope of our work is also imaginative.
Art Against Displacement · Art Against Displacement Communiqué—Montez Press April 24, 2020