[spectre] Just Space(s) // LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) // September 26 - November 18, 2007

[Nicholas Brown]

Just Space(s)
September 26 – November 18, 2007
LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions)
Organized by Ava Bromberg and Nicholas Brown
http://www.justspaces.org/

OPENING RECEPTION: Wednesday, September 26, 7-9pm

Download "Just Space(s)" Press Release & Events Schedule:
http://www.justspaces.org/press/just_spaces_press_FINAL.pdf

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/// INTRODUCTION ///

Everyday we confront spaces that don't work - from our neighborhoods
and parks, to our prisons, pipelines and borders. In this exhibition
and programming series, artists, scholars and activists reveal how
these spaces function - and dysfunction - making way for thought and
action to create just societies and spaces.

The projects in this exhibition reflect the renewed recognition that
space matters to cutting edge activist practices and to artists and
scholars whose work pursues similar goals of social justice. A spatial
frame offers new insights into understanding not only how injustices
are produced, but also how spatial consciousness can advance the
pursuit of social justice, informing concrete claims and the practices
that make these claims visible. Understanding that space - like
justice - is never simply handed out or given, that both are socially
produced, differentiated, experienced and contested on constantly
shifting social, political, economic, and geographical terrains, means
that justice - if it is to be concretely achieved, experienced, and
reproduced - must be engaged on spatial as well as social terms.

By transforming LACE, in part, into an active learning environment,
Just Space(s) seeks to provide visitors with tools to consider
alternatives to reactionary and essentializing political discourse
that tends to dominate and frame our conceptions of justice - and
constrain our abilities to imagine and implement it. The exhibition
presents some of the most innovative and efficacious contemporary
artistic, activist, and scholarly work engaging social and spatial
analyses. In addition, a library/infoshop and symposia and event
series extend the scope and scale of the main exhibition. Taken in
whole or in part, Just Space(s) aims not merely to show what is unjust
about our world, but to inspire visitors to consider what the active
production of just space(s) might look like. It asks a crucial
question: How do we move from injustice to justice exactly where we
stand - in our neighborhoods and our institutions, at the level of the
body, the home, the street corner, the city, the region, the network,
the supranational trade agreement and every space within, between, and
beyond? While much theorizing about - and active experimentation with
- the role and potential of a spatial justice framework remains
undone, this exhibition and its public programming contribute to the
articulation of a powerful concept/tool that links critical theory and
ethical practice.

Just Space(s) builds upon the recent publication of a special volume
of Critical Planning (UCLA Journal of Urban Planning, Volume 14,
Summer 2007) on the theme of spatial justice, which also serves as a
companion to the exhibition. Follow the links below to download PDFs
of selected essays from the special volume, including "Editorial Note:
Why Spatial Justice?" by Ava Bromberg, Gregory D. Morrow, and Deirdre
Pfeiffer, and a spatial justice bibliography. Visit the Critical
Planning website for more information and to purchase a copy of the
journal.

http://criticalspatialpractice.blogspot.com/2007/08/spatial-justice.html
http://www.spa.ucla.edu/critplan/current_issue.htm

http://www.justspaces.org/
http://criticalspatialpractice.blogspot.com/2007/09/just-spaces.html

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LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions)
6522 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90028
Wed-Sun 12-6pm, Fri 12-9pm
323.957.1777 / http://www.welcometolace.org

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EXHIBITION OVERVIEW, SYMPOSIA & LIBRARY/INFOSHOP

http://www.justspaces.org/overview.htm
http://www.justspaces.org/symposia.htm
http://www.justspaces.org/infoshop.htm

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EXHIBITION THEMES & PROJECTS

http://www.justspaces.org/themes.htm

THEME#1 >>> (IM)MOBILITY / PRISONS AND THE PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

The Corrections Documentary Project (Ashley Hunt) /// Million Dollar
Blocks (Spatial Information Design Lab) /// Up the Ridge (Appalshop's
Holler to the Hood)

THEME#2 >>> (IM)MOBILITY / BORDERS, LABOR, MIGRATION

The Black Sea Files (Ursula Biemann) /// Political Equator (Teddy
Cruz) /// disOrientation Guide (Counter-Cartographies Collective) ///
Spatial Justice for Ayn Hawd (Sabine Horlitz and Oliver Clemens) ///
Searching for Our Destination (Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri ) ///
Water Station Maps and Warning Posters (Humane Borders and No More
Deaths) /// Host Not Found: A Traveling Monument of the Suppression of
Search (Markus Miessen and Patricia Reed)

THEME#3 >>> ECONOMIC JUSTICE / THE RIGHT TO THE CITY

The Figueroa Corridor Coalition for Economic Justice (SAJE - Strategic
Actions for a Just Economy) /// Mobile Planning Lab for South LA
(Scott Berzofsky, Chris Gladora, Dane Nester, Nicholas Wisniewski, and
SAJE) /// UTOPIA-dystopia (Los Angeles Poverty Department) ///
Principles of Unity (Right to the City Alliance) /// RFK in EKY
(Appalshop and John Malpede) /// Spatializing Labor Campaigns (Service
Employees International Union)

THEME#4 >>> ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE / PUBLIC HEALTH

Syracuse City Hunger Project Maps (Syracuse Community Geography) ///
LATWIDNO - Land access to which is denied no one (Sarah Lewison and
Erin McGonigle) /// Invisible5 (Amy Balkin, Tim Halbur, and Kim
Stringfellow) /// Public Green (Lize Mogel) /// Public Access 101 -
Malibu Public Beaches (Los Angeles Urban Rangers) /// Best Not to Be
Here? (Marie Cieri)

THEME#5 >>> RACIALIZATION OF SPACE / SPATIALIZATION OF RACE

Detroit Do Your Thing (The Center for Urban Pedagogy) /// Detroit's
Underdevelopment (Adrian Blackwell) /// The New Yorkers' Guide to
Military Recruitment in the 5 Boroughs (Friends of William Blake) ///
A People's Guide to Los Angeles (Laura Pulido)

THEME#6 >>> LAND / INDIGENOUS EPISTEMOLOGIES, LAND CLAIMS & TREATY RIGHTS

A Century of Genocide in the Americas: The Residential School
Experience (Rosemary Gibbons and Dax Thomas - Boarding School Healing
Project) /// Dakota Commemorative March (Waziyatawin Angela Wilson and
David Miller) /// Secret Military Landscapes and the Pentagon's "Black
World" (Trevor Paglen) /// Spiral Lands (Andrea Geyer)