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Rattawut Lapcharoensap, “At the Cafe Lovely”, Sightseeing, 2005.

Rattawut Lapcharoensap, "Draft Day", Sightseeing, 2005.

Retrofetishist Manifesto. Baron Magazine No. 3. Contributing editor Michael Alig.

We define ‘gentrification’ as the deliberate pricing out of low-to-middle income residents from neighborhoods by corporations, real estate developers, and landlords in favor of renting, selling, and catering to people of higher or more flexible incomes.  At the same time, we know from first-hand experience that the same unscrupulous property owners who use tactics to force long-time older tenants of color out of their rent-stabilized apartments will turn around and illegally overcharge incoming younger white tenants for the same apartment. For this very reason, we believe that ALL of us- long-time and new residents, communities of color and white communities, low-income and middle-class people - have a stake in the urgent struggle to save affordable housing in Brooklyn.

Kara Walker: A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby 

http://thefeministwire.com/2014/05/kara-walker-sweet-taste-gentrification/

The project began when Lynne Sachs, curious about the Chinatown shift bed, entered the bustling, open sociality of a Chinese cultural center and asked the people there for stories. She filmed them cooking together, eating together, passing time, and retelling the stories in a small apartment which approximates the spaces where many live. Everything here is aesthetically interesting: the music, the color, the camera variation, the mishmash of things, the pacing, the intimacy between the economically constituted family of the small apartment. She shot in mirrors often to increase light and space among the warren of bunk beds.

Rev- has been working with domestic-worker orgs to design resources and organizing support for domestic workers who are often vulnerable, informal-sector, and largely women of color and immigrants. One of Rev-'s earlier designs was a talk-show-style nanny hotline, New Day Standard, that nannies could call into to hear information about their rights in a humorous and entertaining format. Hear a sample here. 

For more information on stop and frisk—and the amazing coalition organizing campaign that is fighting it—check out Communities United for Police Reform's issue page. 

In a 2010 trip in Japan with Dave and Mike, we stopped by Nagoya for an hour and sprinted to the Aichi Trienniale, so I could finally see "Where He Meets Him" after hearing about it for so long. I wished I could visit it again and again to see the progression of the piece and slow combustion of text incense. Great. 

Designed by ad firm McKinney, the same folks that collaborated with UMD to produce the interactive online game that raises awareness about homelessness and unemployment: Play Spent. 

At best, the study of history is a close examination of the forces that created a particular moment in time, which helps us better understand the workings of the world. At worst, it is a petting zoo, putting on display sanitized versions of real life that conform to our preexisting biases and beliefs. Instead of a window, we use history as a mirror, and like toddlers, we clap joyfully at our own reflections, naively believing we have engaged with something real.