An amazing day hosting Marc Fischer for the first pop-up exhibit at the AMMU of two recent publications: Police Scanner and Legal Concealers. On view for at least another month…
Marc, Laura Baldwin, and Sam talked about the publications and the differences between navigating and observing the court system on a daily basis.
After a short break we jumped into a conversation between Sam and Kenneth Bailey of Boston’s Design Studio for Social Intervention…
Sam and Kenny’s conversation could have gone on and on, focusing on the poetics of social life and power, access to tools for grassroots transformation and so much more.
We’re excited to begin to transcribe these conversations and add them to a growing list of dialogues soon to be printed and distributed throughout the neighborhood.
Critical Downtime – Workshops and Printmaking – Conversation w/ Marc Fischer, Kenneth Bailey, Laura Baldwin, and Members of Confluence Studio
An Introduction to AMMU and Print Workshop: 4pm
Join us for an introduction to Confluence Studio’s Autonomous Mobile Media Unit, a social tool conceived by Confluence Studio and placed adjacent to MPDs 3rd Precinct to energize a continuous space for recognition, critique, and publication – as in the formation of a public – around the past, present, and future of our neighborhood following the 2020 Uprising. Along with learning about the ideas and concepts behind the AMMU we’ll introduce you to the tools inside, make books, posters, and more such as copies of Design Studio for Social Intervention’s Ideas – Arrangements – Effects.
Pop-Up Exhibit: Legal Concealers: 4pm – 9pm
The AMMU will host a pop-up exhibit of the new Public Collectors booklet, Legal Concealers. Continuing its “exploration of the court system,” Legal Concealers is a decades spanning collection of photo documentation of, as described by PC’s Marc Fisher:
“…efforts by photojournalists to capture the faces of people as they experience being arrested, transported to and from court or jail, or appearing in court. I have only included photos where the subject has concealed their face from the camera. These photos include suspects, people who have been charged with or convicted of crimes, witnesses, law enforcement agents involved in sting operations, and informants. “
Marc Fisher in Conversation w/ Sam Gould & Laura Baldwin: 5:30pm
As editor / publisher of Public Collectors, and one half of the long-standing collaborative Temporary Services, Fisher has often attempted to shine a light on and make sense of systems; the attitudes and overt and / or subtle violence they contain and support. For this conversation our primary focus will be two recent Public Collectors projects that Fisher facilitated: The Courtroom Artist Residency Report and Police Scanner. Each project, through its unique subjectivity, looks deeply at the objective reality of the systems at play, namely the daily workings of the court system and the police beat. To broaden the scope of the conversation and consider how the general public can mine the complexities of the criminal justice system from the outside in, we’ll be joined byHennepin County Public Defender Laura Baldwin, along with Gould, a long-time friend of Fisher’s.
Kenneth Bailey in Conversation w/ Sam Gould: 7:30pm
Since its founding in 2006, Design Studio for Social Intervention has brought design thinking to the grassroots, providing access to tools so that publics, often left out of the planning process and its effects, have the agency to address and alter the world around them. As a co-founder of DS4SI, Kenneth Bailey has played a central role in the Studio’s work to foster a “creativity lab for social justice work in the public sphere.” Bailey and Gould will discuss the Studio’s work, rethinking long held ideas around activism, public life, and leadership, tools for social intervention and transformation, and much more.
Apart from all of the above, this will be an opportunity for us to introduce you to Vic Liu, a recent addition to the Studio’s collaborative, anarchic mix of conspirators who has just arrived in town. You can learn more about Vic’s work here, and / or just say hello to her in person on Monday. We’re excited to see you down at the AMMU as we continue to think about the tools and frameworks available to us as neighbors; living together into a shared future available to all.
The early stages of the Mt. Analogue Discussions are beginning to take shape. First out of the gate: Julia Bryan Wilson on Craft and Collectivity, Patrick Shiroishi & Davu Seru on Familial and Collective Trauma and how sound, improvisation, and abstraction can serve as potent social tools for interpretation, and Marc Fischer on publication and self-publishing as a tool to illustrate the violence of bureaucracy.
