Mon, Jul. 26, 2021 ⁄ 4:00–9:00pm

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

 
IMG_2366.JPG
 
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

 
Legal_Concealers_PrintSpreads_LARGE_Page_17WEB__96923.1626733961.jpg
 
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

 
Police_Scanner5web__28463.1611954272.jpg
 
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 by Hennepin County Public Defender Laura Baldwin, along with Gould, a long-time friend of Fisher’s.
 

Kenneth Bailey in Conversation w/ Sam Gould: 7:30pm

 

SERC+Project+row+Houses+(4).jpeg

 
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.

· Resident Weirdo· ∞

Casey Deming has been making some beautiful work at the shop over the last few days in preparation for the LA Art Book Fair. 

Here’s one interior page from his artist book, Salon de Refuse.

· Resident Weirdo· ∞

Risa Puleo interviewed Sam for Hyperallergic in relation to the comic action, Sgt. Kroll Goes to the Office, as well as the differences between the Chicago and Portland schools of so-called Social Practice, and its role in the age of Trumpiness.

Give it a read.

· Resident Weirdo· ∞

12363087_709951185806879_6121084519593817094_o

Lacey got our conversation with Emory Douglas down to 1′ and 0’s and we’re in the midst of cleaning it up. I cannot wait to get this out into the world! Here’s a quick taste…

Sam: So, in that way, you have the BPP doing something similar to, say the Wobblies at the turn of the century — of being on the street corner, being visible, saying, “look, here’s this thing and here’s the person attached to it. You could also be that person.”


Emory: Yeah, absolutely. We had a paper — 6:00 o’clock in the morning, people had assignments to go sell the papers. It was at the subway, the bus stations or wherever that may be.

Sam: In that sense was the history and methods of, say, the Wobblies or the black press leading up to your work at the paper in your minds at the time?

Emory: Yes, yes. Because the context and the content was the connection.

· Resident Weirdo· ∞

on

As a way to move more complex reflections around the neighborhood, both on and offline, we’ll be producing a series of broadsheets, intermittently produced, that reflect both our own experiences facilitating the space and assisting the ideas and interests of those who step into it, as well as making light of urgent ideas and actions within the neighborhood on a whole.

Free, as it should be – these are communiques after all – Occasional Notes Nº1 is currently available within the shop to take, read, and distribute as you wish, dropped off throughout the neighborhood, and posted here on the site, to read on whatever device you are currently tuned into. Enjoy.

· Resident Weirdo· ∞