Jonathan Bangs
E. Serrano
April 2016
In the beginning my intention was to read Grant H. Kester's highly eloquent essay until I reached the bibliography section. Implementing this nonstop task as my objective had its pros as well as its cons; after reading Grant Kester's work it was apparent that Kester is an intellectual man that possess the gift of keeping the reader emphatically attentive however he as the ability to ramble historical facts to the point of boredom as well.
March of last year I started the process for a community engaging play titled Shelter; the story centers around seven kids from Central America and their horrendous and hopeful journey to the United States of America. The journey in terms of the show process for which has also been long and arduous but doesn't hold a candle to the trek these thirteen and fourteen year old children go through for the opportunity to receive a pinch of the American Dream; at twenty two years old and have been acting for sixteen of those years, never before have I been in a show that resonates fibers of being I've never felt before. During the twelve/ thirteen-month process a myriad of the Shelter cast and crew have often participated in workshops with East LA kids who've taken the dreadful voyage themselves. Orchestrated by Martin Acosta, Marissa Chibas and the CalArts Center for New Performance, Shelter will be premiering in the heart of East LA with the engagement of the Latino community April 8th- 17 at Lincoln Park.
I was a fan of Kester's essay mostly at times in which he would deeply detail examples of community engagement processes and the reception that each artwork garnered. Grant Kester says in his thirty plus page essay:
"The community in community based public art often, although clearly not always, refers to the individuals marked as culturally, economically, or socially different either from the artist or from the audience for the particular project."
I found the quote above to be somewhat of the helm or motif in a plethora of concepts embedded in this writing. I also found the dichotomy of a "rightfully done" art making project versus a not so consciously acted art work amusing for the reader; Kester's introduction of Alfredo Jaar and his exhibit "One or Two Things I Know About Them" was one of the strongest sections in the essay. Jaar was invited to stage his site-specific work he constructed in Bangladesh at the Whitechapel Gallery in London 1992. Jaar compiled photographs of many young Bangladeshi women to be hung in the gallery but what lead to the pour of outrage were the sexist and racist captions scribed on the images. The ending result of the gallery staff ultimately taking down the images altogether is what I perceive to be a community involved artwork not properly engaging the community.
In short, I found Grant Kester's writing highly informative and coincidental with the timing of the community engaging art project Shelter. A few days away from my first performance for a site-specific audience or tailored demographic; reading Kester praising Dawn Dedeaux's art installation "Soul Shadows: Urban Warrior Myths" and its impact has consequently given me anxiety about communal reception destined for Shelter.
Works Cited
1) http://arthurrogergallery.com/artists/dawn-dedeaux/
2) https://www.artsy.net/artist/alfredo-jaar
3) Aesthetic Evangelists: Conversion and Empowerment in Contemporary Community Art Kester, H. Grant
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