Three artists help break the economic crisis down into things that we can see and touch and feel … and use.
1. Golden Globe by Ryan Hollon and LLuís Victori
In the last few years, our cities have been going through some very tough times. And because so much of today’s population, power, and money lives in cities, the tough times have spread all over the world. Big cracks have emerged in the global economy, cracks which reveal that today’s wealth has been built in the shadows of our success. Maybe the time has come to look beyond the shiny surfaces that make us think all is well, and to investigate the worlds beyond our financial centers and downtown skyscrapers? Ryan Hollon
2. Red Lines Crisis Learning Center by Damon Rich
This multi-media exhibit includes photographs, models, drawings and sculptural installations — including a large, three-dimensional wooden graph of interest rates over the past 70 years — that offer an explanation of how the private housing market works, beginning with the federal government’s involvement during the Depression.
Last month the exhibition was hosted at the Queens Museum, superimposing foreclosure information with neon-pink plastic triangles on top of the 9,335-square-foot Panorama of the City of New York that was built for the 1964 World’s Fair. Check out the New York Times article on the exhibit.
The exibition has received a lot of other coverage that you can check out here:
If you are interested in hosting the exhibit in your own town (on your dime) post a comment here or contact Damon directly at damon@anothercupdevelopment.org.
3. Predatory Equity by the Center for Urban Pedagogy
Predatory Equity: The Survival Guide Is a beautifully useful product of the Center for Urban Pedagogy in NY’s Making Policy Public project that links designers with advocates in order to produce and distribute an artful and useful poster resource that will help advance grassroots campaigns.
Here is a description of this poster project in the Center’s own words:
During the boom, a new breed of speculator used private equity and oversized bank loans to buy up affordable housing. They tried to make a quick profit by converting it to luxury housing – putting over 65,000 families and their affordable apartments at risk. Post-crash, these predatory equity speculators can’t pay off their loans or sell their buildings. Foreclosure looms. Predatory Equity: The Survival Guide explains the financial mechanics of predatory equity and how to prevent it from happening again in the next boom. It provides tenants, advocates, and policymakers with information on tools like loan modifications and preservation short sales to save the hundreds of buildings in imminent danger of foreclosure.
The poster was produced through a collaboration between Tenants & Neighbors, the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, and Glen Cummings.
Posters are available for purchase on the Center for Urban Pedagogy website.