[URBANTH-L]Just Space(s) // LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) // September 26 - November 18, 2007

[Critical Planning Journal]

Just Space(s) // LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) // September 26
- November 18, 2007

Just Space(s)
September 26 – November 18, 2007
LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions)
Organized by Ava Bromberg and Nicholas Brown
http://www.justspaces.org/

OPENING RECEPTION: Wednesday, September 26, 7-9pm

Download "Just Space(s)" Press Release & Events Schedule:
http://www.justspaces.org/press/just_spaces_press_FINAL.pdf

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/// INTRODUCTION ///

Everyday we confront spaces that don't work - from our neighborhoods and
parks, to our prisons, pipelines and borders. In this exhibition and
programming series, artists, scholars and activists reveal how these spaces
function - and dysfunction - making way for thought and action to create
just societies and spaces.

The projects in this exhibition reflect the renewed recognition that space
matters to cutting edge activist practices and to artists and scholars whose
work pursues similar goals of social justice. A spatial frame offers new
insights into understanding not only how injustices are produced, but also
how spatial consciousness can advance the pursuit of social justice,
informing concrete claims and the practices that make these claims visible.
Understanding that space - like justice - is never simply handed out or
given, that both are socially produced, differentiated, experienced and
contested on constantly shifting social, political, economic, and
geographical terrains, means that justice - if it is to be concretely
achieved, experienced, and reproduced - must be engaged on spatial as well
as social terms.

By transforming LACE, in part, into an active learning environment, Just
Space(s) seeks to provide visitors with tools to consider alternatives to
reactionary and essentializing political discourse that tends to dominate
and frame our conceptions of justice - and constrain our abilities to
imagine and implement it. The exhibition presents some of the most
innovative and efficacious contemporary artistic, activist, and scholarly
work engaging social and spatial analyses. In addition, a library/infoshop
and symposia and event series extend the scope and scale of the main
exhibition. Taken in whole or in part, Just Space(s) aims not merely to show
what is unjust about our world, but to inspire visitors to consider what the
active production of just space(s) might look like. It asks a crucial
question: How do we move from injustice to justice exactly where we stand -
in our neighborhoods and our institutions, at the level of the body, the
home, the street corner, the city, the region, the network, the
supranational trade agreement and every space within, between, and beyond?
While much theorizing about - and active experimentation with - the role and
potential of a spatial justice framework remains undone, this exhibition and
its public programming contribute to the articulation of a powerful
concept/tool that links critical theory and ethical practice.

Just Space(s) builds upon the recent publication of a special volume of
Critical Planning (UCLA Journal of Urban Planning, Volume 14, Summer 2007)
on the theme of spatial justice, which also serves as a companion to the
exhibition. Follow the links below to download PDFs of selected essays from
the special volume, including "Editorial Note: Why Spatial Justice?" by Ava
Bromberg, Gregory D. Morrow, and Deirdre Pfeiffer, and a spatial justice
bibliography. Visit the Critical Planning website for more information and
to purchase a copy of the journal.

http://criticalspatialpractice.blogspot.com/2007/08/spatial-justice.html
http://www.spa.ucla.edu/critplan/current_issue.htm

http://www.justspaces.org/
http://criticalspatialpractice.blogspot.com/2007/09/just-spaces.html

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LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions)
6522 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90028
Wed-Sun 12-6pm, Fri 12-9pm
323.957.1777 / http://www.welcometolace.org

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EXHIBITION OVERVIEW, SYMPOSIA & LIBRARY/INFOSHOP

http://www.justspaces.org/overview.htm
http://www.justspaces.org/symposia.htm
http://www.justspaces.org/infoshop.htm

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EXHIBITION THEMES & PROJECTS

http://www.justspaces.org/themes.htm

THEME#1 >>> (IM)MOBILITY / PRISONS AND THE PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

The Corrections Documentary Project (Ashley Hunt) /// Million Dollar Blocks
(Spatial Information Design Lab) /// Up the Ridge (Appalshop's Holler to the
Hood)

THEME#2 >>> (IM)MOBILITY / BORDERS, LABOR, MIGRATION

The Black Sea Files (Ursula Biemann) /// Political Equator (Teddy Cruz) ///
disOrientation Guide (Counter-Cartographies Collective) /// Spatial Justice
for Ayn Hawd (Sabine Horlitz and Oliver Clemens) /// Searching for Our
Destination (Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri ) /// Water Station Maps and
Warning Posters (Humane Borders and No More Deaths) /// Host Not Found: A
Traveling Monument of the Suppression of Search (Markus Miessen and Patricia
Reed)

THEME#3 >>> ECONOMIC JUSTICE / THE RIGHT TO THE CITY

The Figueroa Corridor Coalition for Economic Justice (SAJE - Strategic
Actions for a Just Economy) /// Mobile Planning Lab for South LA (Scott
Berzofsky, Chris Gladora, Dane Nester, Nicholas Wisniewski, and SAJE) ///
UTOPIA-dystopia (Los Angeles Poverty Department) /// Principles of Unity
(Right to the City Alliance) /// RFK in EKY (Appalshop and John Malpede) ///
Spatializing Labor Campaigns (Service Employees International Union)

THEME#4 >>> ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE / PUBLIC HEALTH

Syracuse City Hunger Project Maps (Syracuse Community Geography) ///
LATWIDNO - Land access to which is denied no one (Sarah Lewison and Erin
McGonigle) /// Invisible5 (Amy Balkin, Tim Halbur, and Kim Stringfellow) ///
Public Green (Lize Mogel) /// Public Access 101 - Malibu Public Beaches (Los
Angeles Urban Rangers) /// Best Not to Be Here? (Marie Cieri)

THEME#5 >>> RACIALIZATION OF SPACE / SPATIALIZATION OF RACE

Detroit Do Your Thing! (the Center for Urban Pedagogy) /// Detroit's
Underdevelopment (Adrian Blackwell) /// The New Yorkers' Guide to Military
Recruitment in the 5 Boroughs (Friends of William Blake) /// A People's
Guide to Los Angeles (Laura Pulido)

THEME#6 >>> LAND / INDIGENOUS EPISTEMOLOGIES, LAND CLAIMS & TREATY RIGHTS

A Century of Genocide in the Americas: The Residential School Experience
(Rosemary Gibbons and Dax Thomas - Boarding School Healing Project) ///
Dakota Commemorative March (Waziyatawin Angela Wilson and David Miller) ///
Secret Military Landscapes and the Pentagon's "Black World" (Trevor Paglen)
/// Spiral Lands (Andrea Geyer)