I like this notion of inner vs. outer rather than public or private. It does not inherently imply ownership. My inner space is in fact permeable, affected, shaped, and shared with the people I encounter, the books that I read, music, hikes through the forest, a swim in the ocean…I am a collaborative effort by all of those extraneous forces and that is how nature functions too. Ideally, it is how public space is supposed to function, but these places are incessantly regulated. They don’t feel collaborative in any way.
-Bella Dorado
What if we pause and say that without humility one cannot love or maintain love? By love, we mean creating a safe and solid space for the people we care about to be themselves, to allow for a mutual growth for everyone involved , to be extremely sensitive.
- Rocca Family, from Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, written and gathered by adrienne maree brown
reflections on rocky fences
Driving down the road towards a strip of art galleries in Taos, New Mexico, my partner Chris points me to a stone fence in front of a business. It takes me a second, but I notice what he’s pointing at and laugh. The fence was constructed with rocks along the top, so that no one could sit there and rest their aching tourist feet in front of the property owner’s business. Jennifer Ball, the Chief Operating Officer at Central Atlanta Progress gave me the lead, among several others, to look at the work of William Whyte, who studied movement in public spaces. I found an ethnographic video of his work in the Emory library (digitized, no less!) in which he narrates scenes documenting a particular plaza in New York City in the 1970s (1). He narrated examples of businesses with welcoming and unwelcoming outdoor common areas and in one, he showed a short fence similar to what we saw in Taos. A comfortable bench or stone wall to sit on as you travel across the city seems innocent enough. But the rocky surfaces designed to discourage lounging are not just the work of a singular curmudgeon business owner. They are also representative of a mindset about inviting the general public to loiter or gather in front of a private space. Ball tells me that benches in public space can be a study on their own. The desire or lack of desire to install a bench in front of a private business is a microcosm of the debate around public and private space. So is the understanding of how private organizations work with city, county, and state governments to fill in gaps or perform additive services for the citizens of a particular area. BeltLine does this, Central Atlanta Progress, the Midtown Alliance, and so forth. Beautification of spaces, including art and performance in the city, voicing the concerns of property owners, putting trees along sidewalks for shade, making sure there are enough streetlights are all part of the responsibilities of these organizations. What is the government tapped to do but doesn’t have the bandwidth to complete or maintain? Central Atlanta Progress’ work is funded by the Atlanta Downtown Improvement District, which oversees the added tax to downtown residents that goes towards infrastructure and programs. There is a lot of work to be done and many of the private organizations that do it are built out of necessity, out of innovation and creativity, a drive to find solutions and focus attention on a particular area or need. Private organizations collaborating with governmental ones exist in most, if not all cities, and not just in the United States (1).
On November 20th, 2021, my dear friend Bianca and I walked from Lee + White past Pittsburgh Yards onto the unpaved areas of the BeltLine. Bianca tells me this path goes all the way to Grant Park. We passed a memorial on our stroll, a thoughtfully placed collage of photographs of victims of police brutality. We walked in silence along the memorial and checked in with each other after. It was strange to see bikes whiz by and not acknowledge it. She apologized for not letting me know that a memorial was coming up (Bianca is one of the most empathetic people I know). I said out loud that I think it’s important to happen upon memorials, to be encouraged into a state of reverence unexpectedly. In my mind, I made the comparison to performance and told myself to remember to write that down. We talked extensively about state violence and she told me what “industrial complex” means. It means corroboration between the state and corporations. If public space is owned by the state and sold to corporations or private companies, is it really public? Just before this walk, though I can’t remember how long before, Chris and I went on a Trees Atlanta tour of the plants and other things our guide wanted to point out along the Eastside Trail towards Ponce City Market. Towards the end of the tour, our guide told us about how the City made an agreement with Ponce City Market developers that the developers could have the space as long as they built a mechanism to catch water that had, in the past, flooded many of the houses and businesses around that area. That is how we got Old Fourth Ward Park. An agreement between public and private organizations. The same thing happened with the Atlanta Police Federation, who is contractually responsible now for the greenspace amongst the hundreds of acres of land they purchased. I am not well-versed in the details of any of these transactions, but they seem to me large-scale examples of how complex and frequent these types of transactions happen. I made a note after our walk to read The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence , which Bianca recommends and is currently in the process of reading.
1. The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces: a film, William Whyte
2. Information about Central Atlanta Progress and the mission of private/public partnerships are paraphrased from my conversation with Jennifer Ball, 2022
Shawn Evangelista in Faest, choreographed by Bella Dorado for the High Museum's public lawn; photograph by Alan Kimara Dixon
I think performance is a tool, a technology, like any other, in that it isn’t inherently good or bad, true or false, but can take you in either direction depending on how you use it. I think motherhood is a grand performance.
-Bella Dorado
Jessica Caldas, The Endeavor; photographs by Haylee Anne, courtesy of Jessica Caldas
