the Think Tank that has yet to be named

25 Texts on “Community” in Question: Conversations on art, activism, and community

Posted by DIM on April 6, 2009

• Participating Directors:
• Director of the Dept. for the Investigation of Cross-Pollination (DICP)
• Director of the Dept. for the Investigation of Neutrality and Palatability (DINP)
• Director of the Dept. for the Investigation of Meaning (DIM)
• Director of the Dept. for the Investigation of Metaphorical Agency (DIMetA)
• Director of the Dept. for the Investigation of Performance Anxiety (DIPA)
• Director of the Dept. for the Investigation of Tactical Education (DITE)

Volume IV in a series of occasional readers by the Think Tank that has yet to be named explores the idea of community and the many assumptions, ambiguities, and boundaries that inform this powerful and oft-cited trope found in contemporary urban society. We believe that to better understand how community is defined — that is, created, delineated, cohered, dissolved, complicated, contested, infiltrated, invaded, and generally transformed — will prove instructive for guiding our — artists’ and activists’ — capacity for collaborating with diverse groups of people in the struggles for social, spatial, and economic justice.

This reader accompanies the walking workshop entitled “Community” in Question: Conversations and readings on art, activism, and community vis-à-vis the Green Line Expansion, which investigates the proposed public transportation expansion (MBTA Green Line) into Somerville-Medford and examines how residents respond to (both for and against) changes in transportation and how transportation effects their cities.

The reader is organized into the following sections: Theoretical discussions on Community, Learning from Activists/Organizers: How to participate in a community, [Common] Space, Artistic responses to Community, Building Communities

DOWNLOAD READER VOL. IV

As an appendix to the reader and to the “Community” in Question project, the Think Tank that has yet to be named also presents History & Resources on the MBTA Green Line Expansion. This is an incomplete but useful glimpse into the historical record regarding the Green Line and Red Line transit expansions in Boston.

DOWNLOAD THE APPENDIX

KEYWORDS: community, readers