As the latest participating intern for the Wonderland Show, native New Yorker and local struggling artist, I am fool to believe that my American experiences are not unique. As I have witnessed immediate family members fighting culturally fed addictions, interacting with “the system” in its multiple iterations, and personally not knowing if I will be able to stay in my home if the rent is increased again, I wonder about the value of us individuals. In particular, by default, what value has been assigned by overarching capitalist constructs to creativity today?

The way I see it, we are all social beings, first and foremost. It makes me incredibly sad that my first question while interviewing for the chance to learn more about making art accessible to everyone was, is this project going to further gentrify the city where I live?

While working toward bettering human condition, will I still be able to afford my own shelter is an irony, isn’t it? Who is this city optimizing it’s conditions for? For brick and mortar establishments that can pay for their operating permits? For non-profits that take the burden of providing social services off institutions we actually pay taxes for? For established artists that make culture digestible by those that can pay for it? (For thoughts on these and other issues, please see Tim Redmond’s opinions in the San Francisco Bay Guardian.)

And of course who or what is actually quarantining these human needs anyway? Are the activities in Tenderloin the symptom or the cause? As far as I can tell, questioning and wonder are what make progress.

I am not a commodity. Nor are the people that live in the TL. I too am just trying to survive the many unmarked signs and territories. In our daily struggle, sometimes without time we cannot see or pay close enough attention to the meta structure at work. However, it seems to me that our basic (human) needs are being sold out. In America, the land of the free, human rights have slowly but insidiously become unattainable without a large salary. Ultimately, my goal in joining this endeavor is to learn how to go about furthering equal access to human rights. Physical and mental health, coping skills, food, clothes, shelter, expression, information. Yes, arts can nurture all of those.

I do not expect it possible for the trickle up approach to magically, immediately return any of these rights to any of us locally or globally. I understand that the systems in place are entrenched and continue rolling like a great river. I expect that the course to better conditions may be circuitous. But, I am hoping, and I think anyone living in any kind of ghetto will agree, speaking truth to power is certainly loud, but to change course, actions speak louder than words.

For the sake of current and deeper looming crises, it is imperative to meld efforts, efficiency and sensitivity. Not one group or person can do it alone. We need each other.

That said, there has been much action that has lead up to Wonderland’s ability to share the events with the general public. By making inroads into exclusionary media coverage and monopolies deciding what is sanctioned art, all the people working on this project have worked incredibly hard to navigate through the morass. I can only hope that the result of Wonderland’s efforts is the realization that more alternatives for everybody are possible.

From my recent experience and familiarity with the artists in this group, it is my estimation that Wonderland understands these notions. The Wonderland Show is not an answer but a response to an already ongoing dialogue. The crew working daily in various ways and in a breadth of communities are sensitive to the present and they reflect that in their work. Just like the people living in the Tenderloin, this is not about livelihood but rather one’s life and community.

Thanks for bringing this issue to light. I hope this blog continues as a space for hard questions such as these. I only hope we each do our part to invite larger circles for dialogue.

Many artists in the show are self-reflective and questioning their role as outsiders engaging the Tenderloin community. This is evidenced in the fact that the press release was re-written to better explain the intentions of the exhibition with more recognition of the complexity of the neighborhood. But the exhibition is not without criticism from the artists themselves. In fact, I first heard about the Wonderland show from a participating artist. He expressed some concern about the project and asked me, as someone who works in the Tenderloin, what my feelings, thoughts, and reactions were to this project. Later he sent me the press packet for my further consideration.

I had several critiques of the show as it was described in the earlier press release:

The Wonderland exhibition intends to give the tourist access to the Tenderloin’s many aesthetics. As stated in the press release, “The duration of the show renews the Tenderloin as a destination for tourists…By many means, Wonderland’s works re-evaluate common beliefs about the Tenderloin district through alternative interactions between the audience and their surroundings.” So the tourist can see The Tenderloin as more than the ghetto as the term becomes deconstructed through images that challenge its meaning.

But why is that the ghetto has to explain itself to the tourist? Why does it take the tourist to “re-discover” the Tenderloin? And why should alternative interactions be staged for the tourist?

Likewise, the concept of rediscovering the Tenderloin undermines the richness of aesthetics already in place. The term rediscovery is just as problematic when considering the recent history of gentrification in San Francisco. A perfect example is the Bayview–a historically Black neighborhood and another one of the city’s few remaining ghettos. Recently, the neighborhood has undergone redevelopment (synonymous with gentrification) and homes are bring built that are unaffordable to its current residents. The city council promoted this redevelopment initiative with a publicity campaign. At Muni stops and elsewhere throughout the city, there were posters depicting “alternative images” of the Bayview designed to contradict its ghetto persona with text sprawled across the top that read “rediscover Bayview”. This rediscovery perpetuates the same hegemony as discovery, ignoring the existing cultures already present. And, in this sense, it encourages the same process of renaming the Tenderloin as Wonderland, inviting the tourist in at the expense of the resident.

I sent this open letter to the folks at Wonderland and they were very receptive. In fact, John Melvin responded to me the next day, inviting me to participate in community meetings where I could provide input. Unfortunately, I never received an invitation to any of those meetings.

Since writing the open letter, I started working with some of the folks from the Wonderland show so the children that I work could participate in the show. As someone collaborating with the artists and as someone engaged in the community, I still have my criticisms of the show, particularly surrounding gentrification and sustainability.

I agree that the Wonderland project is unique because it brings internationally acclaimed artists into a stigmatized neighborhood to engage the community in contemporary art projects. Maybe it’s under my radar, but I don’t think this happens every day. However, I still think it is important to examine the implications of bringing outsiders in to “spotlight” the Tenderloin so that people gain a more complex understanding of the neighborhood. I recognize that members of the community are central to the show, but I am still curious—what if Tenderloin residents were the primary organizers? What if Tenderloin residents were the only artists invited to participate?

I think it is also important to consider the ramification of hosting a large-scale art exhibition in a neighborhood made vulnerable to gentrification because of its geographically desirable location. (Case in point: the new multi-million dollar California Pacific Medical Center facility proposed for construction at Van Ness and Geary) I’m not suggesting that the TL should be without the arts. On the contrary, I believe that there already exists thriving cultures of art and artists—both formal and informal—in the Tenderloin. However, I am curious to know how the shape of the neighborhood will change by giving more access to outsiders and tourists. I am also curious about what role outside artists will play in the process of the potential gentrification of the Tenderloin.

My final concern is in regards to sustainability. Many of the artists lay claim to the desire to build sustainable relationships with the community and its residents. I think this is really important. That the Wonderland show takes place over a course of months lends itself to this fact. But, in my work with children, I can assure you that a couple of months are still not sustainable. I invite the artists to continue their work with TL residents throughout the year as part of an ongoing project.

Finally, even though I hate to extend a bad metaphor, I would like to say that Roberts is clearly no Queen of Hearts. She’s more like that tripped out caterpillar asking Alice to explain what she is doing in Wonderland.

“Our group is not interested in addressing politics or trying to stave off societies ills. We are interested in making an abstract visual beacon that reflects an internal, human struggle.”

This internal, human struggle is inherently and without a doubt, political.

San Francisco has one of the highest rates of homelessness of any major metropolitan city and to turn this into an abstraction, a visual beacon is incredibly disheartening and represents a lack of maturity. Art is political. Public art is political. The Tenderloin is a political site. Regardless as to your intention, by choosing this subject matter you ARE addressing politics. I hope that you see this as an opportunity to examine this more thoroughly, to consider your role as an artist as more than just creating a visual gesture and reconsider disregarding the extreme seriousness of this very political issue for thousands of people’s lives who may not have the power or voice to do so themselves.

First off, we are all pleased that our proposal has initiated such a dialogue and look forward to continued discussion.

Before addressing specifics it is worth noting that our blog is in proposal form and has been constantly evolving for over a year. There are some rather crucial updates that have not yet been uploaded due to last minute changes. Clearly it is very different to approach a proposal as opposed to finished work. Second, it is clear that extensive reading has been done on the Wonderland website, but not a single interview conducted with any of the artists, the TCBD, nor the curator Lance Fung. Obviously we are conditioned to be devoted to our on-line world for information, but to write an entire article of a multi-dimensional exhibition through this one lens seems unfortunate. If we are truly concerned about addressing the social implications of such an art intervention, a thorough discussion with its participants and residents of the neighborhood seems required.

Having said that, our collaborative group is interested in addressing any misunderstandings toward our artistic intensions. We feel our central premise remains a valid component within the construct of this exhibition and the neighborhood and hope it continues to evoke a variety of reactions. Our goal is to create an installation that represents various cultural and psychological contradictions at work in the Tenderloin. Within this vein the complicated nature of “performance” and “audience” is also examined. The Tenderloin has always been a destination for various forms of entertainment and theater. On these stages there is an illusionary drama that is represented. Meanwhile, outside of these buildings a very real drama unfolds everyday. It may seem crass to describe a cathartic gesture emoted by someone in a desperate situation as a “performance,” but it is a very common, real behavior that holds a haunting poetry for all and should not be easily tossed off because it is not pc. The photos of pedestrians on the blog are a perfect example of our group researching our project as outsiders. Indeed we are all outsiders on this project, critics included, and we all bring a certain perspective as an “audience” to this situation. The Tenderloin has always drawn outsiders, tourists, transients and hosts of others since its inception. Wonderland will obviously bring a host of influences and perspectives and will complicate further the role of the outsider and the audience. All we can hope is that it leads to further discussion.
Our group is not interested in addressing politics or trying to stave off societies ills. We are interested in making an abstract visual beacon that reflects an internal, human struggle. The symbol of the cocoon holds a variety of references as does the sleeping bag. Obviously, we are conscious of the dangers inherent in aestheticizing these materials. Taking risks is an important component in art production. However, do not think we make these decisions lightly. We weigh these decisions between the three of us and each of our intellects and instincts. We have also given presentations on our proposal half a dozen times through out the last year to a variety of Tenderloin organizations who never thought we were being insensitive toward these issues. Ultimately, it will come down to the execution of the sculptures themselves that will weigh the balance of these ruminations and contradictions. We look forward to discussing any of these issues further during the Wonderland symposium on October 18th.

-Offstage

This persuasive blog post is both cogent and well-grounded; illuminating, at the very least, Wonderland’s failure to effectively disseminate their goals and priorities to members of the Tenderloin community and potential Wonderland viewers and participants. Rather than attacking Roberts for her valid concerns over the project’s potentially negative impact on the Tenderloin, I would encourage Wonderland organizers to explain how they are addressing these concerns and lay out a clear framework for positive community involvement and activism. As the previous commentator mentioned, San Francisco is currently in a severe health crisis, affecting Tenderloin residents perhaps more than anyone else in the city. It would be an immoral oversight for the Wonderland artists to fail to address the current political climate and the very real and concrete threats to the health of the Tenderloin community.

It is critically important to actively question the complex concerns that interventions such as Wonderland raise. It may simply be a matter of miss communication, but it is currently ambiguous what the intent of this series of projects is. Is its primary audience in fact those who live and work in the TL or is its goal to transform the TL into a destination for tourists? Both have been expressed by Wonderland’s promoters and there is no reason that it simply has to be simply one or the other. Neither stance is inherently virtuous and neither is fundamentally flawed. A more community focused approach empowers resident stakeholders, but undermines the generative potential of external visibility. Engaging an empowered external audience can induce actual improvement, but can equally be insensitively prescriptive, even exploitative.

There is clearly no right answer and no obvious path to follow. I am glad of Ranu Mukherjee’s post and heartened that the various agencies involved with the project have been carefully considering these issues. I am also glad that Ranu is happy that this blog posting has opened this conversation publicly, and i hope that the other artists and individuals involved feel the same way. However, I wonder what would have happened if it had not? Would it have been enough if theses issues were carefully considered but never publicly presented?

Personally I am not that interested in judging the particular motivations and considerations that have shaped Wonderland. Its program is clearly not concealing an intentionally malevolent plan to exploit the neighborhood for financial gain, but then again nothing ever is… What does concern me is that it appears to be using an institutional approach that negotiates nearly irreconcilable factors behind closed doors and then presents the public with a unified and oversimplified translation. “Look this is what the TL is”… “this is what it means”… “isn’t it great!” Such a paternalistic erasure shields the public from really ever seeing a situation’s contentious complexity, and replaces it with a cotton-candy version to easily consume and quickly forget. A wonderland indeed.

I encountered the Wonderland project last spring when it was still being formed and had similar concerns about what it means to frame a ghettoized neighborhood as a “wonderland”. When questioned about his curatorial intentions and the effect of this show on the residents of the Tenderloin, Fung was evasive and vague. It seemed clear to me at that time that there had been very little true engagement or communication with the residents of the Tenderloin aside from some interaction with a business owners association (who understandably would be in support of increased tourism). I understand that since then some of the artists involved (to their credit) have made strong efforts to bridge that gap and work responsibly with the community.

As artists, or simply as citizens investing our time and energy in a community that has pronounced needs we should question how our efforts are addressing those needs. It’s clear that the communities living in the Tenderloin have many needs, and it’s my guess that an art show, curated and produced primarily by outsiders, may not be the most pressing one.

Furthermore, plenty of people go to the Tenderloin to hide…so maybe blasting their pictures all around isn’t safe.

Beyond that, the Tenderloin has been in crisis for the past two years due to serious and devastating funding cuts. For those of us who lost our jobs and worse, who lost many clients to overdose, violence and disease because of these cuts it feels extremely insensitive to suggest the TL is some kind of spectacle.

Those funding cuts devastated people. in the last protest we did in August 09 on city hall, one client spoke about how people will die without those services and the blood is on the hands of the politicians and those who have been indifferent, and that is true. peoples lives are at stake in the TL and across the state, where other communities like the TL are undergoing the same cuts and loosing the same services. There is a pandemic taking place and people are dying. ACT UP and other orgs did so much to get those services going, back when politicians were ignoring HIV and the people (like the TL folks) who were dying from it. Those cuts send us back over 20 years…back to the dark ages, people.

If that point is missed in this exhibit, if the days and weeks and months of protesting and marching on city hall and attending rallies and pouring our guts out goes unnoticed in this project, someone should be ashamed. We have been pushed to the breaking point and we lost, we lost the Tenderloin health community center which served over 16,000 people a year, the Women/trans shelter, and numerous other community sites…there was and still is a lot going on in the community to prevent it. To come to our struggle and pretend it is a theater to be watched is really upsetting.

If only the droves of people who will be coming out to see this exhibit would have come out to fight for human services, the theatrics in the Tenderloin would be different.

First, I do not believe the intent of this article was to tell anyone that their art is not valuable or that being able to make a living off of their work is in unconscionable. Rather, the question of identifying the spatial, economic, and racial politics of a neighborhood when engaging in an exhibition such as this one should always be of the greatest consideration.

The Tenderloin is one of, if not, the most vilified neighborhoods/communities in San Francisco. And, as Adrienne mentioned, reflects many of the legislative short comings of the city of San Francisco. By cutting social services, such as access to adequate health care, drug & alcohol counseling, family services, shelters, (need I go on?), residents of neighborhoods such as the Tenderloin stand first in line to feel their absence. As a result, the popular imaginary around the Tenderloin and those who live there falls back into the ubiquitous racist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, classist, and sexist images that get reproduced so easily.

Having said that, the danger of constructing an exhibition around this community are many. At the forefront, the obvious issue of representation looms heavily. How do you do justice to those you claim to speak for? And how do you do that when you speak for them? Also, how is it that the subjects of these art pieces are being appropriated and reproduced in a supposedly enriching way? Regardless of who might be curating this event and what the intentions of those participating might have envisioned, I would be hard pressed to believe that anyone is so in control of their art, their subjects, their viewers, and so on that they can disregard potential problematics that have been purposed.

Granted, as I said before, I am not an artist and my work does not pretend to delve into that region. However, as a human being that can read and be critical, I am stunned at the seeming lack of concern expressed by some readers for those who live in this “Wonderland”. The danger in romanticizing this space is that at the same time you are othering it. Already marginalized communities are being put on display, and regardless of whether you put someone in a three piece suit or a sleeping bag, you are making a spectacle of their lives without any consideration of what will happen to them–not the space, but the people–after your exhibition leaves.

It is always difficult to critique the heartfelt efforts of another to defend those deemed less fortunate in society–especially when those sentiments are couched in a cleverly written introduction to an impending public event. Sadly, however, Adrienne Skye Roberts’ recent evaluation of the forthcoming Tenderloin exhibition “Wonderland” amounts to a self-conscious rant that reinforces the unsupported stereotypes she, herself, attributes to supposedly unseasoned artists, gawking tourists, unresponsive government and even San Francisco’s Tenderloin district’s homeless and downtrodden themselves.

In short, Ms. Roberts assumes the role of Louis Carroll’s Queen of (Bleeding) Hearts. She shouts “Off with their heads,” in response to the efforts of a broad consortium of talented and well intended exhibitors and community partners whose aims are far from facilitating what Roberts predicts will be only a brief encounter with the Tenderloin—an encounter that she assumes will be fed by “the lure and thrill of visiting San Francisco’s seediest neighborhood for one night through a voyeuristic meandering.”

After attributing her own misperceptions and stereotypes to the project, Robert’s at last asks, “Whose wonderland is this?” Perhaps the genius of Alice’s magic kingdom is that it is EVERYONES’. The objective of true literature, art, public largess and humanity is eclectic! Could it be that a visitor to the Wonderland exhibition might come away with a renewed determination to mitigate the plight of the less fortunate who are struggling in the heart of city. Might the artists who are contributing their talents to bring attention to the Tenderloin view its inhabitants with interest, compassion and even respect? Might it be more important to view the entire project from the very real perspective of potential paradigm shift and positive change rather than rolling out Robert’s hackneyed, negative projections that insist that all the roses MUST be painted red not white.

Ms. Roberts states, “I’m not terribly interested in identifying which projects are more or less appropriate or community oriented and which are not….” She then proceeds to do just that including her personal perspective regarding not only the artists’ intentions, but her assumptions as to what the viewers conclusions will be. In particular Roberts cites the “Offstage” project that draws on the Tenderloin’s theater history as an antecedent to the “human drama in extremely raw form” now extant on it streets. Art often imitates life including the presentation in “Offstage” of a sleeping bag form “to reference those without shelter in the neighborhood”. But art’s wonder is its ability to inspire vision and possibility. If one were not constrained by foregone negative conclusions, might one view an upright, twisting sleeping bag form as a cocoon of human possibility, or as a modern representation of Michaelangelo’s captives writhing their way from the un-chiselled marble into human perfection. One cannot grasp future possibility without calling attention to present conditions–however, horrific.

It is said that one cannot make a difference without “being better and KNOWING better.” It is ironic that knowing is often the function of fantasy. Rather than Wonderland being Robert’s “A World Turned Upside Down” might Wonderland be the catalyst for righting the landscape of the Tenderloin? Who said Alice “only woke up later and returned to her safe and comfortable life”? She may have decided that including roses of every color in her life’s bouquet was to her liking. She may have turned her efforts to growing something worthwhile!