Unsolicited Architectures

Chicago, Illinois

Unsolicited Architectures negotiates the often tense boundaries between permitted protest, event, performance and intervention within the contemporary American city. 

Where protest becomes an event, the city becomes a stage, and citizens are actors, executing choreography whether designed by the police chief or the neighborhood organizer, but always for distinct user groups with out regard for the other. This unique social – temporal- spatial situation of distinct categorical actors in space, creates a complex social system. Creating tension between all parties, destruction and interruption of daily life, and fear.

Unsolicited Architectures addresses these key moments of interruption, providing an infrastructure for protest. This infrastructure consists of objects, that can act as a means for protest, providing utility and communication that is otherwise absent.

These objects imply and are designed for crowd sourced choreography, an action in a place.

Through a crowd’s participation and an injection of helium, the object is activated, creating a float easy to transport throughout the city, increasing visibility and media coverage.

After the march, the structures and materials are re-appropriated to serve the specific needs of the protest camp. Some units can be reassembled as pavilions, serving as teach-in spaces, pressrooms and event spaces. With the aid of the helium for ease and quick construction, a crowd can stack and tie many together quickly, creating a large shelter. They can also be used as barricades or tents, as a single unit. These units will permit protestors to set up a camp that serves their needs, but also keeps the citizens of the city in mind, with light weight structures that leave a little foot print; creating enjoyable spaces and events that can engage both protestor and citizen in a public place, allowing the lines of protestor and citizen to be blurred.