Crafting Reproductive Rights & Community Through Social Practice Art

An Honors Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of a Degree in Sociology and Anthropology Lewis & Clark College May 2013

Eline Leemans

I clipped the wire and, as I laid it down, I noticed that the hooks at the top, when paired together became hearts. I created my structure, making hearts and more hearts and enjoying the patterns of the cut wire as is criss-crossed. Layering the wire, wrapping it with thinner wire, I began to weave the hearts and patterns together. As I moved, I reinforced the heavy intersections, winding small, thin, delicate strands around the heavy, forced material. When the frame was complete, I made it soft. Using fine, red string I began to wrap it around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around. I continued, around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around. It needed to feel warm and secure and safe, like an embrace. And it did, but It felt closed from the world and from nature. It should not be closed off so completely, I wanted it to be open and part of the natural world so I let leaves grow out of it. --Sarah Brice Birds Nest Participant

Table of Contents
Abstract 6

Acknowledgements 7
Terms 8

I. Statement of Intent

Horatio Hung-Yan Law 10 Cathy Cade 11 Sandy Sampson 12 Anne Greenwood 14

II. Portraits of Artists 10

III. Birds Nest Building and Burgeoning Relationships

Collective Art as Activism 23 Power, Resistance, and the Role of the Body 26 The Value of Social Capital within a Spatial Context

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IV. Weaving Narratives 21

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V. Final Thoughts 32 Works Cited 34 Endnotes 37

Abstract
Art as a metaphorical tool is a powerful method of representational activism. Social practice artist Horatio Hung-Yan Law and other informants in this ethnography engage the public, create meaning, and promulgate awareness for social justice issues. The artists work activates participants in everyday methods of resistance by making art that captures culturally-relevant collective experiences. Theoretically grounded in the bodily power of social resistance, their work exemplifies a burgeoning field of participant-based art as an effective means to empower individuals and communities and engender agency and change.
Keywords: social practice art, relational aesthetics, reproductive rights, social capital, power, resistance, space

Acknowledgements

These past few months have been the most energizing and inspiring months of my entire college career. I feel so fortunate to have met and connected with so many warm, brilliant, and fascinating people. Horatio1 and Anne, thank you for taking me under your wings. I am moved by your generosity and willingness to share your passions with me. To Jennifer for converting me to the fascinating study of cultures, Garrick for turning me onto art, and Deborah for your guidance and calming words of wisdom, you have all made an everlasting impact that I will carry with me through every future endeavor. Richie, my lover, friend, and most forgiving editor, lets carry our passion for research and social justice into our travels and lifes work. Thank you for making me tea, kneading knots out of my neck, and giving me late night pep talks. What would I do without you? Aan mama, papa, Nele, en Sim, jullie zijn de beste familie ooit. Dank uw voor de steun, liefde, en veele kleurrijke ervaringen. Ik hou zo veel van jullie.

I. Statement of Intent
This thesis considers the ways in which artists employ their craft to engage communities in art

that brings awareness to social issues, particularly related to sexual and reproductive rights. Through the use of more abstract and metaphorical forms of cultural production, the process of making art becomes a representational form of activism. Audiences are encouraged to become active participants who question social practices and injustices. In reframing discussions around sexuality and reproductive rights, artists are able to spur change. The Birds Nest project, a collaboration between artist Horatio Hung-Yan Law and Planned Parenthood of the Columbia Willamette, provides an example of community members turned activists through participation in art designed to change meaning structures. Participants in this project transformed the symbolism of coat hangers as deadly, violent, and illegal, into beautiful and comforting nest homes. Law and other social practice artists I highlight exemplify artists working with nonprofit and advocacy organizations to engage the public and get messages across to wider audiences. With support of organizations and people in the artists communities, the artists host events and shows and engage with people who are interested in volunteering their time and energy to a cause. Those who participated in the nest project support Planned Parenthood but may not otherwise have a direct association with the organization (as a donor, doctor, or patient). This method of participant-based arts is a novel and effective way to involve individuals in the work and ideologies of an organization. In this paper, I first paint personal histories of four artists, introducing each individuals path toward the versatile category that is social practice art. Following these portraits, I reflect upon my experiences as a nest-making ethnographer. I use theories of collectivism, activism, social capital, and bodily resistance to create an integrated depiction of the narratives and observations I gathered. Given the relatively uncharted nature of social practice art within the field of anthropology, I conclude with ponderings regarding the future of the medium, its efficacy on the social justice front, and potentials for further research.

Terms
Before moving to my ethnographic findings, I would like to clarify two key concepts: social practice art and relational aesthetics. Social practice art is a recent term, though its predecessor, cultural work, was coined in the 1970s by singer Holly Near, who inspired social change with her music.2 Social practice art refers to art that relies on the participation and collaboration of communities. While art is most often considered to be a response to its environment and all artists are socially engaged in one way or another; participation in terms of social practice art refers to the direct involvement of people as the central artistic medium and material, (Bishop 2012:2). In every example I draw upon, the artists encourage engagement from ordinary citizens in order to make work that reflects the stories and meanings of these groups. Relational aesthetics, a term proposed by Nicholas Bourriaud, closely mirrors social practice art.

Relational aesthetics refers to an artistic practice that is based in human interactions and a specific social context, as opposed to art that is built out of a private and independent symbolic realm (Bishop 2006:160). Together, these terms encompass a desire to move beyond ones inner self and address the broader social context to which each artist belongs. In this way, the art becomes a tool of expression that links experiences to create commonalities by giving meaning and power to everyday moments, objects, and people. I use social practice art and relational aesthetics as the core concepts that dictate the direction of my work. The artists that I follow work in the realm of participant-based, public art. As the artist narratives will indicate, seeing public interactions as art is novel, and thus, this method of artistic production is a recent addition to the art world. It involves a broader understanding of the social issues that shape ones environment, and a willingness to incorporate voices and experiences that are underrepresented. The anthropology of art is an important area of study because it concerns cultural productions. It is argued that all aesthetics are socially grounded, and as such, are appropriate subjects for social analysis (MacClancy 1997:3). Miller (1987) proclaims that the anthropology of arts and sciences consider the roles non-humans play as actors in society. In terms of the Birds Nest Project, the coat hangers pose as actors with a material presence. Hideous insults to women are transmuted into something positive by repurposing the objects. I parse out artistic productions as both material and experiential quests in order to illustrate the significance of art as a social tool.

II. Portraits of Artists

The artists I spent time with all share a common story. Art is something each of the artists I

engage have innately been drawn to, and yet until they began making work that was meaningful to their communities, none of the individuals felt comfortable calling themselves artists.

Horatio Hung-Yan Law

Horatio Hung-Yan Law is a Portland-based artist whose main interest is in creating common meanings amongst communities of people. The first time I considered myself as an artist was when I finally was able to use my skills to make something that reflects [or] connects to real life. [] I wanted [my art] to be meaningful. So when I was able to channel that into something that was meaningful and relates to my life, thats when I realized I can be an artist.
Fig. 1: War Candies/Just Desserts?, 2004. 32x40 Digital Inkjet Print (Photo courtesy of Horatio Hung-Yan Law).

Horatio pursued an MFA at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. The impetus for his arts degree was his firsthand experience of the AIDS crisis in the late 1980s

and early 1990s in New York City, where he lived at the time. Being a gay man, it was like, you see people dying everywhere. It was horrible. Of the people I know, I have three friends left from that era. When I was in graduate school, I realized, the AIDS crisis embodied many of the issues that Im interested in, about the human struggle. Its about sex, its about religion, its about blood, its about disease. All of those are really potent combinations, and its about real life, and it concerns me. I am a religious person, Im a gay man, the first time I realized that art can be a powerful tool was when I started tearing up bible pages and using them as the background of some of my art pieces. I was waiting for the lightning to strike me, but nothing happened. Horatio realized that the bible is a powerful book for many people. From there, he used art to

turn ordinary things into very powerful symbols. This confirmed that I have something to say, and that this was something very important for me to do, Horatio tells me as he sips his hot chocolate. Horatio is concerned with public events and crises, and turns to social practice art as a means to combat his personal reactions to these issues. The terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001 led to Horatios second realization of the importance of social practice art. I was preparing for my first major art show in a Portland art gallery downtown and I was working in my studio getting the show together, and then, [when 9/11 happened] I started thinking [] why am I doing this, what is the purpose of making art and just selling it in galleries?3 He wondered whether there was a way around the commercial aspects of the art world, so that he could

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make work that is valuable to a broader audience and speaks to the human experience. Horatio tells me of one body of work he created in which he used Western and Arabic images from the Iraq and Afghani wars and replaced the pixels in each image with candies. Close up, the images look like millions of little candies, but at a distance, it becomes clear that the photographs are of the devastations of war (see fig. 1). In a way its saying how the public is addicted to this empty gallery of visual consumption. By mixing up all the images of the war and turning them into photographs of candy, [] it emphasizes that we are a society based on consumption. Theres so much hunger, yet there are these empty calories. We keep taking more and wanting more. Horatio says that body of work, War Candies/Just Desserts?, which he calls a hot potato, initiated his journey [of] interacting with the public [and] making public art. These regular people on the street, they dont go to galleries. So you have to think differently to connect with them. Horatio felt liberated when opting out of the gallery system, freed from the loop of gallery openings that included schmoozing with clients.4 Horatio began to connect with the public instead, and found ways to reach out to smaller communities, like families that adopt children from China. This [] was a small, self-selected community, and so I started working on how to connect with them, and make work for them. From there, I started expanding into larger [and different] communities. This current project [the Birds Nest/Open Circles project] is still a smaller community, but each of the [organizations] are very different, so I have to think of different ways to connect them together. Its not about protest as much as it is about engaging.5

Cathy Cade
Cathy Cade, a feminist artist from Berkeley, California, shares a similar narrative to that of Horatio. Like Horatio, Cathy felt compelled to create art based on experiences she had during the Southern Freedom Movement in the 1960s, and the Womens Liberation Movement in the 1970s. Cathy comes from an artistic family, and she proudly tells me that her brother is a well-known Bay Area Figurative School painter, William Theophilus Brown. Despite having a love for art, she says that growing up she was often told, Please dont embarrass us by thinking you can [make art]. When Cathy began pursuing photography, she was conscious of labeling herself as a documentary photographer, rather than an artist. She says that it was only later in the early 1970s when musician Holly Near called herself a cultural worker that Cathy realized she too could call herself a cultural worker, someone who uses the arts for social justice. I could see myself as a cultural worker very easily. So it was a version of artist that I could claim.
Fig. 2: Gail and Kate Rebuild My VW Engine. Emeryville, California, 1973. Silver Gelatin Print. (Photo courtesy of Cathy Cade).

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Cathy began her career as a photographer after a summer job she had in 1963 at the Atlanta Student

Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) office. There was a darkroom there and she was very moved by the documentary photographs that were being produced in this space. There was a lot of power and excitement around the photographs and they were published widely, all over the country. They had a very big impact, Cathy reminisced of this time period. In the early seventies, Cathy became a part of the womens movement in San Francisco, and many of the women she spent time with were learning trades such as carpentry and electrical work. Before that, with one exception, the photographers that I saw in the South were all men. But one time, I saw a woman who was learning and she came out of the dark room and showed me pictures, and I went, Oh! A woman can learn this! It was a big moment, I can still see it in my mind. When Cathy first moved to San Francisco, she and a friend from her consciousness-raising group took dark room photography lessons from someone she met at SNCC. After three lessons, the women set out to document the significant moments in their lives. We both became photographers that have done it for over forty years, Cathy says. As a feminist activist, Cathy began making photographs based on her personal interactions with the movement. She had exhibits of her work in accessible community spaces such as the Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco. She and two other women did an exhibit called Dykes for an American Revolution (DAR), playing off the right wing womens group, Daughters for the American Revolution. People loved the exhibit. We had a series of exhibits, [including one] at Scotts Pit, a traditional lesbian bar that new lesbian feminists were going to. It was a neighborhood bar, [owned] by women, Cathy tells me. People came and they couldnt believe they were seeing pictures of themselves, their minds were just blown. Cathys work is centered on the empowerment of lesbian women. Her photography shares the stories of the women as they worked in the trades, started unions and collectives, marched, and liberated themselves (see fig. 2). Her biggest project, a book called A Lesbian Photo Album, self-published in 1987, encapsulated much of her photographic intents, as she documented the lives of seven lesbian feminists in the Bay Area, based on interviews and photographs of the women growing up. This project, and many of her other works, bring the viewers into the photographs as participants, experiencing the stories of the women whose voices were previously silenced.

Sandy Sampson
Portland-based social practice artist and professor Sandy Sampson says she began her journey as an artist at a young age. I just always drew. Always drew [] because I would be left alone if I was doing that. [] I wasnt necessarily encouraged [to make art] but I wasnt discouraged because I was a girl and the opinion of me was that I was maybe a little nutty, so it was like, well let her do that cause its harmless. Sandy laughs. I didnt know there was such a thing as social practice [] and then finally in my late forties I decided that I wanted to teach, so I had to get an education [] I took a class with Harrell Fletcher, it was ostensibly a sculpture class, but it was really my sort of introduction to social practice.6 Students were

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asked to begin the class by making personal resumes. As Sandy began working on her lifes resume, she found that she was much more familiar with social practice art than she had ever imagined. [] Honestly its like, Ive been doing this shit all my life, but I didnt call it art, and I didnt call it social practice. I called it one of those things Im doing. Sandy recounts many experiences growing up in the suburbs of Denver. She and her friends biked around town and talked in accents. We tried to get ourselves embedded in some kind of weird situation where we would be saying we came from somewhere else [] in order to have these interactions with people. Sandy also tells me that she used to get on the bus in the mornings when she had nothing else to do (see fig. 3). I would pick one person [on the bus] and then follow them for as long as I could, [as a] detective. When she was in her late teens and early twenties, she started a club called Future Bag Women of America, and Fig. 3: Commute, 2007. Archival Pigment Print. 8.5x11 (Photo courtesy of Sandy Sampson.

she would pack picnics and then go to public spaces and try to get homeless women to eat lunch with her. It was very gratifying for me because I love hearing peoples stories. She said that she has always found it easy to make one-on-one connections, yet struggles with how to connect with groups of people. How do I put [conversations with the homeless] on a different kind of platform while always being careful of the ethics of exploitation? She wonders. Sandys interest in weaving peoples stories into a larger narrative that gives breadth and depth to their lived experiences is something all the artists aim to achieve in their work. In this way, Sandy, like the others, is moving away from classical notions of art or even ethnographic work, which arguably take stories from people and appropriate these ideas and insights for personal gains (e.g. profits, public recognition, academic success). Sandys work ranges; she has done a large number of performance-based art works, and is only more recently exploring the use of objects as art. One of the projects Sandy is most passionate about is called Public Speaking. She and her friend Laurel Kurtz take a digital recorder to a random place and ask everyone they encounter the same open-ended question (such as What was yesterdays highlight for you?). We record what they say verbatim, and weve got a couple of rules [] we ask everyone the same question [] and we dont edit. After gathering their material, the women take turns doing formal speech reenactments, we give a little shtick about what were doing, [and then] I will do one person and then Laurel will come up and do the other person. Sandy says that Public Speaking is based on a long history in the arts of recreating speeches of well-known people. Its always famous people that happen to be at an important juncture in time, or something like that. And basically what were saying is like, everybodys speech is important and this is an important juncture in time and we want to [reflect that]. Depending on the content of their speeches, Sandy says people will gravitate toward them and congregate. We had an awesome evangelist and so we were speaking his, you know [Sandy makes grandiose gestures]. So then

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people who were open to that [were drawn] to come [listen]. People like to hear themselves reflected. So theyre coming and listening and then you see the confusion when the speakers trade and now its a junky, you know talking about how the crackers have fucked it up for everybody. Sandys point resonates with the work done by every artist I have interacted with. People like to see and hear themselves reflected in others. Social practice art is a method of building a collective in order to create an empowered community of like-minded individuals. This art form is a means of giving a voice to the voiceless.

Anne Greenwood
Anne Greenwood, also a Portland-based social practice artist, came to social practice art mainly through horticulture.7 I had to make a living [and so] I do consulting and pruning and designing in peoples gardens. Theres a project in my neighborhood, called the Albina Green that I just came upon because it was a city lot that was going to be developed. Anne pulls the elastic band that surrounds her black leather notepad and continues, [Businesses] found out that I was a gardener and said, well lets see if we cant get a garden here, cause thats actually what the community needs. So we made some contacts and wrote some grants and made this little park and its just evolving, still (see fig. 4). Anne came into social practice about ten years ago, after realizing that the work she was doing with her community was really a form of art. I [had] been keeping these things so separate, because the gardening was not really considered a legitimate art expression until social practices came along, and then it was like, oh yeah, this is art too! Social practice art offers people who would not have otherwise considered themselves as artists the opportunity to combine each of their passions into something that is aesthetically beautiful, progressive, and impacts a larger audience. Anne says she thinks this art form came about as the United States finally began opening up to other ideas about how art can be practiced, and the value that art adds to peoples lives and to the community. The value of art has always been based on how much a painting sells for. Not really so much the in-kind value. [Social practice art] feels really open-ended [and] a lot more interesting to me, [] there are avenues for collaborating and working with communities and making [art] that dont have a dollar amount.
Fig. 4: Albina Green in Portland, Oregon, 2012. (Photo Courtesy of Anne Greenwood).

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Art is living the future in the present Tania Bruguera

III. Birds Nest Building and Burgeoning Relationships
As I struggled to shape the stubborn wire, I looked around me, wondering whether anyone else was facing a similar challenge. I saw several expressions of frustration, as well as many pondering, enlivened, and involved looks. Slowly, shapes were taking form. Mostly rounded. Some used a basket-like base with wire connected in the center and sprawling outward in many directions, like rays of the sun. Upon this base, spirals of wire were placed to create a holding space. Others made circles, each one varied in size. These slowly became connected by small pieces of chicken wire or twine, also creating a bowl-like holding space. Some even became orbs. I overheard conversations between people. Some said they wanted to weave wool through the wire frames they had made. Others said they wished to keep it bare, barren. Some used expired condoms to connect spaces and cover the holes in order to protect the small objects they planned to place inside. Others used recycled fabrics and paper.

We were all building birds nests out of hangers. Wire coat hangers. Most commonly, coat hangers

Fig. 5: Our supplies included metal coat hangers, yarn, twine, pliers, expired condoms, fabrics, and bamboo.

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serve a functional purpose--to store clothing in an effort to avoid creases and wrinkles--but coat hangers serve another purpose. In places where clinical abortions are illegal, taboo, or unavailable, women turn to alternative techniques to rid their bodies of the unwanted fetus growing inside of them. In this light, they are volatile, angry, sharp, wired objects. They connote death, pain, illegality, oppression, and abandonment.8 Using coat hangers to perform an abortion brings with it an enormous risk to the life of the woman who is pregnant. Planned Parenthood is primarily focused on providing preventative care to its patients. Seventyone percent of services provided by the organization serve to prevent unintended pregnancies. In effect, Planned Parenthood helps to prevent more than 684,000 unintended pregnancies each year. Given that the organizations main focus is on providing women with care that avoids pregnancies, only 3% of all Planned Parenthood health services are abortion services.9 Though in reality the abortions performed at Planned Parenthood make up only 3% of its total health services, the organization is recognized by many people as one that primarily conducts abortions. Planned Parenthood is painted by some as an immoral and dark place, reminiscent of the back alleys where unsafe abortions take place. Women were shamefully forced into these back alleys by social pressures condemning premarital sex. There exist countless accounts of women being brutally treated in dirty rooms by illequipped charlatans. One such example is Carolines Story, 30 Years and 2 Worlds Apart.10 Please note that this story is graphic. When I was in the awkward position, he pushed my legs apart, and my entire body turned red, embarrassed at the exposure even in the dim light of the basement. The man placed a flashlight between my legs, partially illuminating my vaginal area. From there the man rudely separated my vaginal lips and inserted a pair of tongs, like those used in cooking and grilling, into my vagina. The were cold and hard, and there was an incredible amount of pain and pressure as he opened them inside of me, using something--I never found out what-to lock them into place when I had been stretched at least 2 inches open. Next came a thin pencil, which the man shoved into my cervix to begin dilating it. Other pens and pencils of increasing width were forced through my cervix, each of them causing me to wince in pain. When the man was satisfied that I was open enough, he inserted a coat hanger, the triangular part bent into a straight line, through my cervix and into my uterus. I moaned with pain as he began jabbing it around, hitting my uterine wall I dont know how many times before he finally pierced the fetal sac. Caroline survived to tell her story, yet many do not. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, worldwide, unsafe abortions account for the lives of approximately 220 women every day. Annually, according to the World Health Organization, unsafe abortions result in 13% of pregnancy-related deaths.11 Planned Parenthood and other similar organizations are responsible for lowering the annual number of illegal abortions in the United States significantly by providing easily-accessible education and preventative care to all. Whether it be the provision of condoms or birth control pills, prenatal care, or abortion advice and support, the organization is dedicated to supporting the health and wellbeing of its clients. Thankfully, many places in the United States have hospitals and womens centers that are medically equipped, emotionally supportive, and physically safe. While in Northeastern and Western states we are no

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longer forced to cope with the painful and alienating realities of our lives in solitary places with makeshift tools that threaten our health and wellbeing, this is not true for the country as a whole. The fight for access to safe abortions is not over. According to abortion advocacy organization Provide,12 in 2008 97% rural communities and over 90% of counties in the South and Midwest did not have access to abortion care. The nest building project is the brainchild of Horatio Hung-Yan Law and was undertaken by community members and supporters of Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette (PPCW) in an attempt to reevaluate our existing symbols and understandings of coat hangers, wires, abortions, and womens health.13 We played with the plasticity of form, function, and symbol of the wire coat hangers. The malleability of the materials was used to retake control of the harsh realities that come from abortion restrictions. With grit and sweat we literally reformed these hangers and wires into nests, and in the process we learned we can reform the objects and restrictions of our world into something we can all love, a home. I attended the event the Birds Nest Project because I was drawn to the idea of a group of people coming together to make art that speaks to individual experiences, as well as to broader social justice and womens health issues. I have always been very intrigued with reproductive health, rights, and education. It is important that everyone has access to the tools, knowledge, and care needed to sustain a healthy and productive life. When I was sixteen and fearful of my parents disapproval of my sexual activities, my friend and I made a secret trip to Planned Parenthood. There, I received a years supply of birth control pills from a very open and informative physician, thankfully sparing both my parents and myself from a likely awkward and painful conversation. Planned Parenthood meets the needs of many, and the care provided varies greatly from sexually transmitted infection (STI) testing to abortion procedures to family planning services. While many, like myself, turn to Planned Parenthood in moments of confusion, need, and lack of funds, Planned Parenthood supports broader ideals as well, which others who do not directly seek services are inclined to support. Horatio Hung-Yan Laws project brings people together that may not otherwise physically convene in order to support the organization. I currently have health insurance and a gynecologist (in addition to a much healthier relationship with my parents) so I have no need to visit Planned Parenthood
Fig. 6: Two of the many nests hanging in the PLACE Gallery.

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for the free or low cost procedures they provide, yet I do wish to support them in any way that I can. Rather than providing monetary donations, by attending the Open Circles event and helping to reformulate negative symbols, I am supporting the organization and all that it stands for. I am helping raise awareness about abortion issues, the mission of Planned Parenthood to provide safe abortions and other sexual health services, and the community that depends on the services Planned Parenthood provides.14 In an effort to fully encapsulate what it is to engage a community, I have embodied the central ethnographic methodology of participant-observation in the deepest sense. I have primarily relied on my interactions, conversations, and experiences working with artists and members of the communities that surround me. In this way, lending from Wilkinson-Weber (2012), I feel as though I am a social practice artist of some sort, employing ethnographic practices as well as giving artistic support in order to interact with the community and find collective meanings and values. The meetings and workshops that I have attended shape the participant observation component of the journey I have embarked upon. From these involved moments of conceptualizing ideas and creating art with my peers, I have gathered insight into the process utilized by artists who dedicate their working lives to making meaningful, social practice art. Choosing my informants was a process that occurred organically, based on the connections that were established through various events and gatherings I attended. I conducted formal interviews with Horatio Hung-Yan Law, Sandy Sampson, and Anne Greenwood in Portland, Oregon. A neighbor from my hometown connected me to Cathy Cade, whom I interviewed via phone. The artists that I highlight in this paper were all very willing to support my project. This process is inherently biased given that I could not talk with every social practice artist in Portland, much less in the world, yet this is the nature of learning and familiarizing with the ethnographic method. I consider Horatio Hung-Yan Law my main informant, because I worked closest with him, and directly participated in his art. The conversations I had with Horatio helped me to better understand the field of social practice art. The other artists I talked with each shared incredibly valuable insights as well, and I reflect this in my work. I regret not having had the opportunity to engage directly as a participant in every artists endeavors. Regardless, my choice to include these artists words reflects my interest in their work. Attending the Planned Parenthood nest building workshop connected me with many other art events taking place in Portland. I visited several shows and exhibit openings at the PLACE gallery downtown, and I also attended several social practice and Fig. 8: A view of the nests as they were installed in the PLACE Gallery. public art talks. One of the talks I attended

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was facilitated by PLACE Gallery curator, Gabe Flores, regarding the work by seven artists who contributed art to the White Pride? show exhibited at the gallery. In addition to conducting formal interviews with artists, I met with Anne Greenwood, Sandy Sampson, and Horatio Law on many occasions regarding projects they are working on. I met with all three artists to work on another component of the Open Circles project (the Birds Nests was one aspect of this project). For this component, Horatio collaborated with Sisters of the Road Cafe and the homeless community that resides in Portland. The four of us met to discuss the products of this work, which consists of sixty symbols drawn by the homeless and mounted on recycled dinner plates.15 We created a dictionary of the symbols to handout at the Open Circles show, and discussed further ways to bring this work together conceptually. The meeting I attended with the three artists led to another project invitation. Horatio asked me to work with him, Anne Greenwood, and PPCW Development Coordinator Rachael Munkacsi and Community Outreach Coordinator Lamar Tillman, to compose a book based on the Birds Nests project.16 Planned Parenthood is currently in the process of rebranding in an effort to reach out to new supporters of the organization. Munkacsi and Tillman hope that this book can portray a positive image of Planned Parenthood to the community. The book can potentially be sold at PPCW fundraisers (i.e. Sexy Tuesday events, the Fall Gala event, etc.), or it may be offered at the opening of the permanent nest instillation. The book may help to expand the patient base and become more relevant to people who would not otherwise walk through Planned Parenthoods doors. As artists, Anne Greenwood and Horatio Law represent the artistic aspect of the books production. Greenwood has made several books already, and as a skilled printmaker, designer, and visionary, she worked with Horatio to pick out the most appealing nests, photograph these pieces, and compose the images and text into an artistic, tangible item. I conducted interviews of participants involved in the project and explored what the project represents for each person in the context of symbolism inherent in nests and coat hangers of the project. In conducting these interviews, we took note of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) regulations regarding patient confidentiality, particularly because this project is associated with Planned Parenthood. Participants signed a release form, informing them that their stories will be published, and that the books may be sold for profit, with proceeds going to PPCW and the Open Circles Project. I am very excited about my role in this project. The opportunity I have to be involved in the Birds Nest project both as a community member, participant, and collaborator and also as an ethnographer is a unique one, which allows me to engage first hand in the process of producing meaning. I have gathered statements from others, but as a participant myself, I also have personal experiential descriptions to reflect upon and share. As Wilkinson-Weber (2012) states, reflexive anthropology can allow ethnographers to act as their own key informant and [] take a place on the stage, as it were, of the subject community (145). As both art participant and ethnographer I have been able to reflect on my experiences, and how these relate to

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the broader context of the nests constructed at Planned Parenthood. In talking with Law, I immediately felt a desire to further pick his brain, get to know his work, and explore the small yet increasingly supported world of social practice art. In one discussion with Law, he explained, the art community is small, but the public to connect with is huge. I am drawn to the idea of engaging with a group of people in an inclusive and welcoming way, in order to create something beautiful, powerful, and insightful, and can be experienced beyond the confines of the traditional, elitist art world. Todays art can give birth to tomorrows revolutions. The art of this moment preempts social injustices of the future. As Bruguera (2012:194) aptly proclaims, art is living the future in the present. By shedding light onto very real and tangible human struggles and injustices, art is able to spur conversations and influence changes further down the road. Context plays an important role in the creation of art. Art is most effective when it is made for a specific site and incorporates the cultural, social, political, environmental, and economic issues relevant to its location. Art can be blatantly charged with a political agenda,17 and it can also be used as a subtle form of resistance to an oppressive structure, system, or force of power. While my scope is limited, the social practice artists I have gotten to know are more interested in bringing a community together around a common ideology, need, or experience in ways that create meaning, give voice, and empower people. One Birds Nest participant feels that the subtle framework laid out by Law enabled her to reflect on her own experiences in a way that was comfortable and interna. By acknowledging her own choices, she felt empowered as a member of broader activist efforts. Many artists around the world use social practice art to engage groups of people. Some teach students to become artists engaged in the community (i.e. Tania Bruguera, Joseph Beuys, Harrell Fletcher, etc.), and others ask audiences to perform (i.e. Fig. 9: Participants working on their nests at PPCW.

Marina Abramovic,18 Vito Acconci, Santiago Sierra, etc.).19 Some artists see the entire process as art, while others simply see the final product as art. Horatio Hung-Yan Law combines these methods; he educates his self-selected participants on an issue, gives them tools, and lets them make objects or installations, which are then displayed in galleries as art. In this way, he is designating these community members as artists, reinforcing Beuys assertion that all humans are artists. Beuys groundbreaking ideas in many ways inspired the social practice and participant based art movement. He states, Every human being is an artist who-from his state of freedom--the position of freedom that he experiences at first hand--learns to determine the other positions in the total artwork of the future social order (Beuys 1973 in Bishop 2006:125). Law encourages each individual to reflect upon personal experiences, and use objects that speak to each persons

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interests, upbringing, and presence in the world. Though Law does not consider himself to be a curator since, as he puts it, he does not exclude anyone from participating in projects, he employs the curatorial process by casting a net out into the public and seeing what people come up with based on the frame he provides.20 He encourages collectivity through shared experiences, and the creation of new meanings for everyday objects.

IV. Weaving Narratives

In considering social practice art, I will address several theoretical directions as they relate to my experiential and ethnographic findings. Through multiple interviews and informal conversations it has become clear that artists working in the arena of social practice art in Portland, Oregon do not wish to identify their work as openly political or confrontational.21 As a participant, I found myself identifying with the activist aspects of the nest project, as a response to conservative ideologies that deny women the control over their own bodies. Law describes himself as non-confrontational and aims to make art that is aesthetically pleasing while simultaneously meaningful. The controversial nature of the work comes out as each individual participant applies her (or his) own meaning to the objects she (or he) is working with. I begin with a discussion of collective art and activism. Though there are not many academic articles written about participatory art as it pertains to reproductive rights, several authors have pioneered this new territory. Lambert-Beatty (2008) studies efforts by feminist activists and artists to provide women around the world with safe reproductive care. Moody & Phinney (2012) study the health and wellness benefits of a participatory art program on older adults in an assisted living community. Murray (2012) approaches the use of art as a catalyst for social change using a legal framework. Murray is interested in Tracey Emins art, which reflects upon her rape trauma, and the ways in which her work can affect policy and legislative actions. I engage Aagerstoun & Auther (2007), Mahon (2000), and Bourdieu (1989) to consider the impact political, feminist, and social practice art has on communities and cultures. These authors argue that political work has the power to create change by identifying social issues and inspiring individuals to act collectively. Following this meditation, I spotlight the Birds Nest project as a way to understand the relation between artists and participants, and the use of community engagement to collectively shape meanings and build discussions about social issues. Social practice art is a form of everyday or subtle resistance. Foucault (1978, 1977) argues that power and resistance exist as a dynamic relationship that is in constant fluctuation and cannot be studied independently. Butler (2008) relates the power and resistance dichotomy to gendered subjects. She argues that power is both outside of us and within us, and by recognizing our internal power, we can find a sense of agency and control to resist external domination. Diamond & Quinby (1988) also bridge issues of masculine domination with womens health rights, arguing that this form of oppression finds itself exercised through the medicalization of womens bodies. Abu-Lughod (1990) looks specifically at womens

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resistance efforts, echoing Scotts (1985) study of everyday forms of peasant resistance, and the ways in which the voiceless can exercise their own power in small ways. Building on the theories of subtle resistance, I consider art as the embodiment of social capital; social capital is needed to make art and art is used to create or facilitate the further spread of social capital. As social capital, art can be used to build collective consciousness and become a powerful method for social change. Bourdieu (1985b), Portes (1985), Blau (1988), and others consider social capital to be all resources and relationships between individuals and institutions. In order for projects like Open Circles to have a broad impact on communities and create lasting social changes, resources are needed. These resources include but are not limited to public funding (e.g. grants), willing volunteers, a community space, and art materials. Additionally, Horatio Hung-Yan Law invites other artists to participate in his projects in order to further nurture the success of his projects, while also giving others a chance to accumulate experiences and build their artistic portfolios. Each artist has insights into the nature of capital, both social and economic, and the ways in which their work must be structured around the institutions and individuals that support their art. The value of a social practice art project lies in its spatial context. Space is fundamental to the connections made between communities and artists. Bourdieu (1985a, 1985b, 1989) argues that the fetishization of cultural capital enables us to understand its value and power within a socially construed hierarchy. Gieryn (2000) reviews the importance of place in sociology, arguing that in order to understand any social phenomenon, one must acknowledge the history and dynamics of the space. Based on the general analysis of space, I use Finkelpearl & Acconci (2000), Kwon (2004), and Lacy (1995) to situate art in a space. These authors are particularly interested in various public art models. I argue that the Birds Nest Project, like other social practice art, is publicly situated, and even more so, it directly facilitates meaningful public interactions and discussions.

Every human being is an artist who--from his state of freedom-the position of freedom that he experiences at first hand--learns to determine the other positions in the total artwork of the future social order Joseph Beuys
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Collective Art as Activism

As I sat in the PPCW conference room watching the slow trickle of people coming in, it quickly became clear that we were a diverse group. Despite the unusual culmination of people, we convened in a space that brought an instant commonality to light. We all support Planned Parenthood and feel strongly about backing an organization that provides accessible reproductive health care to all people. This realization was instantly moving. We are a collective. We share a common voice, our

Fig. 10: The Langenort just before embarking on its trip to Poland. Women on Waves 2004, womenonwaves.org.

experiences are related, and as a group, we are empowered. As Horatio laid out the premise of the project, my excitement grew. We were given the chance to each address our own feelings and experiences related to family, abortions, and building a home within a common framework and with similar basic materials. Building my nest, and observing others doing the same, it became clear that what we were doing was art. We are the art. Activism enacted through art can take many forms. For the purposes of my thesis, I focus on the use of art as expressive cultural forms to create interventions into public debates. Lambert-Beatty (2008) explores the work of Rebecca Gompert, a Dutch feminist activist working on womens health issues. Gomperts work is directly related to the Birds Nest Project because it too tackles abortion politics through art and social practices. With the artistic support of Joep van Lieshout, Gompert converted a shipping container into a fully functional mobile gynecological clinic called Women on Waves (see fig. 10). The clinic travels around the world and docks in countries where abortions are illegal. Women who need gynecological health care, abortions, or other reproductive health needs can board the ship that sets off into international waters so that trained physicians and volunteers can legally and safely provide education, contraception, and most importantly (and controversially) abortion pills. In essence, Gompert and her crew deal with the preventable pandemic that is abortion-related deaths (Lambert-Beatty 2008:312). The organization has met backlash,22 but its power lies in the fact that it successfully provides women with safe abortion methods, and equally valuable, encourages the public to engage in a broader discussion of reproductive health care needs and abortion rights.23 The article considers the use of bodily care to do representational work, like the Yes Men,24 who pretend to be something they are not in order to raise awareness and, however humorously, to inspire outrage (Lambert-Beatty 2008:320). Women on Waves claim of being an actual service provider contributes to its success as political work in the media. The Open Circles project directly impacts those who participated in the making of the nests. It also has a representational component, as work that influences

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broader discussions of abortion rights, symbolism, and the importance of supporting womens health care needs. Other studies have shown the effectiveness of art as a tool to create movements and change. Moody & Phinney (2012) conducted interviews and did participant observations in a community art engagement program that focuses on promoting health and wellness for older adults. The authors found that by working in a group on the art project, participants felt more connected to their community, which influenced their general well being. Similarly, Murray (2012) shows that art can be used to push policy changes. Murray considers Tracey Emins artwork, often themed around rape trauma she experienced, as a way to forward laws against rape in an alternative, artistic way. Though this review is more focused on the laws in place surrounding rape issues, the use of art to engage political activists and forward social justice concerns is very powerful and similar to what Law is doing with the birds nests.25 Feminist art is simultaneously positive and progressive, and has the power to create change (Aagerstoun & Auther 2007). Social practice art is effective in mobilizing marginalized interest groups and using the media and popular culture to redefine social meanings and more accurately represent social identities (Mahon 2000:474). Bourdieu (1989) argues that political work is likely to be more successful if it produces social classes that are represented as permanent structures that unify people in a specific space. The work produced by all the artists I have connected with work in this way. They are producing art that facilitates community engagement and inclusion, solicits individual action, and gives voice to those who otherwise remain rather voiceless, in order to improve social issues (e.g. abortion rights and the positive benefits of seeking care at Planned Parenthood, in the case of the nest project). Social power lies in the ability to make collective existence and struggles known and public.26 As Mahon, Bourdieu, and others have theorized, the effectiveness of social practice art lies in its ability to inspire people to unite over an issue and reassign meanings. The political nature of the work enables its efficacy, because it produces social classes that unify people. Yet, despite this reality, many artists are wary of aligning too closely with activism and politics.27 Sandy says she is skeptical of activist art. I dont know what theyre going on about when theyre talking about [] activist art. What exactly does that mean and [] how big does it have to be before you call it activist art? Sandy is a firm believer that people can perform activist efforts everyday and on a very small scale, echoing Scotts (1985) theories of everyday resistance. A lot of the time what we do [as artists] is framing []. Were framing a really loose architecture to bring people in so they know when theyre on the inside of it and they know when something happens. She is suspicious of activist art because she feels it undervalues the small actions and efforts (i.e. when the artist creates a frame and then other people come in and fill the space) that are so important. Sandy says that in a sense, everything is political, and I agree. It is important to recognize the intention of the artist, and understand that viewing art is an interactive experience that is constantly shaped and reshaped based on personal interpretations, as open work, outlined by Eco (1962). Cathys work is more intentionally political, because she documented many of the protests that she participated in during the

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Womens Liberation Movement. Yet even her work has a reflexive and very personal quality to it that can stand on its own as an aesthetically appealing artistic production that is separate from blatant activism. In this way, her work too, is open to interpretation and interaction. The Womens Liberation Movement enabled Cathy to realize that women are oppressed by sexism and in order for the sexism to end, women needed to become visible. By documenting the experiences of her peers, she was able to reach a broader public and physically show people around the nation and world of the injustices at play (see fig. 11).28

Fig. 11: Inez Garcia Demonstration and Arrests, San Francisco, 1975. 1976 Silver Gelatin Print, photo courtesy of Cathy Cade.

Sandys most recent work, Laugh Track, shown at the PLACE Gallery as a part of the White Pride?

show similarly tackles visibility and womens issues (see fig. 12). Her piece reflects upon her own privileges, and her failure to recognize all the privileges she has had in her lifetime, particularly when she was younger. Now that Im presented as this middle aged white woman, like what the fuck is that? I can look back and see how I really blew it when I was younger because I didnt understand, and I didnt see what was right in front of me. I feel like Ive become invisible and so I want to express this through my piece. She embroidered tea towels with the faces and names of white spouses of many political figures, in order to bring awareness to these women as human beings with agency and power, contrary to their public statures as the wives of politicians who are cheated on and criticized and most often, disregarded. I received really euphoric responses from a few people who [] considered themselves middle aged women. [] Ive learned that this is an area that I need to be exploring more, the identity as a middle aged woman. Because there are a lot of women out there who arent given a voice. As an artist, Sandy has the tools to address her personal strife, just as Horatio uses his identity as a diving board to delve into broader social issues. Anne too, says social practice art has led her to realize that her personal history can be used to speak to much larger issues that bridge differences in order to unite unlikely people. Though it can be difficult to publicly share ones trials and tribulations, in doing so, the artist is creating a safe environment in which people can confess their inner anxieties and struggles. This space can be used to tackle injustices on any level by creating collective consciousness, a powerful tool of activism. Fig. 12: Laugh Track, 2013. Photo transfers and embroidery on linen tea towels. Photo Courtesy of Sandy Sampson.

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In addition to working in a more personal realm to reach a broader social body, Anne is interested in

work that is less explicitly focused on aesthetic appeal. She tells me that the Portland Parks and Recreation department is working on a greenway trail project that will connect with the Spring Water Corridor in an effort to provide bike and pedestrian access from Milwaukee, Oregon to Kelley Point Park in North Portland. Additionally, a green space will be made on Swan Island, also along this route. It makes different parts of the city more accessible, [] and would bring environmental quality into the conversation, she says. This project, and others like the Intersections Program facilitated by the Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC), which puts artists in touch with organizations around the city (e.g. the Portland city archives), enable artists to use their skills to create poignant movements that draw people in and spark broader debates in order to empower citizens and bring about change. Anne, like the others, does not want to be overtly political when making art, because she feels that it is such a turn off. She prefers work that is accessible to as many people as possible. Laughing, Anne adds, there are already a million people that arent going to want to have anything to do with it since it isnt in a gallery. Looking back to the Birds Nest Project, many of the participants say they felt involved in a form of collective action. Melanie, one of my informants who participated in the nest project, was keen on making her nest a part of the larger project, or artwork as a whole. She says, I originally started making my nest and I had no idea what it was going to look like. [] But I wanted my nest to work with the whole idea, [] it was pretty cool [] the way people were talking about it, you know different ideas that were being thrown out there were influential. In the end her nest, which she describes as a bird and also a reproductive system (see fig. 12), was unique and yet clearly connected with the other nests in materials and concept. I used home decor stuff because for me, what the nest represented was like, really being 12: This birds nest represemts both a bird and a Fig. reproductive system.

ready, like your body, your home, everything mentally, for being prepared to have a baby, she tells me. Other participants also used home decor materials with the same intent of creating a physical environment that they felt mirrored their own visions or realities of their homes.

Power, Resistance, and the Role of the Body

Power and resistance exist as a dialogue. There is no resistance without power, just as there is no power without resistance. Resistance exists everywhere in the network of power (Foucault 1978:95). Bodies are subordinate to a source of power that is capable of making alterations that maximize efficiency and control, creating docility. Based on Foucaults discussion of power and the body, it is evident that only

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specific groups have control over their own bodies, based on the patriarchal structure of power. Diamond & Quinby argue that masculinist domination has included the medicalization of womens bodies, making pregnancy a disease, for example. Those who do not have the ability to make decisions regarding their bodies (e.g. the ability to get a safe and legal abortion) are forced to suppress their needs or must turn to alternative means of attaining their needs. While the authority that exists over docile bodies is limiting in some senses, the reaction to this power, resisting the denial of a bodily decision, becomes powerful in its own right. Foucault argues that resistance is an interruption of the dominant discourse. This disruption provides a narrative of the power discourse, by determining the actors involved (i.e. identifying who is in control and who has power). The power that produces us, according to Butler, is external and also inside of us. She argues that the practices that constitute us as gendered subjects also give us a sense of agency and resistance (Butler in Jagger 2008:89). By re-articulating the categories of identity, we are able to resist structures of power and create social and self-transformations. Social practice artists and participants are resisting oppressive structures by reassigning meaning and creating social awareness in order to stand up for social justice issues and become powerful. Melanie speaks to this power dynamic that tugs at our extremities and is also within us. She says a birds nest represents the creatures readiness both physically and mentally to settle down and have a family. Its a choice birds make. It was healing for me. Because I had an abortion when I was a teenager. And I didnt know that it was going to bring up deeper feelings and thoughts about that, but it did. [] It made me think, like about, maybe letting go of those things? And that maybe some of the choices I made were good choices, it was really just forgiving myself, it was a great experience. Because lifes about choices, and strategy, and preparation, and the nest really made me feel that way. The best way to say it is that I felt really unchained, like there was something holding me back. It was like escaping my cage, I guess. So its pretty amazing in that way actually. Like I didnt expect that. Melanie was able to free herself once she found her inner power and strength. By recognizing the guilt that oppressed her she was able to let go of her pain. Im very grateful for it. Horatio, he chose an awesome platform to do that. And like it wasnt, he wasnt making anyone talk about it. It was a personal experience. Abu-Lughod provides a valuable insight into resistance as enacted by women of a Bedouin community. Abu-Lughod suggests inverting Foucaults line, Where there is power, there is resistance (1978:96), so that it reads, where there is resistance, there is power (1990:42), in order to better understand the dichotomy ethnographically. She states that the Bedouin women enact all sorts of minor defiances [such as sharing secrets and participating in group silences] of the restrictions enforced by elder men in the community (1990:43). These forms of resistance indicate a reaction to the existence of a structure that oppresses the women. Women gain power when acting in defiance against the power they are subjected to. The women are pushing structural boundaries and forcing those with authority (i.e. the men) to reassess their control. The subtle forms of resistance enacted by the Bedouin women in response to their oppression

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illustrate Scotts theories of everyday resistance. Like Foucault and Abu-Lughod, Scott argues that power cannot be isolated; one group (i.e. the elites) is not in control of another group (i.e. peasants). Instead, Scott argues, a constant tug of war exists between parties. In this sense, resistance can become a form of power. In an effort to provide greater insight into the scope of resistance methods, Scott studies peasant rebellion and revolution, particularly in the state of Kedah, Malaysia, and finds that resistance efforts are not always large and loud. He argues that peasants engage in everyday forms of resistance, in order to survive and contest the power structure. The peasants, who do not have the luxury of openly rebelling due to economic and physical constraints, rise up every day in small ways, individually, in order to symbolically challenge the legitimacy of policy arrangements. These small acts of resistance are often fueled by visceral reactionspeople who lack the food needed to survive must find ways to bend the power structure, for example through stealing, in order to make it through another day.29 We can understand social practice art as a form of everyday resistance because it is enacted by people from any demographic and with any range of artistic abilities, in an attempt to shed light on injustices and gain power and a voice. The Birds Nest Project can be seen as a form of resistance that subtly works to address negative ideas surrounding abortion rights.

The Value of Social Capital within a Spatial Context

The Birds Nest Project, as a production of nests by PPCW community members, has value to the broader institution. In relation to PPCW, there are different actors that contribute various forms of support to the organization. The support ranges from investors and donors who give money, physicians who provide their patients with free or low cost health care, patients who visit the clinic and create the demand for health care, and volunteers who give their time (e.g. the nest makers who symbolically support the organization and help spread its message to groups who do not directly interact with the organization). The different forms of support have different values, but each is equally important to the success of the overall organization. While our society values economic gains, representational and symbolic support is equally necessary. Many have theorized on the nature of value and capital. Marx has theorized on use value versus exchange value and materialism. Weber, Durkheim, and Habermas have also contributed to the breadth of social capital and value based theories. Social capital, according to Bourdieu, refers to all resources that are linked through institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition (Bourdieu 1985, Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992:119, Portes 1985:248). Social relations determine ones access to resources and the amount and quality of these resources. The most important resources needed in order to produce social practice art is a community of willing participants. Additionally, time, public funding, and an artistic framework are needed. All together, the art enables people to come together and reinforce social values (Blau 1988:278). Finding interested individuals and organizations that are willing to monetarily support social practice art efforts is a challenge. The artists each turn to public funding agencies, like the RACC, the City

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of Portlands Percent for the Arts program, and other similar grant-giving organizations. This in itself, says Horatio, is a part of the artistic process. These agencies represent the public, and so it is the artists responsibility to cater and compromise to the needs and requests of these committees. Sometimes this is problematic, because different stakeholders may have various issues in mind. Horatio explains, A person representing an agency has their own concerns, their own agenda. [] When someone says no, you need to know why they say no to it, and often its because they are maybe in charge of public safety and they want to cover their ass and make sure there are no sharp edges. Its a whole minefield that you have to navigate, he shakes his head. Horatio Law, Anne Greenwood, Sandy Sampson, and Cathy Cade each do other work in order to be able to support their artistic endeavors. While this may seem burdensome, the artists say that their real jobs (i.e. PNCA art professor, horticultural consultant, PCC art professor, and maker of personal histories, respectively) inform their practices, and provide fresh and raw experiences that they each draw upon when composing their art projects. Social practice art, as a type of relational art, focuses on the audience as a community rather than focusing on a rigid artist-viewer based relationship. Relational art is a direct response to the shift from a goods to a service-based economy (Bishop 2006:54). It is also a response to the virtual relationships of the internet and globalization at large, which on the one hand have prompted a desire for more physical and face-to-face interactions between people, while on the other have inspired artists to adopt a do-it-yourself (DIY) approach and model their own possible universes (Bishop 2006:54). Ones own possible universe is a space that embodies personal ideals-- a society free of suffering or oppression, for example. The shift in attitude toward social change has led artists to seek provisional solutions in the present circumstances rather than trying to change their environment. Artists today are simply learning to inhabit the world in a better way; instead of looking forward to a future utopia, this art sets up functioning microtopias in the present (Bishop 2006:54). The Open Circles project is a key example of an artist taking the DIY approach to making their own possible universes by facilitating face-to-face interactions and making work that supports community-based organizations (i.e. Planned Parenthood, Sisters of the Road Caf). At a fundamental level, social practice art is valuable in its specific spatial context and the relations that are established here. Bourdieu theorizes on social space, and the value of relationships, multidimensionality of space, and importance of subjectivity with regard to the representation of the social world and the hierarchies that exist within and between fields. Bourdieu argues when capital is objectified or fetishized to have material properties, it carries with it a power over the product and the labor. The material properties of the capital determine the potential profits. Projecting the potential profit of cultural capital gives it a position or hierarchical ranking within a social space. Gieryn argues that place is a space for understanding power, community, inequalities, identity, and resistance. In order to understand the phenomena at play, it is important to consider the history of a place, and its current social dynamics. When appropriating a site for a public art project, it is important to make work that is site-specific, culturally

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relevant, and socially conscious (Finkelpearl & Acconci 2000). Given that the social practice artwork directly involves those who inhabit the place where the art will be situated, the effectiveness of the project relates to the collective experience formed by the artists vision and framework. Kwon (2004) outlines three paradigms found within the sphere of public art. The first is the art in public places model, pursued by Alexander Calder, in which he was commissioned to make art by a public program (see fig. 13). Next, there is the art as public space approach, in which artists created designoriented sculptures that function as street furniture, landscaped

Fig. 13: Chicago Flamingo, 1974. Painted steel, Alexander Calder via Designorphan.com.

environments, as well as architectural constructions. The final model, which best relates to the Birds Nest Project and other social practice art, is the art in public interest model, in which artists foreground social issues and political activism and collaborate with the communities surrounding their work. Miwon suggests that effective public art is not about an individual artist and his or her accomplishments, but rather, it is about engagement and the community. Law is adamant about his role as an artist who helps communities to create meaning. In his eyes, the art he makes and facilitates is meant to support the public, and he does not worry about his own profits or artistic accomplishments in the mainstream art world sense. There have been many contested and highly politicized moments during the past century when art has left the confines of museums and other more traditional exhibition venues and challenged the social meaning and nature of art (Lacy 1995). Artist approaches to space range from private to public. Lacy terms the more publicly situated artist as the artist as experiencer and artist as activist.30 Both categories involve direct interactions with a community. The artist activist category is particularly relevant to social practice art in that it requires the engagement of the audience as active participants to the work. In this way, artists venture into the domain of citizen-activism, so that social justice and the public agenda can be pursued effectively through activity, rather than merely through identity. Though not all social practice artists, as mentioned earlier, wish to be considered artist-activists, their work empowers communities in ways that more traditional artists can never achieve.31 Now to consider the relationship between the artist and participant, this form of social capital exists most effectively in a realm that is nonhierarchical. The artist gives guidance, yet the participant creates meaning. Artists who work directly within a community or a collective are not recognized in the classical sense as individually accomplished artists (Enwezor 2007).32 Just as poststructuralist theorists Barthes and Derrida argue for the death of the author in literature, in some senses, social practice art, whether intentionally or otherwise, seems to represent the death of the artist. However, Foucault refutes this death, saying that the author has instead taken on a new form, as a part of the writing that he or she produces (Foucault & Rabinow 1984:104). We can see the same phenomenon with regard to Laws art. Law is not

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recognized in the same way many museum and gallery-based artists are revered. Likewise, his art is most poignant in its relation between the participant, object, and meaning within a specific context. While the artist is still present in the body of work, there is less focus on his direct and personal relation to the work.

Fig. 14: Rouge Triomphant (Triumphant Red) 1959-63. Alexander Calder via Artobserved.com.

Eco (1962) considers open work to be a method of mobilizing individuals to directly interact with art and shape the meaning of the work. A dialectic exists between the work of art and its performer, according to Eco, and artwork is always interpreted by the viewer, so it is always subjective. All works are in

movement, and quite literally, the mobiles by Alexander Calder (see fig. 14), for example, move in the air and assume different spatial dispositions. They continuously create their own space and the shapes to fill it (Eco 1962 in Bishop 2005:30). In terms of the nests, a constant dialogue exists between the hangers that have taken the form of a home, the maker of this home, and the viewer of the nest. In this way, art is constantly molding and transforming to make new associations, ideas, and shapes, and thus provides a continual space for interpretation and public engagement. Public accessibility is essential to each of the artists work. Cathy tells me that public accessibility was the starting point for the Southern Freedom Movement pictures (see fig. 15), and though she does work for her own enjoyment, everything she creates in some way incorporates the public. Anne tells me that she is most drawn to the public aspect of art. She believes that connecting artists with organizations and communities is a way for innovative and creative people to solve problems in other institutions. I really love Horatios work. Im really kind of enamored by the process right now, she tells me on a grey afternoon over tea. Horatio does many projects in which he involves other artists that he knows are interested in the subject matter he is working on. Several years ago, Horatio was selected to do a project at the Oregon State Hospital in Salem. He asked all the grant finalists to join him in making the project a success, because he knew that each artist that had presented a proposal was passionate about the projects potential and had great skills to offer. I think there are a lot of ways to use this new model of collaboration, so that people who are really invested in something get to participate, because theyre there, and they want to do it. Anne says Horatio once told her, you know, not everybody is Chinese and gay and the right person for that time. He said a lot of times its
Fig. 15: Women marching for desegregation in the Southern Freedom Movement, 1955-68. Silver Gelatin Print, via dailykos.com

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about how big of a minority you are, to get selected to do the project. [] He can plug into a million projects because he is a minority but he doesnt necessarily know how to do everything, so collaboration is key. Horatio agrees that collaboration is vital to the success of any social practice artist. Since the art community is small, it is useful tap into shallow well of capable and willing artists. Anne makes a good point, saying that artists do not use their own community enough as a collaborative resource. Much of the art world, Anne says, is very exclusive, like a private art club. If you dont know the right people, youre considered less valuable or interesting based on their biases. The value of social practice art lies in its dependence on a diverse array of people and social institutions. The involvement of agencies, organizations, neighbors, friends and family create an experience that is in constant motion, framing and reinforcing social values. The spatial context and influence of social capital makes the art malleable and all encompassing. Johnson (2010) writes about the necessity of connections and collaborations in order to fuel innovations. Great ideas (i.e. art projects, social catalysts, etc.) are the result of free and open access to information combined with dense networks of engaged collaborators. This is something Horatio and other social practice artists take to heart, and considering the interactions I have had with participants and supporters of social practice art projects, the work seems to yield very positive responses.

V. Final Thoughts
The atypical art form that has drawn in Horatio Hung-Yan Law, Sandy Sampson, Anne Greenwood, and Cathy Cade (among others) will surely convert many more mainstream artists, gardeners, activists, and social workers who seek to find a more meaningful escape; one that has the potential of empowering the voiceless. Social practice art, as an experiential and open method of working, is a form of resistance (though this is not explicit), and as such, the effort becomes a form of power (Foucault 1978, 1977; Butler 2008; Diamond & Quinby 1998; Abu-Lughod 1990; and Scott 1985). The subtle efforts of resistance attempt to reform social structures by addressing collective identities through joint experiences, and in doing so, this representational method raises awareness and inspires outrage (Lambert-Beatty 2008). The Birds Nest Project, as one of the many instances of social practice art, inspired a group of people to collectively make meaning and reassign symbolic values to objects. Law gathered supporters of the Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette together to remind us all of the power that we have within us and the agency we have to create our own realities that reflect our desires to live in a world of justice and equality. He helped us all recognize that we can be empowered by our own bodies. Moving away from an industrialized, goods-based economy to a service-based economy, value is no longer monetary. Rather, value is found in our relationships with peers, and the materials we use facilitate these emotionally rich and collectively unified relationships.

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It is difficult to measure the effectiveness of social practice art methods as a means to spur

conversations and empower individuals to address inequalities. Given that the artists are each inspired by the participatory aspect of art, and wish to capture the lived experiences of their supporting communities, the project resonates on some level with the self-selected group that the artist has appealed to. I found evidence that people continued to be engaged after the duration of the Birds Nest project by reflecting on their experiences in profound ways, sharing their experiences with others, visiting PPCW more regularly, and so on. For those who reevaluated their pain and insecurities regarding past abortions, the experience of making a nest was a moving one. Taking this project further, I would like to look at a group identity or social issue before and after a social practice art intervention. Considering my own experiences building a nest, I found the workshop to be a sort of catalyst, reminding me of all my experiences at Planned Parenthood, my passion for reproductive health care and education, and my hope of raising awareness and supporting Planned Parenthood in its mission to provide every woman with safe and reliable reproductive care options. As I constructed my oblong, coppery metallic nest, cinched with blue cable ties, I imagined what sort of home I hope to one day share with my loved ones. A home that is simple, cozy, and personal. A space that I can call my own, in which I have sources of warmth, support, and agency. My nest, like many of my peers, represents my subtle attempts to secure rights over my own body and family.

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Works Cited
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Bishop, Claire, ed. 2006 Participation: Documents of Contemporary Art. London, England and Cambridge, MA: Whitechapel and MIT Press. Bishop, Claire 2012 Artificial Hells : Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship. London; New York: Verso Books. Blau, Judith R. 1988 Study of the Arts: A Reappraisal. Annual Reviews of Sociology 14:269-92. 2003 Participant Objectivation. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 9(2):281-294. 1989 Social Space and Symbolic Power. Sociological Theory 7(1):14-25. 1985 The Social Space and the Genesis of Groups. Theory and Society 14(6):723-744. 1985 The Forms of Capital In Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education. JG Richardson, ed. Pp. 241-58. New York: Greenwood. Bourdieu, Pierre, and Wacquant, Loic J. D. 1992, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2012 Reflexions on Useful Art/ Reflexiones Sobre El Arte til. In Lecturas Para Un Espectador Inquieto. Yayo Aznar and Pablo Martinez, eds. Pp. 194-197. Madrid, Spain: CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo. De Saussure, Ferdinand 2011 Course in General Linguistics. 3rd ed. New York: Columbia University Press. Bruguera, Tania Bourdieu, Pierre

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Diamond, I & Quinby, L. (eds) 1988 Feminism & Foucault: Reflections on Resistance. Boston: Northeastern University Press. Pp. Xi- xix. 2007 The Collective Camcorder in Art and Activism. In Blake Stimson and Gregory Sholette, eds. Pp. 95-114. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Enwezor, Okwui 2007 The Production of Social Space as an Artwork. In Collectivism After Modernism: The Art of Social Imagination After 1945. Blake Stimson and Gregory Sholette, eds. Pp. 223-252. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Finkelpearl, Tom, and Vito Acconci 2000 Dialogues in Public Art. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Fletcher, Harrell 2008 HARRELL.FLETCHER. Electronic document, http://www.harrellfletcher.com/, accessed April 24, 2013. Foucault, Michel 1977 Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Pantheon Books. 1978 The History of Sexuality. Vol. 1: An Introduction. New York: Random House. Foucault, Michel, and Paul Rabinow 1984 The Foucault Reader. New York: Pantheon Books. Gieryn, Thomas F. 2000 A Space for Place in Sociology. Annual Review of Sociology 26:463-496. Henshaw, Stanley K., Susheela Singh, and Taylor Haas 1999 The Incidence of Abortion Worldwide. International Family Planning Perspectives 25(Supplement):S30-S38. Kwon, Miwon 2004 One Place After another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Jagger, Gill 2008 Judith Butler: Sexual Politics, Social Change and the Power of the Performative. London; New York: Routledge. Johnson, Steven 2010 Where Good Ideas Come from: The Natural History of Innovation. New York: Riverhead Books, Penguin Group. Lacy, Suzanne 1995 Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art. Bay Press. LambertBeatty, Carrie 2008 Twelve Miles: Boundaries of the New Art/Activism. Signs 33(2):309-327. MacClancy, J.

Drew, Jesse

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1997 Anthropology, Art and Contest In Contesting Art: Art, Politics and Identity in the Modern World. J. MacClancy, ed. Pp. 1-25. New York: Berg. Mahon, Maureen October 2000 The Visible Evidence of Cultural Producers. Annual Review of Anthropology 29:467- 492. Miller, Daniel 1987 Material Culture and Mass Consumption, Oxford: Berg. Moody, Elaine, and Alison Phinney 2012 A Community-Engaged Art Program for Older People: Fostering Social Inclusion. Canadian Journal on Aging 31(1):55-64. Murray, Yxta Maya 2012 Rape Trauma, the State, and the Art of Tracey Emin. California Law Review 100(6):1631-1709. Portes, Alejandro 1998 Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in Modern Sociology. Annual Review of Sociology 24:1-24. Scott, James 1985 Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. Journal of Peasant Studies 13(2):5-35. 1990 Domination and the Arts of Resistance : Hidden Transcripts. New Haven: Yale University Press. Wilkinson-Weber, Clare M. 2012 An Anthropologist among the Actors. Ethnography 13(2):144-161. Y, Caroline 2001 30 Years and 2 Worlds Apart. Electronic document, http://www.fwhc.org/stories/caroline.htm, accessed April 23, 2013.

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Endnotes
1. All the photographs in this thesis, unless otherwise noted, were given to me by Horatio Hung-Yan Law. Horatio, thank you for adding so much vibrancy and life to this work! 2. Cathy Cade, one of the artists I interviewed for this project, introduced me to this historical term, cultural worker, which she used to describe herself as a photographer of the Womens Liberation Movement. She, like many other activists and artists of the time were greatly moved and impacted by Nears performances. 3. Harrell Fletcher responds to this notion of art as commerce. In the art world there is so much emphasis on originality. Artists buy right into that, and even though they are always influenced by other people they try pretending that they are not. The galleries promote this idea and encourage signature styles, rarefication and the star/celebrity system. I can see why the galleries would like that way of doing business because it allows them to inflate prices and make demand, but for artists there is no real benefit. It just suppresses the true way that people develop their work through adapting and hybridizing and creates an environment where artists feel like they have to protect and make secret their process rather than sharing it freely and feeling good about doing that, which I think would be much more healthy both for individuals and as a system (harrellfletcher.com). 4. While relationships centered around galleries are economically grounded, relationships that burgeon outside of these settings are focused more on commonalities of identity and thus are far more meaningful. 5. The Open Circles Project combines Planned Parenthood, Sisters of the Road Caf, and Pioneer Place Mall as three separate social organizations, each providing services that are undervalued-- reproductive health care, food to the homeless, and a space for retailers to sell goods. Horatio says he is most interested in the publics engagement with organizations, and the value (or lack thereof) that we place on such everyday services. 6. Harrell Fletcher is an associate professor and founder of the Social Practice Art MFA program at PSU. 7.Greenwood is not alone in reaching the field of social practice art through horticulture. Social practice artist Harrell Fletcher shares a similar personal history. Through a farming practicum at UC Santa Cruz, his passion to involve communities and making art grew (harrellfletcher.com). 8. Worldwide, nearly 45% of abortions are illegally performed, and many of these are unsafe, according to Henshaw, Stanley K., Susheela Singh, and Taylor Haas. 1999. The Incidence of Abortion Worldwide. International Family Planning Perspectives 25, suppl.: S30S38. 9. This information and much more can be gleaned from the Planned Parenthood website, plannedparenthood.org. 10. Carolines full story can be found on the Feminist Womens Health Center website, http://www.fwhc.org/ stories/caroline.htm 11. More abortion-related statistics can be found on The Abortion Access Project website, ourbodiesourselves.org. 12. Provide is an organization that is committed to building infrastructure to support abortion care, working around the lack of providers and restrictive legislation, and getting women the care they deserve despite the alarming disparities in access. (provideaccess.org). There are currently (as of April 2013) seven states working on legislation (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers, or TRAP laws) to indirectly ban

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all abortion services-- Alabama, Indiana, North Dakota, Texas, Virginia, Mississippi, and North Carolina (http://bit.ly/XMPMUG). The outrageous TRAP laws complicate abortion provision in ways that will ultimately force clinics to shut their doors. My hope is that women and men from all walks of life can come together and stand strong in opposition of political campaigns set out to regulate womens health care in ways that are inhumane and completely demoralizing. 13. De Saussure (2011) argues that cultural elements all relate back to the overarching system of signs and language. The sign, as anything that conveys meaning, consists of both a signifier and a signified. The signifier gives meaning to the sign (think of a picture), and the signified is the thought that the object evokes in the mind (think of a word). A coat hanger is made up of the signifier, which is an object made of wire that is twisted into a triangular form with a hook, and a signified, which is the word, coat hanger. Together, the object image and the word create a sign. The coat hanger is something jackets hang onto that lives in our closets, or when paired with Planned Parenthood, something used to abort a growing fetus. Planned Parenthood is wrongly associated with coat hangers through the cultural production of value that labels the organization as having the sole purpose of killing babies, as many anti-abortion groups claim. Horatio asks participants to reassess cultural signs of a coat hanger and Planned Parenthood as tools for inducing abortions. Instead, he challenges participants to reassign value and alter the symbolism of the reproductive care organization as a safe space for family planning, using the negative object as the medium for producing new meaning. 14. In talking with PLACE gallerys curator, Gabe Flores, I started thinking about the nest building process as having a self-congratulatory intent. This critical interpretation asserts that my peers and I may have attended the workshop in an effort to support PPCWs mission, yet in effect, our participation hinges on our needs to satisfy personal dilemmas and feel accomplished by helping. We can each boast to our loved ones about the nests we made and the change we are responsible for bringing to womens reproductive rights. Now we all feel so much better about ourselves, because weve done our part. Is this the point? Is this where our efforts will end? I asked Gabe what he thought about the conspicuous nature of these sorts of efforts. Indeed, it often seems that we do things because we know that we are being watched (think Foucaults panopticon) and will be praised if we do something gracious and thoughtful. Gabe agrees that we are all involved in forms of conspicuous consumption, and says that this is the exact response he had to the nests in the gallery setting. I feel that some volunteer efforts are done conspicuously and that we consume conspicuously, yet I do not wish to undercut the genuine desire people have to share their passions, find their voices, and act in order to make the world a better place for countless other beings. 15. The symbols reflect earlier hobo symbols from the Depression era, which helped direct wayward travelers to safe lodges, telephones, showers, and pointed out places to steer clear from. The symbols were carved into trees, fence posts, and other objects hidden in plain sight. The modern hobo symbols were created in an attempt to help todays Portland homeless population stick together and support one another. 16. Additionally, based on the interactions I have had with the artists, I was invited to help Anne Greenwood make a book. Initially I saw this as another form of participant observation, yet given the nature of this project, it currently falls outside of the public realm and so I chose not to include more about this work in my thesis. The book we are working on is structured similarly to the Birds Nests book. Anne has created a series of linoleum prints that compose a body of work called, Old Work & Tools of the Trade. The goal

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is to create an artistic collection of prints paired with sociological, anthropological, political, and inspiring texts. She asked me to work with her based on my educational background and interest in writing. The ideas we have composed thus far will surely expand and develop with time. We have proposed an instillation for the Cascade Galley at PCC in the spring of 2014. We are also applying for a Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) grant in order to further support this endeavor. With this grant, we hope for the project to have a participatory component in which community members (including members from the Center for Intercultural Organizing (CIO), Jefferson High School, the International Center for Traditional Childbirth (ICTC), and the Lewis & Clark Gender Symposium) can reflect upon their own privileges, family histories, and experiences. 17. At which point some argue that it is no longer art. 18. The film, Marina Ambrovic: The Artist is Present, is a retrospective of much of Ambrovics life history and artistic work. She uses her own body as her main artistic medium, performing in gallery spaces using her flesh and blood as props. In her most recent retrospective at the MOMA, she sat in a chair in the gallery for three months and thousands of visitors participated in her art by sitting in a chair across from her for any length of time. 19. See Bishop (2006) for narratives and reflections on and by these artists. 20. A frame, which in the case of the Birds Nest Project is quite literally the wire coat hangers, becomes symbolically apparent as the coat hangers are paired with Planned Parenthood. Curators generally only provide a symbolic theme as the framework for a show. 21. It is interesting that artists do not wish to identify as activists. In the art world, this work is not considered to be art, and has no value because it is too political to sell. I will continue to address this issue further along in this paper. 22. The backlash experienced by Gompert and Women on Waves signifies one of the main differences between this work and Laws artwork. Women on Waves is intentionally confrontational, whereas the Birds Nest Project is meant to be interpretive and experiential without being outright controversial. 23. In terms of the intersection between arts and activism, Women on Waves is artistic because in addition to literally being considered a work of art that has been displayed at the Venice Biennale among other art events, it literalizes the metaphor of waves that we use to describe generations of feminism and links it to old images that associate dangerous female power and the sea--from sirens and mermaids to the female pirates [] it takes on the traditional associations of women and ships [] referred to as she. In the eighteenth century, shipwrecks were even called miscarriages (Ditz 1994 in Lambert-Beatty 2008:313). This to me reflects that anything can be considered art, and this aesthetic romanticization can be an effective way to forward social justice issues, if nothing else! 24. The Yes Men describe themselves as activists who use any means necessary to agree their way into the fortified compounds of commerce, and then smuggle out the stories of their undercover escapades to provide a public glimpse at the behind-the-scenes world of big business (theyesmen.org). Their movie, The Yes Men, provides an interesting glimpse into their working methods as they impersonate World Trade Organization spokespeople in public media and international business conferences. 25. Horatio Laws project may be more explicit in intent when compared to Tracey Emins work. 26. Resistance art brings hidden knowledge out of the shadows (via publicsphereproject.org). So much

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of the human experience seems individualized, repressed, rejected, and refrained. Our sufferings are our deepest secrets, and art attempts to break the silence and reveal our commonalities. 27. Ai Weiwei is the big exception to this rule, as an artist activist who is very explicit about his efforts to facilitate dialogues regarding the injustices faced by Chinese civilians. Ai Weiwei uses both art and forms of social media (e.g. Twitter) in order to publicly express his anger and disapproval of the regimes policies and failure to support its people. Ai Weiwei lives in a unique environment, starkly contrasting the political and social context of the United States. When speech is not explicitly limited by the powers that be, it is a turn off, in the words of my informants, to be explicit in your objection to political and social institutions. In places where free speech is prohibited, engaging in art that is outwardly political maintains its cache and receives international attention. 28. Cathy Cades photographs of the Womens Liberation Movement and feminist lesbian activism appeared in newspapers and journals that circulated the nation. These photographs are now available in the UC Berkeley Bancroft Library archives. 29. Stealing food as a visceral reaction to combat starvation may be comparable to aborting a fetus in order to have control over ones own body. 30. Lippard (1984) argues that both political art and activist art deal with similar topics, yet political art tends to be socially concerned and activist art tends to be socially involved []. The formers work is a commentary or analysis, while the latters art works within its context, with its audience (349). 31. Drew (2007) contemplates art critics, historians, curators, and others in the art world who dismiss social practice art as political art or not art at all, as if art focusing on larger social issues or art that is located in the public sphere is too depersonalized, less individualistic, and thus less intrinsic to the approved and marketable stereotypes of the sensitive and creative artist (97). 32. Collectives are any sort of association of like-minded individuals working toward a common goal. Collectives generally seek some kind of consensus around work to be performed [] egalitarian concerns are high on the list of priorities [] the division of labor seeks to be nonhierarchical and rotating, so that everyone can do all (Drew 2007:99-100). While the Birds Nest project, and the other social practice art projects created by the artists I have interviewed have some sort of loose hierarchy--between the artist and his or her vision and the community engaged in the work--the concern for equity and empowerment remain fundamental to the work these artists do.

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