FORWARD: Issue #8: Civic Health
Featured Interview
Featured Interview
PET-tition for the PAW-liticians, a way to both inform folks about the East Los Angelos Pedestrian Plan and invite them to support safer streets and sidewalks. Read about the PET-tition under the question "How do you all bring mischief and joy into your work?" Photos courtesy Public Matters.
With East LA Moves / El Este Se Mueve, Public Matters created a public awareness campaign that featured local community members who practiced active transportation. These included East LA runners, people who were in cycling groups, roller skaters. They photographed them and featured them on bus shelter posters and light banners throughout the neighborhood. Find more in "How do you all bring mischief and joy into your work?" Photos courtesy Public Matters.
What’s the role of artists in civic systems?
An interview with Reanne Estrada and Mike Blockstein of Public Matters
We sought out Reanne and Mike for this interview because their work at Public Matters is anchored at the intersection of art and civic engagement. The two of them joyfully practice good mischief to humanize civic systems, using art as a lever to center community and inspire radical change. These excerpts from the interview have been edited for clarity.
Navigation: Select from these buttons to open the response to each of these questions.
Good Mischief brought a Pollution Monster Piñata Smash to the Let’s Plant A Visión for City Terrace event. Read about this event under the question "What is the importance of civic engagement in this moment?"
We are the government. If this experiment is what it’s supposed to be, we are. We are the public, and the public is the civic.
—Reanne Estrada
Slide 1: Dogs and humans alike signed the PET-tition to PAW-liticians. (2): University Park Slow Jams participants place large bandages over infrastructure “ouchies” to call attention to the need to fix broken sidewalks. (3-4): “A City Terrace Love Story: Why We Stay and Fight," the story map for Good Mischief. (5): The story map featured audio content from community members, including “Paradise from A Zombie Apocalypse.” (6-8): Graphics from the story map show health consequences, zoning and land use, and redlining. Read about this project under the question “What is the importance of civic engagement in this moment?"
When we think about the process of engagement, it’s really about making different forms of opportunities for people to build relationships with each other.
—Mike Blockstein
Big Arbolitos, plywood trees shaped like giant climate-resilient air fresheners, pointed out the lack of shade and freeway exhaust at a City Terrace bus stop; Arbolitos included signage pointing out the benefit of more trees. Read more about the Big Arbolitos under the question "How do you all bring mischief and joy into your work?"
Adopt an Arbolito giveaway.
Custom air fresheners developed with the Institute for Art and Olfaction invited people to imagine “the smell of no pollution in City Terrace."
Lost Trees: Phantom Shade, a project to highlight the absence of trees in East LA. Read about this project in "How do you all bring mischief and joy into your work?"
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The physical PET-tition to PAW-liticians, signed by dogs and their human companions. Read about this work under the question "How do you all bring mischief and joy into your work?"
Artists cultivate civic health by being truthful, especially when people are reluctant to listen.
— Mike Blockstein
Pollution Monster Piñatas featured the chemical compounds polluting the East LA area. Read about this event under the question "What is the importance of civic engagement in this moment?"
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We have to make sure that we are cultivating subsequent generations of people who can continue this work and who are equipped to meet whatever moment they will be faced with in the future.
—Reanne Estrada
This work is about creating those opportunities for people to do and share the things that they naturally have within them.
—Mike Blockstein
Bio
Reanne Estrada
Public Matters co-principal and Creative Director Reanne Estrada (she/they) is a Los Angeles-based public artist whose poly-disciplinary practice explores how bodies negotiate their identities, navigate shared and at times contested spaces, and reimagine their power within and outside existing systems.
Reanne also does individual projects, is one-third of “Mail Order Brides/M.O.B.,” a Filipina American artist girl gang, and collaborates with artist C. Ree. Her work includes social practice, sculpture, performance, audio tours, and ridiculous outfits. They have orchestrated crosswalk choreography to address traffic safety in South Los Angeles, explored how fried pork skin can conjure solidarity in Historic Filipinotown, bought and sold lucky dreams in South Korea, developed “Privacy Prophylactics” using “People Who Don’t Exist,” and been a professional bridesmaid for hire. Reanne is also a certified laughter yoga leader.
Reanne’s work has been funded by the California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artists, California Arts Council, Durfee Foundation, and Gerbode Foundation. They have been awarded residencies from the Lucas Artists Residency Program at Villa Montalvo, Civitella Ranieri, McColl Center, Pink Factory, and the Kohler Art Center. Her Public Matters work has been supported by California Humanities, LA2050, National Institutes of Health, Truth Initiative, and Southern California Association of Governments.
Bio
Mike Blockstein
Public Matters co-principal Mike Blockstein is a public artist and educator with a long track record of expanding creative boundaries. His work aims to amplify art’s role in the public realm by centering it in unexpected places and partnerships. He has created and led projects nationally, bringing together an array of unexpected collaborators—youth, transportation engineers, urban planners, government officials, public health agencies, community groups, schools and universities—to instigate exchange and learning that builds local capacity for self-determination.
Mike’s interdisciplinary projects explore the intersection of cultural narratives, artistic process, and civic engagement. He has a long history of arts leadership. By his twenties, he was executive director of Southern Exposure, a San Francisco artists’ organization, and board president of the National Association of Artists Organizations. He left the art world to earn a master's degree in public administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, underscoring his desire to root artistic practice in disciplines and agencies outside of the arts to advance social change.
Public Matters is a creative studio for civic engagement. Founded in 2007, it is an award-winning, Los Angeles–based social enterprise that uses art as a lever for social change. Public Matters aims to bridge the trust gap between institutions and marginalized communities of color by designing strategies that transform the culture, practice, and experience of civic participation, making it accessible to all. Public Matters connects people to their neighborhoods; fosters a sense of belonging and social purpose; and builds the capacity of residents and local organizations to shape their communities. Humor and conspiratorial joy are central to its work.
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FORWARD: Issue #8
Civic Health
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