229
Arte Útil archive nr:
229
Initiator:
Jenny Polak
Location:
Online and built installations
Category:
politics, social
Users:
Anyone can visit the website, Furniture installations can be borrowed or commisioned Artist, Jenny Polak, 3D interaction designer Peter Mackey.
Maintained by:
Jenny Polak and art galleries where her work is exhibited.
Certification:
prototype
Duration:
2006 - ongoing
Jenny Polak
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Design for the Alien Within
Description:
Web-based interactive design tool; tactical fiction that presents itself as a tool to “help equip people’s homes to meet the needs of undocumented immigrants for the 21st Century.†Website launched 2006. A built example of furniture with space for hiding was displayed at the Newark Museum 2006. Other examples followed. In March 2010 the artist did an installation of a fictitious Hiding Unit occupying a vacant space between ceiling and floor of the BRIC Rotunda Gallery in Brooklyn.
Goals:
To raise awareness about the precarious living conditions and danger faced by people living and working without immigration papers, and promote resistance to anti-immigrant authorities.
Beneficial Outcomes:
By initiating ‘in-store’ gallery performances, the artist was able to bring additional awareness to the project and the issue.
Images:
