Thursday, December 07, 2006
Livin' the Good Life
In Little Haiti the dogs are hungry. They’re lean, with ribs rippling under thin layers of mangy fur. Their eyes have a glimmer of something you can’t trust, something that is likely to snap and gnaw you to death out of desperation, out of starvation. It is amidst this pack of roaming hounds that Faktura Gallery sits.
Miami’s Design District is considered the heart of Miami, and Faktura is most certainly the pulmonary vein of that heart, carrying in nourishing ideas to be circulated through the rest of the body. Tuesday nights’s Pimp My Kart exhibit was another example of Faktura’s innovation. The gallery opening took a stand on issues like gentrification through an over-the-top presentation of refurbished shopping carts, MTV style. Crushed velvet seats were installed in some, as were televisions and other unlikely technological accoutrements.
In the photo to the left, the cart was split and added on to so that one half was transformed into a confession booth (free communion wafers!) and the other was a throne. People were encouraged to leave a confession – usually something honest, be it their actual feelings about the homeless or a statement regarding gentrification in your neighborhood. On the throne were headphones so that you could hear other people’s recorded confessions.
The irony set in while I was leaving. As I walked away from the cluster of fashionable young peers, I walked through a shoulder-to-shoulder line of folks from the neighborhood while en route to my illegally parked Hyundai: I saw eveyone leaving the party staring at the ground to avoid eye-contact. Only minutes after debating twists on poverty the well-practiced party goers dodged the panhandlers to jump back into the safety of their flashy Volkswagons and peel away from the ghetto. Most of the neighbors weren’t even asking for money, they were only doing what normal people in any neighborhood do when there’s a party: mingle outside until someone invites them over. Nobody did.
In Little Haiti the dogs are hungry. They’re lean, with ribs rippling under thin layers of mangy fur. Their eyes have a glimmer of something you can’t trust, something that is likely to snap and gnaw you to death out of desperation, out of starvation. It is amidst this pack of roaming hounds that Faktura Gallery sits.
Miami’s Design District is considered the heart of Miami, and Faktura is most certainly the pulmonary vein of that heart, carrying in nourishing ideas to be circulated through the rest of the body. Tuesday nights’s Pimp My Kart exhibit was another example of Faktura’s innovation. The gallery opening took a stand on issues like gentrification through an over-the-top presentation of refurbished shopping carts, MTV style. Crushed velvet seats were installed in some, as were televisions and other unlikely technological accoutrements.
In the photo to the left, the cart was split and added on to so that one half was transformed into a confession booth (free communion wafers!) and the other was a throne. People were encouraged to leave a confession – usually something honest, be it their actual feelings about the homeless or a statement regarding gentrification in your neighborhood. On the throne were headphones so that you could hear other people’s recorded confessions.
The irony set in while I was leaving. As I walked away from the cluster of fashionable young peers, I walked through a shoulder-to-shoulder line of folks from the neighborhood while en route to my illegally parked Hyundai: I saw eveyone leaving the party staring at the ground to avoid eye-contact. Only minutes after debating twists on poverty the well-practiced party goers dodged the panhandlers to jump back into the safety of their flashy Volkswagons and peel away from the ghetto. Most of the neighbors weren’t even asking for money, they were only doing what normal people in any neighborhood do when there’s a party: mingle outside until someone invites them over. Nobody did.
# posted by The Hive @ 2:28 PM 
