Art Hack Day was intended to foster collaboration. Its visit to Capitol Hill earlier this month has instead been an illustration in frustration for two artists who wanted to be part of the event and has led to the cancellation of a connected arts festival intended to build on the night’s work.
With the September 17th event’s theme of “Erasure” hosted at 11th Ave’s V2, creators Jaleesa Trapp and Christopher Paul Jordan were sad and frustrated to find their contribution as black artists all but erased by the night’s organizers:
last night we came to setup our creation for #ArtHack Seattle, and we stayed at the space until a little after 3AM. we slept 2 hours. woke up early to finish writing code & drawing where all the circuits needed to be connected. only to come finish our setup 2 hours before the show & EVERYTHING was moved. there’s no way we could’ve reset this and then finished what we brought. ironically, the theme of Art Hack Seattle is Erasure. our piece was dedicated to Black people whose histories have been erased. our piece was meant to be interactive, with sight, sound, touch, and even smell. Chris and I both work all day, and spent Thursday & Friday night working. we’ve driven back & forth from Tacoma several times because this was an important show to us.
after they ran out of ways of telling us it was our fault that THEY moved everything we setup, someone finally gave a half-apology. This was after we were told it was moved to make room for the “main piece”…I think it was ghost or something. idk. so if you plan on going to see the other pieces tonight, be sure to ask what happened to the only Black people they had in show.
The Stranger’s art critic Jen Graves wrote here about the Art Hack Day fail. Monday, Aktionsart, organizers of the related Black Box 3.0 festival planned to follow Art Hack Day with screenings at the Seattle Art Museum, pop-up media installations, and community meet-ups exploring digital innovations, announced the cancelation of the event in the wake of the V2 debacle:
Out of solidarity with communities of color, the remaining festival programs have been cancelled or will be organized independently. Aktionsart is committed to proactively supporting racial and gender equity in the arts and technology communities.
The Aktionsart announcement asks those “who wish to support the work of Chris and Jaleesa,” to make a donation toward the documentary they are producing “about AIDS and the erasure of Black people that is scheduled to air on World AIDS Day.” So far, more than $11,000 of their $15,000 goal has been raised. The artists also reportedly asked that an “Art Hack Day Code of Conduct” be posted to help organizers at future events.
CHS has asked the artists if there are any plans to find another opportunity to display the artists’ “Erasure” installation again around Capitol Hill.
Maybe the people running the show were just disorganized and it had nothing to do with “erasing” black people from the show? I have no idea in this case, but sometimes frustrating things happen that have nothing to do with race, gender, etc…..