www.conjunctionarts.org/endurance

Project Description

Civic Endurance is an installation by artists Bradley McCallum and Jacqueline Tarry that portrays the lives of 26 homeless teenagers in Seattle through portrait photographs and an accompanying video production. Commissioned by Peace on the Streets by Kids on the Streets, the project addresses public perceptions of the homeless and issues of drug addiction through public dialogue and storytelling.

In 2001, Peace on the Streets by Kids from the Street, a homeless youth advocacy organization that provides assistance and addresses community misconceptions about homelessness, commissioned McCallum and Tarry to create a work that gives voice to the issues that homeless youth in Seattle face. The installation incorporates discussions between homeless youth and the artists, and homeless youth standing motionless for an hour becomes a metaphor for the significant act of endurance that they face with drug addiction, attention deficit, and health-related issues. Each youth that participated in this collective action dedicated his or her participation to the memory of friends who died from life on the streets and thus stood for those individuals who were absent.

The artistic component of the project consists of a series of six color photographs and a video that together document a 25-hour endurance performance with homeless Seattle teenagers. The portraits were taken minutes before each youth took part in the endurance performance, in which 26 homeless youth stood still looking directly into the camera for an hour without speaking. As each completed the hour-long performance, there was a transitional moment in which the next youth walked into the frame of the camera, and then directly behind the first performer. They overlapped for a few moments and then the initial performer walked off camera while the replacement stepped forward into the same position, again looking into the camera. As they stand still for the hour, the video is rendered with a time-lapsed effect in which traffic and pedestrians pass by and light fades into night and back again; during the transition from one performer to the next, the video is slowed down. The audio tracks on the video combine street sounds with edited sequences of the interview that were recorded prior to the performance. Each hour of real-time performance is compressed to five minutes, creating a finished work of two hours.

Civic Engagement/Dialogue Activities

As part of the artistic production, the homeless youth each offered a testimony about life on the streets. Before filming, McCallum and Tarry prepared several questions to ask each youth, including why they left home, what they took with them when the left, what it is like to live on the streets, and what experience they had with drugs. By answering the questions, participants told stories about their experiences. At the first screenings of the film, youth participants offered stories to community members about their experiences working with the artists and their opinions about homelessness and drug addiction.

In coordination with the exhibition, community dialogues took place. The Seattle Office of Arts & Culture's Arts Up Program partnered with the city's Department of Youth and Family Services to discuss services and policies targeting homeless youth. More than 150 policy-makers (including a state legislator and several city council staff), social service providers, funders, and homeless youth gathered to tour the Civic Endurance exhibition with some of the project participants and then participated in a dialogue about youth homelessness, the stories in Civic Endurance, and what role society can play a part in creating change. Ultimately, the forum provided an opportunity for homeless youth to communicate their needs and concerns to the decision-makers who would most benefit from the dialogue. Additional dialogues sponsored by Peace on the Streets by Kids on the Streets were held as well. These moderated discussions brought together community members, local business owners, project participants, and the artists to talk about aspects of homelessness. The first dialogue focused on issues of personal work and public space, and sought to bridge the gap between the everyday experiences of homeless and nonhomeless people in Seattle by exploring questions such as what it means to be young and homeless, what it feels like to be on the street, and why so many Seattle youth use heroin. Two additional dialogues were held and gave perspective on homes and neighborhoods in Seattle and talked about resources and communities.

Since the project, many of the youth participants are no longer homeless and are holding down steady jobs. The whereabouts of a dozen or so of the participants are unknown. Ultimately, youth participants and the artists hope that people will re-evaluate their perceptions of homeless people. They intend to distribute the film to local schools and the general public to educate the community about the realities of life on the street.

Information Sources

Peace on the Streets by Kids on the Streets, Civic Endurance, Conner Contemporary Gallery