Poetic Occupations: Artists as Narrator-Protagonists

The Occupy Movements that characterized much of the latter half of 2011 in both New York City and abroad can be viewed as a process of laying claim to a particular space as a public space. For instance, Zuccotti Park, the now famous location of the origins of the Occupy Wall Street Movement (OWS), is a publically accessible park. However, its characterization as "public" is somewhat convoluted. A program established in New York City allowed developers to purchase space adjacent to or near their building project in return for concessions regarding building size restrictions. Using this opportunity, Brookfield Office Properties acquired the area now known as Zuccotti Park and designated it as an "open space" in accordance with the agreement. It would be publically accessible yet still privately owned (Foderaro, 2011). This vague designation opens the space to critical interrogation. A conventional understanding of occupying a site would suggest a conscious taking over of a space. In the case of the OWS, occupation was meant to produce a visible and cohesive community of like-minded individuals intent on projecting and promoting a particular social perspective.Whether this action was successful or not is not the focus of this paper. Rather, I am interested in the theoretical foundations that give the process of occupation and the resultant community meaning. I mean to address the basic question: What does it mean to "occupy" space? And what are the consequences of that occupation? Furthermore, how can this understanding be applied to reconsider forms of artistic expression for students and to rearticulate the purposes and pedagogical objectives of art education? The paper will conclude with a reflection upon final public art projects in which pre-service elementary education undergraduates were asked to "occupy" a site on their campus through the installation and/or performance of site-based work.One of the qualities of the Zuccotti Park demonstrations that caught my attention was the manner in which communication was accomplished. If one person were speaking to a large crowd gathered around him/her where those furthest away were unable to hear, every phrase uttered by the speaker would be repeated in succession by each concentric ring of listeners until the comment reached those at the outer edges of the crowd. This practice of not using a megaphone accomplished two things. First, all were compelled to actively listen, as they would be responsible for repeating what was just spoken, thus creating an engaged and unified audience. Second, it reinforced what Judith Butler (2011) suggested in a presentation about the Occupy events: "Space and location are created through plural action" (n.p.). Communal action is a core condition of public space. That is, public space is a consequence of neither architectural nor natural physical form, but is produced by connections among and between people. Butler argues, "all political action requires the 'space of appearance'" (n.p.). Yet this is not a prescribed or willfully defined space, nor is it a community constituted by the efforts of a few individuals. Rather the "space" or community appears as a result of the common presence of the collective itself. That is, the occupation, what Nancy (1991) would call "being-in-common," produces an alliance among people, rather than the other way around, and produces a space that "belongs properly to alliance itself" (p. 2). A community is thus not defined through deliberate effort and consensus, but as a provisional community that emerges through the very act of putting oneself in relation to others.Nancy (1991) correlates the conditional nature of such a community with the ontological understanding of the subject as always already "in-common" with others. As such, communal structure does not have an essence corresponding to a sense of the individual as a unique being with his or her own will. According to Nancy, since there is not a common atomistic sense of being, then a community with a common identity or an agreed upon common meaning is impossible. …