I'm a potter, which seems like a fairly humble vocation. I know a lot about pots. I've spent about 15 years making them. One of the things that really excites me in my artistic practice and being trained as a potter is that you very quickly learn how to make great things out of nothing; that I spent a lot of time at my wheel with mounds of clay trying stuff; and that the limitations of my capacity, my ability, was based on my hands and my imagination; that if I wanted to make a really nice bowl and I didn't know how to make a foot yet, I would have to learn how to make a foot; that that process of learning has been very, very helpful to my life. I feel like, as a potter, you also start to learn how to shape the world.
我是陶藝家, 這是一個感覺相當平凡的職業。 關於陶器我懂很多, 我從事陶器製作已經有15年了。 我在陶藝訓練成為陶藝家其間, 一樣最讓我感到興奮的 便是很快學會怎樣把平庸的材質 製作成精美的藝術品; 我在陶輪前花很多時間, 用陶土做各種嘗試; 限制我的能力和水準的 是我的雙手和想像力; 如果我想做一隻非常精美的碗 但是卻不知道怎樣塑造碗底 那我就不得不去學習碗底的製作; 這樣的學習過程對我 的生活非常有幫助。 我覺得,作爲陶器藝人, 你也需要開始學著去塑造世界。
There have been times in my artistic capacity that I wanted to reflect on other really important moments in the history of the U.S., the history of the world where tough things happened, but how do you talk about tough ideas without separating people from that content? Could I use art like these old, discontinued firehoses from Alabama, to talk about the complexities of a moment of civil rights in the '60s? Is it possible to talk about my father and I doing labor projects? My dad was a roofer, construction guy, he owned small businesses, and at 80, he was ready to retire and his tar kettle was my inheritance. Now, a tar kettle doesn't sound like much of an inheritance. It wasn't. It was stinky and it took up a lot of space in my studio, but I asked my dad if he would be willing to make some art with me, if we could reimagine this kind of nothing material as something very special. And by elevating the material and my dad's skill, could we start to think about tar just like clay, in a new way, shaping it differently, helping us to imagine what was possible?
藝術工作的過程中有許多時候, 讓我想要表達出 一些非常重要的歷史時刻 那些在美國歷史或是世界歷史中 很艱苦的時刻, 可又該怎樣討論這些困難的話題 卻不脫離當事的人們呢? 我能借用藝術作品,例如這些 來自阿拉巴馬州的廢舊消防水龍 來呈現那些60年代民權 複雜的情況嗎? 我能否講述父親和我的勞工成績? 我父親是屋頂技工,建築工人, 同時還做著小生意。 他留給我的遺產是 一個瀝青爐。 瀝青爐聽起來算不上是什麽遺產呀。 沒錯,的確不是。 這東西味道挺大, 還佔掉我工作室許多空間, 但我問父親他是否願意 和我一起從事藝術創作, 重塑平庸的材料 把它變成特別的作品。 憑藉父親的技術,和把材料升級, 我們能否用新的方式, 把瀝青當作陶土, 用不同的方式塑造它, 幫我們構想可以製造什麼出來呢?
After clay, I was then kind of turned on to lots of different kinds of materials, and my studio grew a lot because I thought, well, it's not really about the material, it's about our capacity to shape things. I became more and more interested in ideas and more and more things that were happening just outside my studio. Just to give you a little bit of context, I live in Chicago. I live on the South Side now. I'm a West Sider. For those of you who are not Chicagoans, that won't mean anything, but if I didn't mention that I was a West Sider, there would be a lot of people in the city that would be very upset.
用了陶土後,我開始對許多 不同種類的材料感興趣。 我的工作室也擴大許多, 因為我想 其實關鍵不在於材料, 而是我們塑造事物的能力。 我對創意越來越有興趣。 那時在我的工作室外 也有許多事情在發生。 先讓各位了解一下背景, 我住在芝加哥。 我現在住在南邊, 我是西邊的人。 若你們不是芝加哥人, 就不會知道其中的意義。 但是如果我不說我是西邊人, 那裡市區的許多人 可能會很不高興。
The neighborhood that I live in is Grand Crossing. It's a neighborhood that has seen better days. It is not a gated community by far. There is lots of abandonment in my neighborhood, and while I was kind of busy making pots and busy making art and having a good art career, there was all of this stuff that was happening just outside my studio. All of us know about failing housing markets and the challenges of blight, and I feel like we talk about it with some of our cities more than others, but I think a lot of our U.S. cities and beyond have the challenge of blight, abandoned buildings that people no longer know what to do anything with. And so I thought, is there a way that I could start to think about these buildings as an extension or an expansion of my artistic practice? And that if I was thinking along with other creatives -- architects, engineers, real estate finance people -- that us together might be able to kind of think in more complicated ways about the reshaping of cities.
我住的區域是「格蘭區」。 那是一個美景不再的區域。 它不是什麼富裕的社區。 我們附近有許多廢棄的建築, 當我忙著製作器皿和創造藝術品, 我的藝術生涯正在蓬勃發展, 就在我的工作室外, 同時也發生了許多事情。 我們都知道房地產市場低迷 以及衰落所帶給它的挑戰, 我覺得我們只管談論一些城市 而不太理會其他城市, 但我想還有很多很多美國的城市 都有這種衰退的難題。 大家不知道該如何 處理廢棄的建築, 所以我就想,我是否可以想辦法 把這些建築變成我的 藝術領域的延伸? 我想與其他有創意的人, 一起集思廣益 -- 像是建築師,工程師, 房地產金融家 -- 我們一起可能想出 精妙的辦法去重塑這些城市。
And so I bought a building. The building was really affordable. We tricked it out. We made it as beautiful as we could to try to just get some activity happening on my block. Once I bought the building for about 18,000 dollars, I didn't have any money left. So I started sweeping the building as a kind of performance. This is performance art, and people would come over, and I would start sweeping. Because the broom was free and sweeping was free. It worked out. (Laughter) But we would use the building, then, to stage exhibitions, small dinners, and we found that that building on my block, Dorchester -- we now referred to the block as Dorchester projects -- that in a way that building became a kind of gathering site for lots of different kinds of activity. We turned the building into what we called now the Archive House. The Archive House would do all of these amazing things. Very significant people in the city and beyond would find themselves in the middle of the hood. And that's when I felt like maybe there was a relationship between my history with clay and this new thing that was starting to develop, that we were slowly starting to reshape how people imagined the South Side of the city.
所以我買下了一座建築物。 這座建築很便宜。 我們把它好好地打扮了一番。 我們想了些辦法, 把它修繕地美輪美奐, 來吸引周邊街區的活動。 我花了大約一萬八千元 買了這座建築物, 口袋裏一分錢都不剩。 所以我開始打掃這個建築, 當做是一種表演。 那是表演藝術, 等人來了之後, 我就開始掃。 因為掃把是免費的, 掃地也是。 它奏效了。 (笑聲) 那時我們用這個地方做展示場, 小型餐會, 我們發現我們附近的朵徹斯特 (Dorchester)建築 -- 我們現在稱這條街區為 朵徹斯特計劃 -- 這座建築成為了大家聚會的地方, 那裡有許多不同種類的活動。 我們將那建築變成我們現在稱為 「檔案樓」的地方。 「檔案樓」可以舉辦許多令人驚嘆的事情。 城中無數的達官貴人, 會來到這裏。 那時,我覺得 或許我做陶藝的經歷 和這裏所發生的變化有關聯 這種新變化慢慢地開始重塑 人們對芝加哥南區的印象。
One house turned into a few houses, and we always tried to suggest that not only is creating a beautiful vessel important, but the contents of what happens in those buildings is also very important. So we were not only thinking about development, but we were thinking about the program, thinking about the kind of connections that could happen between one house and another, between one neighbor and another. This building became what we call the Listening House, and it has a collection of discarded books from the Johnson Publishing Corporation, and other books from an old bookstore that was going out of business. I was actually just wanting to activate these buildings as much as I could with whatever and whoever would join me.
從一間房子到許多間房子, 我們一直認爲, 創造一個美麗的外表重要, 但是在這些建築的內涵 也非常重要。 所以我們不是只着眼於發展, 而且同時也想制定計劃, 想有那些連繫可能發生於 一個房子跟著另一個房子之間, 或鄰里互相之間 這個建物我們後來稱 它為「聆聽屋」, 它收藏了一批強生印刷公司 丟棄的書本, 以及其他從一個 倒閉的老書店的書。 我其實就是要讓這些建築 盡可能活動起來。 以任何方式與任何願意參與的人。
In Chicago, there's amazing building stock. This building, which had been the former crack house on the block, and when the building became abandoned, it became a great opportunity to really imagine what else could happen there. So this space we converted into what we call Black Cinema House. Black Cinema House was an opportunity in the hood to screen films that were important and relevant to the folk who lived around me, that if we wanted to show an old Melvin Van Peebles film, we could. If we wanted to show "Car Wash," we could. That would be awesome. The building we soon outgrew, and we had to move to a larger space. Black Cinema House, which was made from just a small piece of clay, had to grow into a much larger piece of clay, which is now my studio.
芝加哥有一座令人驚奇的建築物。 這個建築以前是這附近的吸毒屋, 當這個建築物被棄置後, 它做就了一個好機會讓人猜想 有什麼別的可以在那裡發生。 我們於是把這個地方變成 今日所謂的「黑色電影屋」。 「黑色電影屋」讓這隣近地方可以放映電影, 對於住在我附近的人 很重要和有意義。 如果我們想放映一部 梅爾文·凡·皮布爾斯的老片,我們就放。 如果我們想放映「洗車場」, 我們就放映。 那多棒。 那座建築很快就不夠用了, 我們只有搬到另一處更大的。 黑色電影屋本來 只是一小塊陶土做的, 成為一個很大塊陶土, 就是我現在的工作室。
What I realized was that for those of you who are zoning junkies, that some of the things that I was doing in these buildings that had been left behind, they were not the uses by which the buildings were built, and that there are city policies that say, "Hey, a house that is residential needs to stay residential." But what do you do in neighborhoods when ain't nobody interested in living there? That the people who have the means to leave have already left? What do we do with these abandoned buildings? And so I was trying to wake them up using culture.
我發現你們那些分區狂, 我所做的一些事 在那些被遺忘的建築裡, 不是以原來建築的使用目的 而使用, 有城市法規說, 「設定為住宅地建築物只能 住宅使用」。 但是如果沒有人有興趣住在那裡的話, 那些建築怎麼辦呢? 有能力搬走的已經搬走了。 我們如何處理這些 被遺棄的建築物呢? 所以我嘗試以文化來喚醒它們。
We found that that was so exciting for folk, and people were so responsive to the work, that we had to then find bigger buildings. By the time we found bigger buildings, there was, in part, the resources necessary to think about those things. In this bank that we called the Arts Bank, it was in pretty bad shape. There was about six feet of standing water. It was a difficult project to finance, because banks weren't interested in the neighborhood because people weren't interested in the neighborhood because nothing had happened there. It was dirt. It was nothing. It was nowhere. And so we just started imagining, what else could happen in this building? (Applause)
我們發現大家都很興奮, 許多人積極參與我們的活動, 以致於我們必須找更大的建築物。 等到我們找到了更大的建物, 那裡就會有我們必須 思考的必要資源 我們稱為「藝術銀行」的狀況 曾經很不好, 那裡之前有六呎深的積水。 那是一個很難獲得資釒的案子, 因為銀行對這個地區沒有興趣。 因為人們對這個地區沒有興趣 因為那裏沒有任何動靜。 只有灰塵,沒有其他, 什麼都沒有。 所以我們開始想像, 在這個建物可以做什麼? (掌聲)
And so now that the rumor of my block has spread, and lots of people are starting to visit, we've found that the bank can now be a center for exhibition, archives, music performance, and that there are people who are now interested in being adjacent to those buildings because we brought some heat, that we kind of made a fire.
那時有關這個地方的謠言傳出來, 許多人開始來參觀, 我們發現這個"銀行"已成為一個 展覽場地、資料館和音樂廳, 有一些人開始對 這些建築物的附近地方有興趣。 因為我們帶來了熱潮, 好像起了一把火。
One of the archives that we'll have there is this Johnson Publishing Corporation. We've also started to collect memorabilia from American history, from people who live or have lived in that neighborhood. Some of these images are degraded images of black people, kind of histories of very challenging content, and where better than a neighborhood with young people who are constantly asking themselves about their identity to talk about some of the complexities of race and class?
我們將在那裡設立 強森出版公司的資料庫, 也開始收集美國歷史的大事紀, 從那些住在或曾住在 那裡的人們收集。 這裡有些貶低黑人的圖像, 有點令人質疑的歷史內容, 那裡會找到比這附近地區更適合。 那裡的年輕人不停的在 找尋自己的身分認同, 年輕人討論種族和階級 的各種複雜問題呢?
In some ways, the bank represents a hub, that we're trying to create a pretty hardcore node of cultural activity, and that if we could start to make multiple hubs and connect some cool green stuff around there, that the buildings that we've purchased and rehabbed, which is now around 60 or 70 units, that if we could land miniature Versailles on top of that, and connect these buildings by a beautiful greenbelt -- (Applause) -- that this place where people never wanted to be would become an important destination for folk from all over the country and world.
從某些方面,"銀行"代表了一個樞紐。 我們嘗試去創造一個文化活動的核心, 如果我們可以開始 創造了幾個中心。 同時也在周圍種些 花草連接各中心, 我們購買和重建的建築物, 現已有大約60到70個單位, 如果我們可以在其上再加上 如同迷你凡爾賽宮的設計, 將這些建物以綠地連接起來 -- (掌聲)-- 這些原來人們不願意來的地方, 會成為變成一個來自全國以至世界各地的人 到訪的一個重要目的地。
In some ways, it feels very much like I'm a potter, that we tackle the things that are at our wheel, we try with the skill that we have to think about this next bowl that I want to make. And it went from a bowl to a singular house to a block to a neighborhood to a cultural district to thinking about the city, and at every point, there were things that I didn't know that I had to learn. I've never learned so much about zoning law in my life. I never thought I'd have to. But as a result of that, I'm finding that there's not just room for my own artistic practice, there's room for a lot of other artistic practices.
從某些方面,我很像是 一個陶藝家, 我們在輪子上想辦法處理東西, 我們使用已有技能 思考著怎樣創作下一個器皿。 從一個器皿到一個房屋,一個小區, 一個大區, 到一個文化區,以致一個城市, 在每一點,都有一些我不懂的事 我必須學。 我一輩子沒有學過那麼多的 有關區劃的法規。 我從沒想過我會學那些。 但是結果我發現那裡不僅是 我自己的藝術實踐的空間, 還有許多其他藝術實踐的空間。
So people started asking us, "Well, Theaster, how are you going to go to scale?" and, "What's your sustainability plan?"
有些人開始問我們, 「提也斯特,你要如何 擴大規模?」 以及,「你有永續經營的計劃嗎?」
(Laughter) (Applause)
(笑聲)(掌聲)
And what I found was that I couldn't export myself, that what seems necessary in cities like Akron, Ohio, and Detroit, Michigan, and Gary, Indiana, is that there are people in those places who already believe in those places, that are already dying to make those places beautiful, and that often, those people who are passionate about a place are disconnected from the resources necessary to make cool things happen, or disconnected from a contingency of people that could help make things happen. So now, we're starting to give advice around the country on how to start with what you got, how to start with the things that are in front of you, how to make something out of nothing, how to reshape your world at a wheel or at your block or at the scale of the city.
我發現我無法外銷自己, 如俄亥俄州阿克倫市的城市, 以及密西根州的底特律, 和印第安納州的蓋里市 那裡需要對當地有信心的本地人, 在那些面臨死亡的地區, 讓它們再度美麗, 那些對當地很有熱情的人, 往往沒有足夠的資源 來做那些很酷的事, 或者他們沒有人脈 來幫忙做那些事。 所以現在,我們開始提供全國性 關於如何從你的現況 著手的諮詢服務, 如何從你當前的狀況開始, 如何從無到有, 如何從一個輪子上 或者你的鄰里, 或者是你的城市來重塑你的世界。
Thank you so much.
謝謝!
(Applause)
(掌聲)
June Cohen: Thank you. So I think many people watching this will be asking themselves the question you just raised at the end: How can they do this in their own city? You can't export yourself. Give us a few pages out of your playbook about what someone who is inspired about their city can do to take on projects like yours?
June Cohen:謝謝你。 我想許多看這個影片的人, 會問他們自己你剛剛在 結尾提到的問題: 他們如何在自己的城市 做同樣事情呢? 你無法外銷你自己。 請你提供你的劇本中的幾頁給 那些被你啟發的人, 教他們如何在他們的城市 做那些你做過的。
Theaster Gates: One of the things I've found that's really important is giving thought to not just the kind of individual project, like an old house, but what's the relationship between an old house, a local school, a small bodega, and is there some kind of synergy between those things? Can you get those folk talking? I've found that in cases where neighborhoods have failed, they still often have a pulse. How do you identify the pulse in that place, the passionate people, and then how do you get folk who have been fighting, slogging for 20 years, reenergized about the place that they live? And so someone has to do that work. If I were a traditional developer, I would be talking about buildings alone, and then putting a "For Lease" sign in the window. I think that you actually have to curate more than that, that there's a way in which you have to be mindful about, what are the businesses that I want to grow here? And then, are there people who live in this place who want to grow those businesses with me? Because I think it's not just a cultural space or housing; there has to be the recreation of an economic core. So thinking about those things together feels right.
Theaster Gates:我發現一個很重要的事情 就是不要只是思考單獨的案子, 例如一間老屋, 而是思考老屋和 當地學校,以及小酒窖 之間的關係, 想想這些地方之間是否有某種共同作用? 你是否可以讓他們彼此對話? 我發現在已廢棄的社區 通常仍然有氣息。 熱情的人們, 你如何得知那個地方的氣息, 而且你如何讓那些二十年來 一直在努力 奮鬥的人們對於他們所居住的地方 再度充滿活力? 必須有人要做這些工作。 如果我們傳統的地產商人, 我就只會考慮建築物本身, 然後將「出租」的牌子掛在窗戶上。 我認為你必須比那個 要策劃得更多, 你必須專心地思考 我要在這裏開展的生意是什麼? 然後,有沒有住在此地的居民 願意和我一起發展這些生意? 因為我認為它不會只是 一個文化空間或只是住宅; 而是一定要有重新創造的經濟核心。 所以應該將這些一起考慮才對。
JC: It's hard to get people to create the spark again when people have been slogging for 20 years. Are there any methods you've found that have helped break through?
JC: 要讓人們再創造火花不容易 當他們已經辛苦了二十年。 你有沒有發現其他 可以幫助突破的方法?
TG: Yeah, I think that now there are lots of examples of folk who are doing amazing work, but those methods are sometimes like, when the media is constantly saying that only violent things happen in a place, then based on your skill set and the particular context, what are the things that you can do in your neighborhood to kind of fight some of that? So I've found that if you're a theater person, you have outdoor street theater festivals. In some cases, we don't have the resources in certain neighborhoods to do things that are a certain kind of splashy, but if we can then find ways of making sure that people who are local to a place, plus people who could be supportive of the things that are happening locally, when those people get together, I think really amazing things can happen.
TG: 是的,我想有很多例子證明 已經有人正在做那些驚人的工作, 但是這些方法有時候, 經媒體一直報導 那裡只有發生暴力事件, 以你的能力以及那裡的特殊情況, 在你的小區,你可以怎樣 對抗那些負面的報導呢? 我發現如果你是 一個從事劇場的人, 你可以辦戶外的街頭劇場節, 在有些地方,我們沒有資源 來舉辦引人注意的活動, 但是如果我們可以找方法來確保 當地的人 以及那些會支持當地的活動的人, 當這些人同心合力, 我認為真正很神奇的事情 將會發生。
JC: So interesting. And how can you make sure that the projects you're creating are actually for the disadvantaged and not just for the sort of vegetarian indie movie crowd that might move in to take advantage of them.
JC: 很有趣。 那你如何確定你的計劃 真正幫到弱勢人群 而不是為了其他素食獨立電影人 為了利用弱勢者才搬進來。
TG: Right on. So I think this is where it starts to get into the thick weeds.
TG: 問得好。 我想這就是我們 開始要傷腦筋的地方。
JC: Let's go there. TG: Right now, Grand Crossing is 99 percent black, or at least living, and we know that maybe who owns property in a place is different from who walks the streets every day. So it's reasonable to say that Grand Crossing is already in the process of being something different than it is today. But are there ways to think about housing trusts or land trusts or a mission-based development that starts to protect some of the space that happens, because when you have 7,500 empty lots in a city, you want something to happen there, but you need entities that are not just interested in the development piece, but entities that are interested in the stabilization piece, and I feel like often the developer piece is really motivated, but the other work of a kind of neighborhood consciousness, that part doesn't live anymore. So how do you start to grow up important watchdogs that ensure that the resources that are made available to new folk that are coming in are also distributed to folk who have lived in a place for a long time.
JC:我們談談那個吧! TG:現在,在格蘭區 有百分之99是黑人, 至少是住那裡, 我們知道那裏的業主 或許不是每天在街上走動的人們。 所以可以說「格蘭區」已經 開始演變成跟現在不同的地方。 但是也可以想想屋宇信託或 土地信託 或使命為本發展計劃 來保障這裡已經改造的地方, 因為當你的城市有7500個空地, 你想在那𥚃有些作為, 不僅需要找那些對 地產有興趣的對象, 還要找對安撫人心有興趣的人仕 我覺得通常地產項目很易實行, 反而其他鄰里的觀念的發展 卻不見了。 所以你如何訓練重要的監督 來確保新來的朋友 得到有效的人力物力。 同時也分配給這裡長住的居民。
JC: That makes so much sense. One more question: You make such a compelling case for beauty and the importance of beauty and the arts. There would be others who would argue that funds would be better spent on basic services for the disadvantaged. How do you combat that viewpoint, or come against it?
JC: 非常有道理。最後一條問題: 你講了那些有關美的例子, 令人注目,還強調美的重要。 可是其他人會質疑那些基金 何不好好花在弱勢社群 的基本服務。 你如何對付或反抗這種觀點?
TG: I believe that beauty is a basic service. (Applause) Often what I have found is that when there are resources that have not been made available to certain under-resourced cities or neighborhoods or communities, that sometimes culture is the thing that helps to ignite, and that I can't do everything, but I think that there's a way in which if you can start with culture and get people kind of reinvested in their place, other kinds of adjacent amenities start to grow, and then people can make a demand that's a poetic demand, and the political demands that are necessary to wake up our cities, they also become very poetic.
TG: 我相信美是基本的服務。 (鼓掌聲) 我常常發現有些資源 沒有用在一些缺乏資源的城市 或鄰里或社區時, 有時候,文化正是 幫助點燃的東西, 而且我也無法面面俱到, 但我想你找方法從文化開始 讓人們再度在 自己的地方投資, 其他種類的設施也會在隣近多起來, 然後人們可以做一個詩意的要求, 以及政治要求來喚醒我們的城市, 這些城市也會變成很詩意的。
JC: It makes perfect sense to me. Theaster, thank you so much for being here with us today. Thank you. Theaster Gates.
Jc: 我覺得很有意思。 Theaster,很多謝 你今日跟大家分享。 多謝,Theaster Gates。
(Applause)
(掌聲)