BLOCC

Through generic infrastructures, rationalized public spaces and homogenized public spheres, late capitalism produces a global monoculture which undermines the city as a social form. How, then, to confront a single planetary development alongside its many local manifestations? How, in other words, to forge international alliances when our legitimacy, and working knowledge stem from particular neighborhood materialities?

BLOCC (Building Leverage Over Creative Capitalism) is a system of learning that seeks to tackle the relationship between contemporary art and the current global phenomenon of gentrification. Its curriculum is comprised of six teaching modules, each tapping into a particular aspect of contemporary art’s relationship to urban space. BLOCC infiltrates art education and fights gentrification by providing tools for reshaping our cities from within the university environment.

BLOCC consists of Johanna Bruckner, Crystal Campbell, Luiza Crosman, Alexandros Kyriakatos, Alexis Mitchell, Bahar Noorizadeh, Heather M. O’Brien, Jonathan Takahashi.