Cardboard & Concrete is our art program. We provide art activities, curate art exhibits featuring unhoused/housing insecure/formally unhoused artists, and produce block parties and other cultural events targeting unhoused residents.
Our Manifesto
Collective (our mutual definition)
A group of people with like minds going towards the same goal. Coming together to form a union. Motivated by at least one common issue or interest. Work together to achieve a common objective. A circle with no beginning, no end, no hierarchy. Unbreakable. Undivided. Their purpose is singular and purposeful. A collective engages in group decision making, collaboration and agreed upon processes. A unified body that helps each other, gives each other feedback, shares constructive criticism, holds each other accountable to decisions/misson/vision/principles. A gathering of people’s strength for a purpose. A family, becoming family. Joint focus. Common destination. Patience. We find out power in numbers and agreement. Pray together, create together eat together, struggle together, stay together.
spoken into power at DeFremery Park June 2020
What are Cardboard & Concrete Collective Artistic Strengths?
our confidence centers. “the role of the artists is to make revolution irresitable. words. graphics. theater. layout & design. book arts. poetry. movement. drawing. painting. photography. film. video. music. visionaries.Passion. Devotion. Creativity. originality. Immagination.communication. Perspective. thinking out the box. seeing the unseen.deconstruct to reconstruct. brining beauty & meaning to the mundane and the painful.feeling & thought. when we express from our hearts we are never wrong. tapped into source. transfering the inner world into an outer creation. intertwined.intentional. improvise. adaptable. alchemy. Sacred.
captured in conversation at DeFremery Park July 2020
Our Promise to Each Other
We are committing to encourage each other to grow artistically. To push each other beyond our artistic comfort zones. To share our works with each other for feedback and inspiration. To stay plugged in to each other with check-ins and check-ups despite the chaos of our lives on the streets. To encourage each other to step up or step back as nceessary to make all our voices are heard and represented. To bring each other back from our extremes. To encourage each other out of immobility when the chaos paralyzes us. To foster each other to collaborate and not isolate. To check each other when we become control freaks or authoritarian, or perfectionists. Support each other to broaden our art and creations. Amplify each others voices. Stay open to input. Use each other as soundboards. Remind each other of deadlines, tasks we signed up for, and responsibilities we stepped up to. To not allow or tolerate each other to become stereotypes of artists: neurotic, self absorbed, moody, and disorganized.
Promised to each other at Oscar Grant Plaza, August 2020