A Chicago-based artist is in Northeast Ohio to present his plans for a large-scale project, based on the shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, last fall. ideastream's David C. Barnett reports the effort is meant to prompt a community conversation about the loss of safety.
Michael Rakowitz is proposing an artistic act based on the story that Tamir Rice was carrying an Airsoft B-B-gun --- with it's orange safety cap removed --- when he was fatally shot by a policeman. Working with local community groups, Rakowitz plans to: remove the color orange... from the city. Safety cones and basketballs might be painted blue, orange household items will be collected and put on display in local galleries.
MICHAEL RAKOWITZ: There's a kind of impossibility about this project. But, at the heart of the project, there is a question that's more important than the gesture --- how does it feel to live in a society where the right to safety is removed.
Rakowitz has built a national reputation for fashioning art projects with social justice themes. In Boston, he created inflatable plastic shelters for the homeless by siphoning heat off of building exhaust vents. In New York, he convinced a restaurant to serve Iraqi cuisine on dinnerware from Saddam Husein's palace that the artist bought on e-Bay. Work on Rakowitz's Cleveland project, "A Color Removed", is underway and will be unfolding over the next year.
