During the Covid spike of 2020 we saw the many ways in which the city depended on essential workers that formed part of the informal economy but those same workers were also harassed and targeted in attempts to restrict and control the jobs that sustained many precarious and immigrant families. These attempts were often in line with idealized visions of who should have the privilege of benefiting from existing on public land and in the public eye (e.g. outdoor dining program). Measures to ‘formalize’ these networks of self-reliance, continue threatening self-reliance groups with tactics such as excessive fines, restrictive policies, raids, and market closures, that not only carry an impact on those individuals but also on the communities who use and rely on them.
For this ongoing project I’ve been working very closely with street vending organizations in the production, designing, and discussion of a series of community planning workshops about stewardship and collective agency of vital community assets such as ‘informal’ markets. Oral histories, neighborhood mapping, and design strategies will hope to craft and communicate a collective vision for their neighborhood that narrates how diasporas inspired new forms of engagement through activism and civic participation. The recent crackdown of vendors on Corona Plaza and Roosevelt avenue laid witness to a lot of the injustices immigrants are facing to secure jobs. The lack of economic support, planning and cap on vending permits from the city has created a scene of conflicts that merits a reparative listen and respond discussion. An exhibition of the work collected, will hope to demonstrate new forms of cultural production through the movement of ideas and identities across cultural and national boundaries, and between the politics of space, aesthetics, belonging, language.
For the written article about this project visit: