Photos from first weekend

Here is a link to the pictures from our first weekend in Mapping Subcultures. It is posted in a seperate album in Webshots. Debbie Boles
Click here for the photos!

Food for Thought (pun intended!)

Food tends to be one thing that we consume daily that is taken for granted. In many cultures, the production and consumption of food is a social event involving family, friends, and at times, the community. In our culture however, we often turn food into a solitary event. We drive through a fast food window and eat in our cars and families often eat in shifts while they respond to the demands of our increasingly busy lives. The television and the development of convenience meals (tv dinners, packaged dinners such as Hamburger Helper), for example, have been identified as factors that contributed to the decline of the family meals. Such technological developments (remember our discussion from last week about the repercussions associated with “advances”) altered the way that the production and consumption of food was organized (we could of course, if given the time, identify dozens of technological innovations and changes in society that also affected the social organization of food). Even as daily food rituals were altered and individualized, celebrations (weddings, birthdays) and holidays (e.g., 4th of July barbecues, Christmas dinner) continued to provide the opportunities for the collective production and consumption of food.

Still, even in the midst of broader social trends, food often serves as a catalyst in building and sustaining community. Think about the OCU campus community. When I arrived at OCU I was amazed at the various events that included food. From pizzas in the classroom to a celebratory holiday dinner sponsored by the university, the goal is to promote a sense of belonging and collegiality. In the Report Writing class I taught last fall, food was important in the building of a learning community. Each week, students (including Pam who brought lasagna from her family’s recipe and Carmen who (in class) made salsa), would bring food and we, as a class, would talk about writing while consuming delicious “eats” that reflected our interests and social locations. Students in courses that meet at lunchtime or late afternoons consistently note how food would help sustain them.

Food, as an aspect of material culture, has also played an important role in our course. Think about the foods we have consumed over the last two weeks. Each class session has featured some kind of food, from our two Pam’s providing snacks last Friday to our meals at Red Cup, Grand House and Tom’s Barbeque to the valentine candy that Pam brought last night. Food has served as an icebreaker, a community builder, and as a learning strategy to understand the Chinese and African American cultures. And of course to provide sustenance during our long class sessions.

In regards to food in general, several questions emerge:

1. What meanings and feelings do particular foods produce in ourselves or others?
2. What are the cultural and social meanings that are attached to food?
3. Why is the relationship between the between the production and consumption of food important to understand?
4. And, what are the connections between food, identity and social relations?

The article by Marvalene H. Hughes offers keen insight into each of these questions. I would like each of you to write a couple of paragraphs that center on at least two of the above questions and the importance of food in African American culture (in particular to African American women). Also, please consider (or draw connections) to the food experiences we have shared at the Grand House and Tom’s Barbeque and how they might shed light on our understandings regarding the social aspects of food.

A Suggestion Regarding Your Project Description

Last week we mentioned something important Sunni Mercer said:

Good art asks a question.

In other words, you want your artwork to raise a question in the minds of your viewers. As you formulate an overall concept for your project, try to keep this goal in mind.

This is especially important for the work we're doing because, for us, the purpose of the art project isn't just the end-product but the whole process of using art to help us think about subcultures in a different way. Your journal should contain many pages of pondering and brainstorming related not only to the artwork but to the places we're exploring--what they look and feel like, and why; what you know about them, what you'd still like to learn, what you many never know . . . and why; how a place gets "redeemed" or neglected or forgotten, . . . . all this writing and thinking should raise questions in your mind about the places we're studying. And at least one of those questions should somehow get embedded in your artwork so that you are giving your viewers something to think about as well as something to look at.

As you read through Julie's Project description a couple of posts down, notice the kinds of questions or thoughts her artwork might raise in the minds of her viewers. On one level it's a representation of Deep Deuce, but on another level it's a visual composition that gives us lots of food for thought.

Image source: loneblackrider

Project

I have no idea right now as to what my project will be. I do know that it will focus o
on either deep deuce or the chinese underground and the race seperation of white and chinese/black communities within okc and that there is a physical separation; being either a street or railroad tracks.

Idea: Video is creating dimension

On our first night, we viewed a video that was representing various aspects of art interpretation. This is an interesting way to get to know others when you are working together to create art. Our differences and similarities help to create a dimension that is not naturally apparent. With the use of video, the concept is to take a one dimensional object and create depth and perception. The hope is to turn a one dimensional object into a three dimensional perspective.

Julie's Project

Hi Everyone,

Here is my brainstorming on my project as it currently exists:

Description of Project:

“A light shade had been pulled down between the Black community and all things white”

The above quote is from Maya Angelou’s beautiful novel I know Why the Caged Bird Sings and it will provide a frame for my project on Deep Deuce. For my project, I aim to explore the dichotomy between Deep Deuce and the broader (read: white) Oklahoma City community during the early decades of the 20th century. However, I also want to address the dichotomy within “Deep Second” (I use the term “Deep Second” because that was the name residents used. In contrast, Deep Deuce, appears to be a term that emerged due to development and marketing strategies in the 1990s) .

While various social forces (e.g., discriminatory laws, racism, fear) worked to produce the geographic mapping of the black community, it is appears that other factors contributed to the bifurcation within Deep Second. My thoughts currently is that time was a primary factor: By day, it was a thriving business community and by night, a roaring jazz and entertainment district. I still need to explore further though the complexities of this (in many ways it resembles the day/night dichotomy of urban environments). The more conceptual mapping of time fascinates me. (Note: Let’s talk about the social forces and the creation/decline/revitalization of DS/DD this weekend. The processes are quite interesting from a social science perspective). It also strikes me that while we can expose the power relations between whites/blacks and the creation of DS, that it may be more difficult to figure out whether it is a strict dichotomy between the business and jazz subcultures or if something else is going on.

My project thus allows me to explore the inside/outside issue on multiple levels: 1) the “banishing” of Blacks to Deep Deuce thus constructing them as outsiders, 2) the way that boundaries (even those that are forced and socially constructed) are fluid (e.g., young white women visiting jazz clubs in Deep Second while Blacks were unwelcomed at night (or day) in OKC and 3) the way that time shapes what is inside/outside.

Here’s how I envision my project looking:
1) My vessel is a box. On the outside of the box are pictures of Oklahoma City between 1900 and the 1960s. On the inside of the box, half of the box will be photos of Deep Deuce by day (businesses: physicians, restaurants, theaters, etc.) and the other half will be Deep Deuce by night (jazz/entertainment). On the rim of the box, I’ll use Angelou’s quote (unless I find something by Ralph Ellison that I like better). Inside the box, my object will be something that signifies either 1) the “caging” of deep deuce, or 2) the business/jazz dichotomy (e..g, guitar/piano and cash register.

I am very interested in your comments and to hear more about your projects as they emerge.

Image Source: Nate (http://flickr.com/people/okaycity/)

What Would Pei Say?

Sunni Mercer advises us that "good art asks a question" so perhaps WWPS? (above) will be one of mine.

Despite my musings about a potential Deep Deuce project on my other blog, I feel more drawn to the "underground Chinatown" story.

That said, I have no clear vision of what I will make of it. I want this project to give me some insight into that community, but what it's really doing is making me feel irritated at the OKC community for allowing such a rich and fascinating part of our history to become, literally, buried. Invisible.

I'm angry that we can't locate an archeologically preserved underground residence of any kind. It strikes me as incredibly foolish and negligent of our civic leaders to have made (as far as I can discover) no real effort to preserve any part of that place even after Mayor Shirk revealed it in a cover story of our state's leading newspaper. How is such a thing possible?

As a researcher (and as a citizen), I want to know.

But as an artist, my role is also to raise questions. And so I ask, what would I.M. Pei say about all this?. The famous architect was hired by OKC to compose an urban development plan for the downtown business district, and he did, and although the "Pei Plan" was never completed it did include the Myriad Gardens area along with the rest of the area above the former underground residences of Chinese immigrants.

I wonder if he heard about any of that. His business district plans for OKC were submitted before Shirk's 1969 newspaper report. But still . . . if he had known, what might he have proposed to help preserve and acknowledge it?

Surely the man who gave us the Louvre's pyramid could have designed some sort of window to our own subterranean heritage. If only he had.


Image source: Pei Cobb Freed and Partners, Architects, LLP