INVESTIGATING THE CREATION OF THE GHETTO AND THE PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
May 14 - August 27, 2006



ANALYSIS
Since the privatization of the penitentiary system in the United States in the early 1980s, the prison industrial complex has expanded to become nearly a $50 billion dollar-a-year industry of mass incarceration: a circuit of control that includes the ghetto as one of its purposeful and key nodes. Far from being a rupture in capitalism, this is late capitalism's other face aimed at the systematic extraction of value in the form of prison labor and the gray and slave economies that exist in and around the ghetto.

RESPONSE
Headquarters examines the productive relationship between the ghetto and the prison industrial complex. Blurring the lines between the practices of artists and activists, the participants in this project intervene in Baltimore’s social and political fabric with militant, discursive, and carnivalesque events. For Headquarters, the Contemporary Museum becomes an infoshop and center of operations: a platform for activities that investigate Baltimore’s program of uneven urbanism and a site to mobilize with local and global struggles.

THURSDAY WORKSHOP SERIES: EXAMINING SOCIAL JUSTICE
Thursdays through July, Headquarters offers skill shares, discussions, and film screening engaging issues of social justice in Baltimore.
FREE and open to the public

PARTICIPANTS
Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri
Baltimore Free Store
Baltimore Independent Media Center
campbaltimore
Critical Resistance
Food Not Bombs
Emily Forman
The Men’s Center
The People’s Housing Coalition
Progressive Action Center
Red Emma’s Collective
Glenn Ross
Taller de Costura de Código Abierto
UWA (United Workers Association)
and others

with diagrams by Rebecca Cohn and Ashley Hunt

VIDEO PROGRAM
Critical Resistance
Garrett Guidera
Ashley Hunt
Megaphone Project
David Sloan
UWA (United Workers Association)
Wide Angle Community Media
YNKB

HEADQUARTERS PARTICIPANTS (Partial List)

Ayeen Anastas (New York City, Bethlehem) and Rene Gabri (New York City, Venice)—Artists-in-residence—Anastas and Gabri often focus on the discourses surrounding issues of national security and are core members of the 16 Beaver collective. For Headquarters, they will examine ghettoification in Baltimore and internationally.

Baltimore Free Store (Baltimore)—The Free Store collects donated and salvaged items and districts them through to temporary marketplaces in neighborhoods throughout Baltimore City. The Free Store will collaborate with both campbaltimore and the Taller de Costura de Código Abierto.

campbaltimore (Baltimore)—Artist collective-in-residence—This collective investigates Baltimore’s uneven development. Their Headquarters project, Human Rights Mobile Unit, is a mobile unit that will travel throughout Baltimore and will function as an organizing hub.

Critical Resistance (Baltimore)—Critical Resistance is a national organization with and active Baltimore chapter dedicated to the abolition of the prison industrial complex. Critical Resistance will collaborate with cambaltimore and Emily Forman.

Emily Forman (Chicago)—Artist-in-residence—Forman is an artist and activist whose practice often involves the creation of events focusing on housing issues. For Headquarters, she will examine the relationship between surveillance and ghettoification.

Food Not Bombs (Baltimore)—Food Not Bombs is a national organization with an active Baltimore chapter that serves salvaged vegan food in public space. Food Not Bombs will collaborate with both campbaltimore and the Taller de Costura de Código Abierto.

Taller de Costura de Código Abierto (Barcelona)—Artist collective-in-residence—This Barcelona-based collective’s intervention for Headquarters will include the creation of a mobile kitchen and a mobile sewing studio.

Red Emma’s Collective (Baltimore)—This bookstore, infocenter, and coffee shop is a workers’ collective run on Anarchist principles. Red Emma’s Collective will collaborate with campbaltimore.

UWA (United Workers Association) (Baltimore)—The UWA is a worker-led organization mobilizing for freedom from poverty. During the summer of 2006, the UWA will be carrying the Summer of Justice campaign, partnering with campbaltimore.

Ashley Hunt (Los Angeles)—Hunt, an artist and prison abolition activist, will create a floor diagram at the Contemporary Museum mapping the structural relationship between the state, the ghetto, and penitentiary system.

Headquarters is organized by Cira Pascual Marquina with David Sloan.

Headquarters is supported by a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council and is funded in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art.

Additional funding comes from the Baltimore Community Foundation, the Embassy of Spain in Washington, Spain Foreign Cultural Cooperation, the Danish Arts Council, and IASPIS.