Here are some images of Terrible Karma, the project I did in collaboration with geographer and curator Merle Patchett, on March 25, 2011, as part of the citywide commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire, the deadliest industrial disaster in New York history. All photos were taken by Merle Patchett. For more images of the event, visit her site.
Friday, March 25, 2011 is the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, which claimed the lives of 146 garment workers trapped at their machines. Most of the people who died, either consumed by flames, or jumping out of the windows on the ninth floor, were young women, recent immigrants. This is the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of New York City.
Terrible Karma is project Merle Patchett and I put together. The title - Terrible Karma – refers to both the title of a protest song sung by Cambodian female garment workers at a union rally in Phnom Penh (July 2010) and to the idea that events of the garment industry past continue to haunt the present, that they are always coming back.
Merle and I will be out this Friday morning and afternoon (10-2) in downtown Manhattan, at Cooper Square, and near the location of the fire, at Washington Place and Greene Street. Follow the path on the map, and look out for our UHAUL truck, containing the audio-visual installation above. If you’re in town, drop by and spend some time in the back of the truck, feeling the reverberations of the fire, 100 years later.
It is July 2006, and Israel is at war again with Lebanon. Terrible waves of shelling sweep over densely populated south Beirut and the Israeli army enters southern Lebanon. Small mines, shaped and colored like toys rain from Israeli planes into farmer’s fields, making a deadly harvest. Each day, missiles assail the northern Israeli towns closest to the border. There is little protection for Arab Israelis. Their communities are hit hard. An overwhelming silence about Lebanese casualties engulfs the country—a wall of support-our-troops-bomb-them-into-the-next-century rises up into the air. On Israeli television a few heartfelt cries to please stop the bombing come from Arab Israelis standing in the ruins of their neighborhood, places forgotten long before the war.
I am in Tel Aviv, “Israel’s urban bubble,” where there are no demonstrations. (This is not to say that there are never any protest for peace in Israel. Here’s one from the other day. They’re just hard to find during wartime). At Hagada Smalit, the Left Bank, a cultural center, art gallery and the headquarters of Hadash, Israel’s communist party, a few painted placards lean against the wall in the corner behind the stairwell. Another kind of commentary is emerging on the city’s surfaces—quietly covering the walls and boulevards of particular neighborhoods, and entering into the everyday experiences of walking, riding and driving in the city. Commentary like this:
Am Israel hai: The people of Israel live
Am Israel hai?: The people of Israel live?
I lived on 139th street for a time. Harlem is intense. Lives move at incredible speeds, while appearing to go nowhere at all. I later learned that Big L lived his entire life on my block. He died there, six weeks before his 25th birthday.
In his song “Ebonics,” is the entirety of a kind of Harlem life.
At first it appears that the song is a short dictionary—a brief English-to-“criminal slang” guide–aimed at beginners.
Yo pay attention/And listen real closely how I break this slang shit down
He proceeds through a list:
Weed smoke=lye
Ki(lo) of coke = pie
Lifted=High
Cars=whips
Sneakers=kicks
But as the list goes on it seems that what I am hearing is the story of a day in one life, the parameters of an entire world. A list of words, definitions, everyday objects, places, situations, his body and yours:
Burglary=jook
Wolf=crook
Sweat box = small club
AIDS=germ
Angel dust=sherm
Relax=max
Heart=Tick
This is not a simple list. The cadence of his voice—fast, insistent, yet never out of breath, deliberate, could-go-on-forever, the sound of New York—its energy and intelligence, makes my tick stop at times. This happens especially when his voice rises and speeds until it creates an entire picture, suggests another sound, places me where he is. Example:
The iron horse is the train/And champagne is bubbly
The words on the page, as empty and soundless as they are, still remind me of standing high above the street at the top of an elevated train platform made of crossed metal bars, wood and cement, in the winter. My body is shaking with the wind chill, tipsiness left over from a night out, the force of the train approaching at top speed, and the skyline is glowing. All of this is in those lines, his voice, and the beat.
Listen real closely while Big L breaks it down
Young bodies navigate the city streets more gracefully than luxury vehicles.
My dad sent me this wonderful picture of Lagos, his hometown, in the year of his birth. Friday, October 1, 2010 marked the 50th anniversary of Nigeria’s independence from British rule. Remember?
In general, I try to distinguish between what one calls the future and “l’avenir.” The future is that which–tomorrow, later, next century–will be. There is a future which is predictable, programmed, scheduled, foreseeable. But there is a future, l’avenir (to come) which refers to someone who comes whose arrival is totally unexpected.
For me that is the real future: that which is totally unpredictable. The Other who comes without my being able to anticipate their arrival. So if there is a real future beyond this other known future, it is “l’avenir” in that it’s the coming of the Other, when I am completely unable to foresee their arrival.
–Jacques Derrida, “derrida” (2002)
New York, you’re perfect, oh please don’t change a thing!
you let the people see just who you want to be,
and every night you shine just like a superstar
