Project Description

After a visit by Wanda Hernandez and Elizabeth Owens of VOCAL-NY to the PIMA 7020G: Artistic Process and Contemporary Community course, the members of the RELEASE THE GROUP group - Adrian D. Cameron, Alberto Bursztyn, and Max Frazier - were eager to collaborate in some way with the organization.

A meeting was arranged and various key agendas of the organization were discussed, but the issue around Safe Consumption Spaces (SCS - aka Safer Injection Sites) stood out. The group had been lobbying the mayor's office to make public a report on the spaces which had been commissioned by the City Council in 2016 and, having been completed, remained unreleased. It is VOCAL-NY's view, based on similar studies and the success of international sites, that SCS strongly reduce overdose deaths and that the communities impacted in New York would greatly benefit from their instantiation. It is widely regarded, however, as a risky political position to take and so they have made it their priority to pressure the mayor to take a positive stand on this life-saving issue.

A week prior to the meeting, a protest on the steps of city had been held in which they blocked the entrance to the building, forcing the mayor to use a side entrance. Another rally was planned for that week. Our group was there, documenting the speeches and protests. Between that event and another protest two weeks later, the group produced a short video supporting the agenda, which was widely shared.

A final civil disobedience action, in which traffic near City Hall was blocked and several volunteers were arrested, saw the members of the group present, along with most of the members of the 7020 class. One day after this event, Mayor Bill de Blasio, on the recommendations of the report, announced his support of the plan. The group members and VOCAL-NY were tremendously pleased with this result. A final presentation was made to the 7020 class at the end of the project.