This Sunday, a flash mob art happening will produce the image you see here. That’s the plan, anyway. It’s a caper planned by the Professional Artist Coalition to show support for healthcare reform. Jump for more details.
FLASH MOB ACTION ART HAPPENING – ARTS DISTRICT
Sunday Oct 25, 11am-12:30
PAC- WE: MAKING THE INVISIBLE VISIBLE
Website: PAC-WE.Net and Facebook: PAC-WE
Follow PacWe on Twitter
PAC-WE
An ACTION by and for the North Texas Art Community calling for health care reform.
PAC — WHAT? The Professional Artist Coalition is a ‘flash mob action’ creating a bright public yellow signal for health care reform. A first for Dallas, and this cause.
PAC – WHO?
The North Texas art community. This includes thousands of citizens daily engaged in the visual, performing, literary, media, and commercial arts.
PAC- WHERE?
Morton Meyerson Symphony Hall- convene under the di Suvero Sculpture ‘Proverb/ Pendulum for preparation of happening.
PAC- HOW? Artists and supporters are creating a large yellow PAC-WE symbol to show our support for healthcare reform. They will arrive by 11:00 am. on the North Lawn of the Meyerson Symphony Hall underneath the large red ‘di Suvero’ sculpture.
We will provide yellow ponchos ($2 donation). They will be directed by our wranglers into a PAC-WE formation and given patch indicators for your preference for reform and what kind of artist you are. This will be documented by video and photo.
PAC- WHY?
Because artists of any kind stand with the American people to demand a change to the status quo of a broken health care system.
Because artists are unique as a profession, suffering as a result of the current health care status quo. Most are independent contractors, uninsured or underinsured.
Because artists are fed up with other PAC’s (Political Action Committees) funded by insurance and drug companies that are fighting to care for profits instead of health.
At the same time Dallas is celebrating its enormous achievement with the opening of the Dallas Arts District’s multi million dollar ‘Performing Arts Center’
to show off the incredible creativity artists bring into our lives, the truth is, most artists are independently supported and can not afford their own health insurance.
Because artists have been silent and invisible for too long when it comes to the health and care of our society.
PAC WE – The Origin of the Concept
PAC MAN is a sign of consumption. We often consume health care and culture without thinking about its wider context. We don’t ask why healthcare costs so much or why so many are left without it. We also don’t ask about the livelihoods and healthcare of the artists that are seen as culture providers. Since the cuts in arts funding on a national and local level (most notably during the culture wars of the 1990s) artists have been cultural workers who contribute to our communities with little or no support in return.
But PAC MAN is also a sign of the earliest glimmer of technology and its promise for the future. When it was invented in the 1980’s we would never have guessed that the internet would create a world that was so connected and empowered by the access to information. These qualities drive this event by connecting us and empowering us, based on our access to information that is so condemning of the status quo. These qualities bring us together on this day for this action.
By bringing a community off ‘facebook’, ‘myspace’ and email, to meet ‘face to face’ to be visible for issues that really matter to us, and to do so with a creative action, we can empower change.
