Suzi Garner

The People are The Place was a multi media community art project presented at Berkeley Civic Center Park in February, 2022. Six of the eight participating artists are current or former residents of the Ashby/Shellmound encampment located at the I-80 interchange. This encampment area, occupied by unhoused individuals on and off for at least the last 20 years, is currently undergoing a process of evictions by Cal Trans and will be completely cleared by March 2022. Artist Suzi Garner worked with these individuals to create artworks that reflect their natural, man made and social environments. Located on the geographic and social margins of Berkeley, these transient "communityscapes" are often invisible to non-residents and yet are vital communities within the city of Berkeley. The installation at Civic Center included immersive video projections and sound installations and was free and open to the public.

This project seeks to explore the following questions:

• By what means do we remember or understand who we are (as artists, individuals, and a community) if we become displaced?

• What role does the environment of the encampment and surrounding neighborhood play in creating a sense of place and community for encampment residents?

• How can the intra-community relationships between individuals, creative practices, and the environment be mapped?

• How can this information be effectively conveyed and shared with the larger community?

The project began with a group of artists wanting to find a way to share their artwork with the larger community. This artwork had nearly all been created while living in the Ashby/Shellmound encampment community, often with artists inspiring each other. As project collaborator D'artagnan Lloyd put it, “It's kind of a group consciousness. You can see the influence of your own art reflected back to you”.