Temescal Amity Work

Temescal Amity Works navigated through various layers of contact with its multiple audiences. These started at the core of the project, in the highly personal, face to face encounters that occurred as we picked fruit at peoples homes and wheeled it through the neighborhood streets. When the primary contact shifted to the more discursive, public site of an open storefront, dialogue was spread across multiple visitors and longer stretches of time.

Out of these various conversations, we culled material, concepts and imagery that were transformed into publications and public programs, resulting in postcards, maps, public walks and programs.

One of our central concerns was to construct an aesthetic sense of communication that carried through these varied forms in a resonant and poetic manner. To track these various levels of conversation, we created a 'blog style website that was updated frequently, and serves as the most consistent archive for the project. The Amity Works webite is no longer updated, but it can be seen in its entirety by following this link: (http://www.amity.fieldfaring.org).

Susanne Cockrell and Ted Purves create social art projects that investigate the overlay of urban and rural systems upon the lives of specific communities. They ask questions about the nature of people and place as seen through social economy, history and local ecology. The collaboration began with a two and a half year public project (2004-2007), Temescal Amity Works, which facilitated and doc umented the exchange of backyard produce, conversation, and collective biography within the Temescal Neighborhood of Oakland, CA.