Pepón Osorio: reForm

Temple Contemporary, Tyler School of Art - Philadelphia

By Carla Acevedo-Yates

In every major city in the United States, public schools are closing in disenfranchised neighborhoods at a precipitous rate. The city of Philadelphia is no exception, where 24 public schools were shuttered in 2013 alone. Seemingly a part of a master plan of disinvestment in African-American and Latino communities at a national level, public education in the U.S. is in an urgent state of crisis. In a country in which education has been transformed from a tool for social mobility into a corporation that exacerbates and reproduces inequality, can artists fully remove themselves from the concerns particular to the field of contemporary art to become responsible agents who shape and transform the social field? reForm, a two-year installation and public engagement project by Pepón Osorio, takes as its starting point the loss experienced by a Puerto Rican immigrant community with the closing of Fairhill Middle School in North Philadelphia, a public school established in 1887 and welded shut by the Philadelphia School Reform Commission in 2013. Neither social practice nor community art, reForm is a complex project that asks a fundamental question of all visitors and participants: What have we really learned from our educational experiences compared to our lived experiences?

reForm is an immersive environment in a classroom at the Art Education and Community Arts Practices program located in the basement of the Tyler School of Art. It is a functional installation; a temporary classroom for Tyler students and a gathering space for students who were displaced to charter schools when Fairhill closed. Osorio noticed the shuttered school while on bicycle on his way to Tyler-Fairhill is only about a mile away from the university-and felt the need to address the problems the community was facing. He knocked on doors, listened to community members and enlisted the help of 12 former Fairhill students (affectionately named the Bobcats after their school mascot) to participate and collaborate in the project.

Here, materials are a form of memory recuperation, as items sourced from the school-furniture, tables and other objects-comprise about 90 percent of the installation. At the entrance, Osorio placed a water fountain from Fairhill with a sign that reads “do not drink water.” Beside it there is an inhaler inside a plastic bag pinned to the wall. These objects not only tell the story of Fairhill (students were discouraged to drink the water), but also of the violence committed against communities of color and their ongoing struggle for civil rights. It references issues of racism and environmental justice: the historical segregation of water fountains, Eric Garner gasping “I can’t breathe” while being wrestled to the ground in a chokehold by police officers, and the slew of respiratory problems Fairhill students have endured due to constant exposure to asbestos and other harmful contaminants. Once past the barred door-a direct reference to the “school-to-prison pipeline”-the installation unfolds as a familiar space reminiscent of an elementary school classroom, where the Bobcats’ voices are heard loud and clear. A video projection featuring Jacob, for instance, is a poignant testimony. Initially facing the camera, he turns his back to write on a blackboard and writes, “Do I have to die for things to change?,” a reminder that unarmed men and children of color are dying at the hands of the police in cities all over the U.S. Lining the walls of the room and functioning as an emotional backdrop to the installation, the idea of witnessing is further developed through firsthand experiences handwritten by students on large-scale ruled notebook paper. Consisting of a video installation, a poem written by Chelsey, a Bobcat and aspiring writer, which is recited by fellow students on video screens propped up on giant pencil-like stands to create a multi-voice discourse. Made to emulate personalized altars, their voices are heard reciting the words, “When we speak, you listen,” a forceful interpellation addressed to the Philadelphia School Reform Commission. In Chelsey’s words, death or jail seem to be the only two options offered to students by government officials.

Pepón Osorio, reform, 2014-2016, installation view at Temple Contemporary. Courtesy of Temple Contemporary.

Contrary to other artists working in the field of contemporary art, Osorio’s artistic practice is not informed by the rhetoric of socially engaged art, relational aesthetics or any other trend related to the history of art and its categories. Rather, it is influenced by the Civil Rights Movement and the practice of shifting materials and resources from one space to another. Osorio, who grew up in Puerto Rico but moved to the South Bronx in 1975, came in contact with activists Evelina Antonetty and Clemente Soto Vélez, and projects such as the Young Lords Party’s “garbage offensive,” whereby attention was brought to the systematic withdrawal of public resources in East Harlem. In reForm, Osorio enacts a similar gesture. By bringing materials left at Fairhill to Tyler, Osorio calls attention to a nearby distressed community, thereby creating a space of convergence for communities that would otherwise not necessarily meet or communicate with one other. Envisioning artistic practice as an engine for community empowerment, Osorio’s educational reForm suggests that education is not just a public issue, but a social and environmental justice that requires further reformation on its own terms.

(August 28, 2015 - May 20, 2016)

Carla Acevedo-Yates is a curator and writer living and working in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She is a recipient of a Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant (2015).

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