‘Aesthetics of Urgency’: Public Assistants on the Artistic Practice of Mutual Aid Work

紧急美学：互助工作艺术实践的公共助理

DonChristian Jones on the genesis of the art collective Public Assistants and the inward process of community-based work

论艺术集体的起源公共助理与社区工作的内在过程

T BY Terence Trouillot in Interviews |10 MAR 21

T型   Terence Trouillot于3月10日至21日接受采访

During the summer of 2020, in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, artist and musician DonChristian Jones and collaborators started Public Assistants (PA), a mutual-aid hub to support and protect BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ communities. What started as a vacant lot for folks to build protest signs has blossomed into a community art space in the heart of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, offering after-school programmes, a community fridge, a bike-repair workshop and much more.

2020年夏天，乔治·弗洛伊德被谋杀后，艺术家和音乐家唐克里斯蒂安·琼斯及其合作者成立了公共助理（PA），这是一个互助中心，旨在支持和保护BIPOC和LGBTQIA+社区。最初是一块空地，供人们建造抗议标语，现在已经发展成为布鲁克林皇冠山庄中心的一个社区艺术空间，提供课后活动、社区冰箱、自行车维修车间等等。

Terence Trouillot: PA started as a Finsta [fake Instagram] account, is that right?

特伦斯·特鲁伊特：PA最初是一个Finsta（假Instagram）账户，对吗？

DonChristian Jones: [Laughter] Yeah. I was trying to make original memes, but no one was following me. Then I started to post works by friends. I’ve always wanted to share what my peers and students were doing. I was seeing all this amazing street art and community-based work, which wasn’t getting the recognition it deserved. I highlighted projects by Autumn Knight, Kiya LeBeija and Tamara Saintibañez, among others. When we got the space [in Crown Heights], it was evident to everyone involved that what we were doing had really become something. We needed a name and a social-media presence if we were going to ask for donations. I realized that I already had the handle and the title. It was serendipitous. Within five days, I had sketched up a ‘PA’ logo and Rin Kim designed it and created a typeface for us. My roommate, Julian Sharifi, built the website in a week. For the mission statement, I tapped my friends Naya Samuel and Tom Lee. Unfortunately, we were evicted this spring.

克里斯汀·琼斯：（笑）是的。我试着制作原始的模因，但没人跟着我。然后我开始贴朋友的作品。我一直想分享我的同龄人和学生在做什么。我看到了所有这些令人惊叹的街头艺术和社区工作，却没有得到应有的认可。我重点介绍了秋夜骑士、Kiya LeBeija和Tamara Saintibañez等人的项目。当我们得到了（皇冠高地）的空间后，每个参与的人都清楚地看到，我们所做的一切真的变得有意义了。我们需要一个名字和社交媒体的存在，如果我们要要求捐款。我意识到我已经有了把柄和头衔。这是偶然的。不到五天，我就画出了一个“PA”的标志，Rin Kim为我们设计了一个字体。我的室友朱利安·谢里菲在一周内建立了这个网站。对于任务声明，我点击了我的朋友纳亚·塞缪尔和汤姆·李。不幸的是，今年春天我们被驱逐了。

Public Assistants at Street Riders NYC Rally, 4 July 2020. Courtesy: Public Assistants, New York; photography: Jake Robbins

纽约街头骑手集会的公共助理，2020年7月4日。图片来源：纽约公共助理；摄影：杰克·罗宾斯

TT: How did you get the space?

TT：你是怎么得到这个空间的？

DJ: I have a friend who knows the guy that manages this property in Crown Heights, and they both had the idea of opening a community popup before the building is demolished to become condos. They asked me to paint a mural on the facade a year ago now. That was the first time I’d been given the opportunity to do what I wanted on a wall. I was super pumped, but then I had an existential crisis: I started to question muralism, thinking about my years working on public mural projects in New York. Muralism has fully become a co-opted tool for gentrification – unless it’s the most grassroots, community-led thing from start to finish – and I couldn’t do it. When COVID-19 hit in the US and the race war started, I felt burnt out and unsafe. That same friend offered me the driveway, of this property in question, as a space to work on banners and posters for the Black Lives Matter protests and the March for Black Trans Lives. Little by little, the thing grew. Then we got the keys to the Crown Heights space – an old Laundromat.

主持人：我有一个朋友认识一个在皇冠山庄管理这处房产的人，他们俩都有一个想法，就是在这幢楼被拆成公寓之前，开一个社区弹出窗口。一年前他们让我在正面画一幅壁画。那是我第一次有机会在墙上做我想做的事。我是超级兴奋，但后来我有一个生存危机：我开始质疑壁画，想到我多年来在纽约从事公共壁画项目。壁画已经完全成为绅士化的一个辅助工具——除非它从头到尾都是最草根、社区主导的东西——我做不到。当COVID-19在美国被击中，种族战争开始时，我感到筋疲力尽和不安全。同一个朋友给了我一个车行道，作为一个空间来为黑人生命事件抗议和黑人跨生命游行制作横幅和海报。一点一点，这东西长大了。然后我们拿到了皇冠山庄的钥匙——一家旧自助洗衣店。

Public Assistants Bike Initiative flyer, 2020. Courtesy: Public Assistants, New York

公共助理自行车倡议传单，2020年。礼遇：纽约公共助理

TT: It makes me think of The Laundromat Project in New York: the non-profit organization whose mission is to work with the community through the arts. Were they a source of inspiration for you to turn your space into a mutual-aid network?

TT：这让我想到了纽约的自助洗衣店项目：一个非盈利组织，其使命是通过艺术与社区合作。他们是你将你的空间变成互助网络的灵感来源吗？

DJ: Yes, but so much of what I learned and what inspired me to do this work actually came from the Kiki Ballroom scene and my experience – bureaucracy aside – of painting murals with incarcerated youths at the jail on Rikers Island. At first, I wasn’t necessarily sure this was going to be a mutual-aid network. I was helping my friend Crystal Clarity – an activist and artist – making protest signs and she kept talking about the ‘aesthetics of urgency’: this idea that it is less about what the work is going to look like and more about getting it done. We realized that this is what everyone talks about when they speak of mutual aid.

主持人：是的，但我学到的很多东西，以及激励我做这项工作的很多东西，实际上都来自Kiki舞厅的场景和我的经验——撇开官僚作风不谈——在Rikers岛的监狱里与被监禁的年轻人一起画壁画。一开始，我并不确定这会是一个互助网络。我在帮助我的朋友Crystal Clarity——一位活动家和艺术家——制作抗议标语，她一直在谈论“紧迫的美学”：这种观点认为，与其说是作品看起来像什么，不如说是完成作品。我们意识到，这是每个人谈论互助时所谈论的。

Evie Clark (left) and DonChristian Jones (right) painting banners in Public Assistants' driveway, Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Courtesy: Public Assistants, New York; photography: Jake Robbins

埃维·克拉克（左）和唐克里斯蒂安·琼斯（右）在布鲁克林皇冠山庄公共助理的车道上画横幅。图片来源：纽约公共助理；摄影：杰克·罗宾斯

TT: You’re a performer, a musician, a painter and muralist. Can you speak about how painting has informed your work with PA?

TT：你是个表演者，音乐家，画家和壁画家。你能谈谈绘画如何影响你和爸爸的工作吗？

DJ: For me, painting has always connected to gesture and performance. Once I realized the ways in which my painting was more of a performance than the finished product, I became disillusioned with the practice of making an art object. To conceive and create a mural with many hands or ideas was much more exciting to me.

主持人：对我来说，绘画总是和姿势和表演联系在一起。一旦我意识到我的画更像是一种表演而不是成品，我就对制作艺术品的做法大失所望。构思和创作一幅有许多手或想法的壁画对我来说更令人兴奋。

TT: Painting is an act open to failure and experimentation. But, when we’re thinking about community work and mutual aid, the stakes are much higher, and this sense of urgency to protect communities comes to the fore.

TT：绘画是一种容易失败和实验的行为。但是，当我们考虑社区工作和互助时，风险要大得多，这种保护社区的紧迫感就凸显出来了。

Bryan Villalobos (left) and Caroline Wineberg (right) sewing at Public Assistants' community arts space, Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Courtesy: Public Assistants, New York; photography: DonChristian Jones

布莱恩·维拉洛沃斯（左）和卡罗琳·温伯格（右）在布鲁克林皇冠山庄公共助理社区艺术空间缝纫。提供：纽约公共助理；摄影：DonChristian Jones

DJ: It’s the challenge of not being able to please everyone, right? It’s takes a great daily practice to be able to step back and not allow any societal projections or polarizing rhetoric to penetrate. For me, this project has been more of a spiritual work than anything else. It draws on an internal struggle within an intergenerational and intercultural group of peers, many of whom come from places of trauma, from a wide array of backgrounds and experiences. It can be detrimental to not allow for failure. What happens when things fall out of frame? PA is a modular forum for exploration. We lost our first space, but have already found another temporary home in the neighbourhood and will soon have a more permanent venue. We are constantly in flux.

主持人：这是一个无法取悦所有人的挑战，对吧？它需要一个伟大的日常实践，能够退一步，不允许任何社会预测或两极分化的言论渗透。对我来说，这个项目更像是一项精神工作。它借鉴了代际和跨文化同龄人群体的内部斗争，其中许多人来自创伤地区，有着广泛的背景和经历。不允许失败是有害的。当事情脱离框架时会发生什么？PA是一个模块化的探索论坛。我们失去了第一个空间，但已经在附近找到了另一个临时住所，不久将有一个更永久的场地。我们一直在变化。