((PKG)) INFLATABLE SHELTERS AND ENEMY FOOD
((Banner: A Creative, Helpful Life))
((Executive Producer: Marsha James))
((Camera: Kaveh Rezaei))
((Editors: Kaveh Rezaei, Philip Alexiou))
((Map: Chicago, Illinois))
((Main characters: 1 male))
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Michael Rakowitz, Artist, Teacher, Chef))
I was always interested in whether art should do something, if it
should do anything at all. And so, I went to art school to, more or
less, assure myself and my parents that there would be a living, a
kind of profession for me. And so, I did a residency in Jordan and
I spent all my time studying the tents and the equipment of the
Bedouin.
((Michael Rakowitz, Artist, Teacher, Chef))
The tents were set up differently every night in response to the
way the wind patterns were moving through the desert. And
when I got back to the United States that winter, back to Boston, I
saw a homeless person sleeping underneath the vent of a
building. And vent in French, you’d pronounce it ‘von’ and it
means ‘wind’. I immediately saw myself harnessing the warm air
that was leaving those buildings to create inflatable shelters for
homeless people. And so, paraSITE is basically this project that’s
gone on for 20 years now where I’ve been custom building those
inflatable shelters for homeless people around the world. And it
responds to not only the needs of each homeless person but the
desires.
((NATS))
((Michael Rakowitz, Artist, Teacher, Chef))
Each time I build the shelter, there’s a relationship that emerges
between me and the different homeless people that I design
for. But then it also becomes a real, sort of, record of how people
end up on the streets and why they end up on the streets and
now I tend to publish this step-by-step instructions on how to build
a shelter. So, it puts the skill sets into the community that would
use the shelter and also allows for the critical dialogue to not only
happen in the art or the architectural world but to actually happen
among the people that would actually be using it.
((NATS))
((Michael Rakowitz, Artist, Teacher, Chef))
I grew up on Great Neck, Long Island in my grandparents’ house
for the most part with my parents who were living there as
well. And my grandparents were Jews who left Iraq in 1946 and
came to the United States. And so, I grew up in a community that
had a lot of, kind of, diverse representation of Jewish culture. So,
there were a lot of Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern European
descent.
((Michael Rakowitz, Artist, Teacher, Chef))
But I grew up in this house where all of the Jewish food was
dishes like Aruk and Mhasha, dishes that came from Iraq but I
associated them with a certain kind of Jewish upbringing that for
me was what I would come to know as being very much a part of
Arab culture and not something that was steeped in, what one
would think, is New York Jewish traditions.
((NATS))
((Michael Rakowitz, Artist, Teacher, Chef))
I was 16 years old when Iraq invaded Kuwait. It was on the
evening of the first air strikes when my mother saw my brothers
and I watching the green tinted CNN images. And she said, “You
know, there is no Iraqi restaurants in New York.” What she was
telling me was that there was no Iraqi culture beyond oil and war
that was visible in the United States. I remember approaching my
mother and saying that we should do something and that
something was something as simple as teaching her Iraqi recipes
as a form of resistance to this culture of war. It started out as
workshops that we taught to different New York City public
audiences.
In Chicago, Enemy Kitchen has evolved to become a food truck.
((NATS))
((Michael Rakowitz, Artist, Teacher, Chef))
This idea that we have, not weapons of mass destruction but
weapons of mass deliciousness, traveling through the city in this
truck, but then the staffing of the truck. There were Iraqi refugees
who were the chief chefs and American combat veterans who had
come back from the war that were the sous chefs and the
servers.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Michael Rakowitz, Artist, Teacher, Chef))
So, these fists that were holding weapons on the other side of the
world, are now here and they’re making kebab. And so, you’re
taking in that kind of sculptural void as a sort of communion.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Michael Rakowitz, Artist, Teacher, Chef))
You know, I think every day the way that my work hasn’t
necessarily been washed away by cynicism yet. I don’t want to
leave that burden only to a younger generation. For as long as
I’m here, I want to believe that there is something that can be
done.
((MUSIC))
((Banner: A Creative, Helpful Life))
((Executive Producer: Marsha James))
((Camera: Kaveh Rezaei))
((Editors: Kaveh Rezaei, Philip Alexiou))
((Map: Chicago, Illinois))
((Main characters: 1 male))
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Michael Rakowitz, Artist, Teacher, Chef))
I was always interested in whether art should do something, if it
should do anything at all. And so, I went to art school to, more or
less, assure myself and my parents that there would be a living, a
kind of profession for me. And so, I did a residency in Jordan and
I spent all my time studying the tents and the equipment of the
Bedouin.
((Michael Rakowitz, Artist, Teacher, Chef))
The tents were set up differently every night in response to the
way the wind patterns were moving through the desert. And
when I got back to the United States that winter, back to Boston, I
saw a homeless person sleeping underneath the vent of a
building. And vent in French, you’d pronounce it ‘von’ and it
means ‘wind’. I immediately saw myself harnessing the warm air
that was leaving those buildings to create inflatable shelters for
homeless people. And so, paraSITE is basically this project that’s
gone on for 20 years now where I’ve been custom building those
inflatable shelters for homeless people around the world. And it
responds to not only the needs of each homeless person but the
desires.
((NATS))
((Michael Rakowitz, Artist, Teacher, Chef))
Each time I build the shelter, there’s a relationship that emerges
between me and the different homeless people that I design
for. But then it also becomes a real, sort of, record of how people
end up on the streets and why they end up on the streets and
now I tend to publish this step-by-step instructions on how to build
a shelter. So, it puts the skill sets into the community that would
use the shelter and also allows for the critical dialogue to not only
happen in the art or the architectural world but to actually happen
among the people that would actually be using it.
((NATS))
((Michael Rakowitz, Artist, Teacher, Chef))
I grew up on Great Neck, Long Island in my grandparents’ house
for the most part with my parents who were living there as
well. And my grandparents were Jews who left Iraq in 1946 and
came to the United States. And so, I grew up in a community that
had a lot of, kind of, diverse representation of Jewish culture. So,
there were a lot of Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern European
descent.
((Michael Rakowitz, Artist, Teacher, Chef))
But I grew up in this house where all of the Jewish food was
dishes like Aruk and Mhasha, dishes that came from Iraq but I
associated them with a certain kind of Jewish upbringing that for
me was what I would come to know as being very much a part of
Arab culture and not something that was steeped in, what one
would think, is New York Jewish traditions.
((NATS))
((Michael Rakowitz, Artist, Teacher, Chef))
I was 16 years old when Iraq invaded Kuwait. It was on the
evening of the first air strikes when my mother saw my brothers
and I watching the green tinted CNN images. And she said, “You
know, there is no Iraqi restaurants in New York.” What she was
telling me was that there was no Iraqi culture beyond oil and war
that was visible in the United States. I remember approaching my
mother and saying that we should do something and that
something was something as simple as teaching her Iraqi recipes
as a form of resistance to this culture of war. It started out as
workshops that we taught to different New York City public
audiences.
In Chicago, Enemy Kitchen has evolved to become a food truck.
((NATS))
((Michael Rakowitz, Artist, Teacher, Chef))
This idea that we have, not weapons of mass destruction but
weapons of mass deliciousness, traveling through the city in this
truck, but then the staffing of the truck. There were Iraqi refugees
who were the chief chefs and American combat veterans who had
come back from the war that were the sous chefs and the
servers.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Michael Rakowitz, Artist, Teacher, Chef))
So, these fists that were holding weapons on the other side of the
world, are now here and they’re making kebab. And so, you’re
taking in that kind of sculptural void as a sort of communion.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Michael Rakowitz, Artist, Teacher, Chef))
You know, I think every day the way that my work hasn’t
necessarily been washed away by cynicism yet. I don’t want to
leave that burden only to a younger generation. For as long as
I’m here, I want to believe that there is something that can be
done.
((MUSIC))
