The Row House Community Development Corporation (Third Ward, Houston) was set up in 2003 to relocate families from substandard living conditions in one of Houston’s most challenged neighbourhoods, into new affordable rental units. Meanwhile, it is working its way toward providing owner-occupied homes in the area. Row House CDC is a remarkable offspring of what a decade prior had started as the artistic initiative Project Row House (PRH), which resulted from the drive among African-American artists to establish a positive, creative presence in their own community. In 1993, when in one of the city’s oldest African-American communities an abandoned site with 22 shotgun-style houses got discovered by the artist and community activist Rick Lowe as the site to start action, this became the perfect opportunity to pursue the creation of a new form of art. In 2003, the need to broaden PRH focus to preserve the community (not least from opportunistic developers and real-estate speculators) sparked the initiation of a less artistic affiliate to PRH: the Community Development Corporation. Meanwhile, the Row House Community Development Corporation has activated two sites with 24 affordable housing units, mainly in a contemporary “duplex” adaptation of thetypical shotgun/bungalow architecture of Third Ward. At this moment, through a Rehabilitation/Rent-to-Own Project assisted by in-kind and financial contributions from various donators, the Row House CDC is acquiring, renovating, and (affordably) renting up to 38 further units. The Row House CDC does not only address the urgency of appropriate housing for low-to-moderate income residents, but it also aims at providing public spaces and protect the character of the historic neighbourhood.
The current process of transformation of every aspect of our life towards a higher level of individual and social responsibility, developed by the projects included in this constantly updated map and by many others not yet included, is thus made visible and above all accessible and therefore open to opportunities for connections and collaborations.
Since 2003, when at Cittadellarte we started to systematically catalogue responsible practices in their different declinations around the world, the global movement of social awareness has reached a wider and wider scope of individuals, communities and institutions.
The project Geographies of Change maps this movement into the form of a participative online archive which intends to be a utility contributing to achieving two strategic global objectives: making public, visible and usable the common good represented by the concrete experiences already active in the world, and facilitating connections, both within this geography and among its hubs and any other civil society organization with which to build bridges and collaboration paths.
Created by Cittadellarte and the University of Ideas as a platform for research and action, it aims at being an open project in progress, generated by the users themselves: everybody is invited to position themselves within this geography and to explore it experimenting its potential in the context of their own research and practice.
The ultimate goal of the Geographies of Change is making more obvious, shared, incisive and deep the impact of the practices aiming at changing our societies towards more responsible cohabitation models with ourselves and the planet. Each of us is invited to consider assuming a role which goes beyond being a member of a hypothetical democratic society and activating themselves as agents of change. At Cittadellarte, we have developed an articulated narrative and an hands-on implementation model for this process: we started off by reflecting within the open laboratory of the University of Ideas on the undelivered dream of democracy (rule of the people, from ancient Greek Demos and Cratos) and on the instituting power embedded in daily practices enacted by all kinds of organizations. Each of them constitutes an actual microstate, with its legislative and governing bodies: they perform practices by means of which they actually express power. Thus we coined the term Demopraxy, by which we mean this more effective and actual declination of an old and never accomplished dream, that of Democracy.
Please refer to our websites for further information and contact:
www.cittadellarte.it/en/attivita/demopraxy
www.cittadellarte.it/unidee/
Cittadellarte is a new model of artistic and cultural institution which places art in direct interaction with the different sectors of society, in order to inspire and produce a responsible transformation through creative ideas and projects.
Michelangelo Pistoletto's symbol Rebirth is an elaboration of the mathematical sign for infinity. The two opposite circles represent nature and artifice, the central circle is the conjunction of the two and represents the womb of rebirth.
Take part too: www.terzoparadiso.org
