Select -5449 Sadly, this is what our democracy currently looks like....

See complete portfolio slide show: www.flickr.com/photos/artedelares/sets/72157627807831043/...

My almost daily visits to Zuccotti Park have gave me a view of America that belies the polarization and dysfunction that has come to define our day and age. The Occupy Wall Street day to day experience is one that has moved me profoundly. The simplicity and brilliance of how these protesters have organized themselves is a sight to behold. A gentle civility and thoughtfulness permeate "mic check" announcements and meetings such that everyone is drawn into a communal space of possibilities that walks the talk of genuine democracy.

The portraiture found in these images are not only of the faces and relationships of the disenfranchised 99%, the artwork, signs, objects and street theater are portraits of America's open-ended call for economic equity and social justice.

The physical act of "occupying" a symbolic space, such as Zuccotti Park has become an assertion of our unassailable right to demand genuine and sustainable social change. The energy of this movement seems to be expressing itself in mainstream and countercultural, terms as well as in the language of economics, political and spiritual discourse.

This movement promotes practical structural change beyond ideology based on the democratic will of the American people. The act of "occupying" public spaces is creative not only as actual practice; it's street theater becomes a conceptual framework for artistic expressions that challenge the ugliness, greed and power of globalized corporatist control.

These images document the ebb and flow of life in this public space. The visual narrative seeks to illustrate the vagaries of human relationships well as the symbolic elements of flotsam and jetsam of a society in change.

Taken on: November 15, 2011

Tags:

Zuccotti Park

NYC

Occupy Wall Street

protest

99%

economic justice « less

Sets appears in: • The Zuccotti Park occupation: a creative experiment for change....

Groups appears in: • Image of New York • News-Photojournalism-Australia more » • #OccupyWallStreet Everywhere • American Autumn / october2011.org • OCCUPY WORLDWIDE « less

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