Kairos and Community Building: Implications for Literacy Researchers

Ecologies that Matter  

The distribution of Artists Now’s billboard requires attention to the many ecologies (e.g., physical, economic, political) that shape Artists Now’s message and visual identity.

Bridge into Highland ParkThe billboard is located on the side of an overpass. Once used to publicize a local Catholic hospital, it has been years since this space was last designed to forward public ideas.The billboard’s peeling and missing pieces are partially blocked by trees and surrounded by poison ivy.  Nonetheless, the arched bridge beneath this space provides a wonderful welcome to the town, especially since the bridge has high visibility along this tree-lined county road.

Not surprisingly, economics play a central role in Artists Now’s ability to get out its message. Until the summer of 2006, Artists Now had no money saved and no institutional structures geared toward saving any money. What Artists Now had was the founder’s creativity, connections, and tenacity.  Planning for the billboard reflected this history. After some research and cold-calling, the founder learned that the billboard’s management company was happy to rent this underutilized space for a song, especially since this company could receive a tax write-off for donating their “lost profits” to a not-for-profit charity. Consequently, Artists Now's founder planned to rent a cherry picker and put up the billboard with some friends. “However, he faced unexpected problems getting out the message—from the potential worker being highly allergic to poison ivy to the cost of securing a union flagger to slow the Amtrak trains running over the bridge, a pricey and unanticipated expense to be sure.”

Even more daunting problems emerged when the organizer began to understand the political networks surrounding this physical space.  According to town lore, about eight years ago the current mayor staged a political coup and ousted a supposedly corrupt, established mayor. The current mayor supports Artists Now’s community building efforts and may be convinced to use city crews to cut back the trees blocking the bridge. And yet, it is the former mayor who is the freeholder in charge of the county road that passes beneath the bridge. The specifics are still murky, but Artists Now organizers believe that it is he who would approve the road crew to slow traffic so that the cherry picker can put up the billboard; he may even have sway with Amtrak’s approval of slowing the trains for the day. These politicians are not on good terms, and would be unlikely to support a project endorsed by the other. 

Literacy researchers and community activists have much to learn from Artists Now's attempts to distribute its message. These lessons, however, require examining legal codes that encourage businesses to offer not-for-profit organizations discounted access to public space; understanding the material conditions of various public forums; working with, around, and through layers of local politics. These sites of cultural production shape Artists Now’s distribution dilemmas, yet these ecologies are too often beyond the scope of the traditional canons' attention to local text. (Artists Now provides a local counterpart to the examples listed in the core.)

Kairos and Community Building

 

Ecologies that Matter

 

Black-Boxing the Brand

 

The Appropriate Moment

 

References

 

CoreText