Week 11: Research by Making and Arrangements in Public Space

Ideas, Arrangements, Effects Reading Response

Part 1: Annotated Space

Over the weekend I went to Hallett Nature Sanctuary in Central Park to conduct a live prototype session away from tourist areas. I covered a large piece of deadwood in saturated red fabric with neon green accents. Fall colors appear naturally in the woods this time of year but I chose the most saturated versions to highlight that relationship between natural and synthetic color.

When I left I accidentally captured a photo that answers the entire assignment. My fabric intervention sits in the background while a park sign dominates the foreground.

Hard arrangements visible:

• Physical signage with rules and operating hours

• Deadwood and tree trunks creating spatial boundaries

• Park fencing demarcating sanctuary space

• Designated pathways made of wood and packed earth

• Fixed infrastructure determining movement through space

Soft arrangements visible:

• Operating hours controlling temporal access

• Posted prohibitions defining acceptable behavior

• "Nature sanctuary" designation coding appropriate use

• Social norms about what constitutes littering versus art

• Permit systems implied but absent from the scene

• Cultural mythology that pristine nature requires zero human creative intervention

• Children socialized to police violations

The powerful element is what happened during the intervention. Kids approached me while I was working and asked what I was doing. Their immediate follow up was "will you clean this up afterwards?" I lied and said yes. This reveals how soft arrangements function through social policing and internalized guilt rather than actual enforcement presence.

Part 2: Ideas/Arrangements/Effects Framework

IDEA:Public nature spaces must remain in their natural state where any unauthorized human creative intervention equals pollution that harms the environment.

ARRANGEMENT:This idea manifests through park signage that defines littering through prohibition symbols without distinguishing between harmful waste and removable textile intervention, an absence of infrastructure for spontaneous public art in park spaces, permit systems that exclude unauthorized acts, and environmental education that teaches kids to police littering without questioning what that category includes.

EFFECT:These arrangements produce guilt where I feel bad about littering despite using highly visible saturated fabric that is easily removable, criminalize creative expression in public nature, keep nature untouchable rather than relational, ensure only institutional actors can shape how public space looks and feels, and force ordinary people to stay passive consumers of regulated space.

CHANGED ARRANGEMENT:Covering deadwood with saturated red fabric and neon green accents without permission using donated materials.

NEW IDEA REFLECTED:Nature and human creativity can coexist. Public space can be participatory rather than only preserved. Littering and art are social constructs about value not inherent properties of objects. Visible removable textiles do not equal invisible plastic pollution.

NEW EFFECTS:

• Deadwood transforms from background element to noticeable canvas

• Children engage with questions about rules, art, environmental care

• Binary thinking gets challenged: natural does not equal good, human intervention does not equal bad

• Tests what actually constitutes harm in public space

• Creates conversation and potential for participation

Trail of Research and Experiments

Current research methodology follows Seago and Dunne principles of research by making where daily practice involves covering objects in public parks with fabric while documenting reactions. This week I scouted Hallett Nature Sanctuary as an intervention site, gathered donated fabric materials from work including saturated red fabric and neon green accent pieces, executed a large scale intervention on deadwood, documented the process and unintended interactions, and captured evidence of soft and hard arrangements in the final departure photo. Reading has included McGovern on craftivism and criminology, Moore and Prain on yarn bombing as public intervention, Situationist International writings on détournement.

Key insight:This prototype revealed a fundamental mismatch between site and intention. Environmental conservancy spaces inside parks operate under different soft arrangements than public park spaces. The work is not meant to be hiking to find it art. It functions as public facing intervention that invites participation from passersby. Moving forward any tree interventions need to occur on trees surrounded by concrete and cement not other trees and dirt. The point is to transform urban infrastructure not to insert color into protected wilderness. The guilt I experienced and the children policing my behavior indicate that nature conservancy spaces activate environmental preservation frameworks. Urban park spaces with concrete surroundings activate public art and community participation frameworks. Wrong site choice taught me where the work actually belongs.

The work centers on repurposing preexisting elements for subversive messages. Yarn bombing is not the concept. Textile détournement challenging bureaucratic gatekeeping in public art is the content. Yarn bombing is the form.

Documentation