Note: photos & video taken at Infinite Games in Chicago, where over 50 national and international artists, designers and architects were invited “to produce work using or based on the stockpile of CPS furniture. Imagined as an expanding and mutating memorial archive, Infinite Games invites both a playful and critical response to the issues of social upheaval, collective trauma, race and class, memorial, the archive, collective memory, education, that this collection of furniture evokes, but framed by the necessity of maintaining a functional space.” Read more about Infinite Games.
This is my new/current title:
“First Chair”
This was the original title:
“Public School, Public Place,
Public Chair, Public Perch,
Public School, Public Pinnacle”
By Douglas R. Ewart
Date: 2017
When children/people are well nourished spiritually, emotionally, intuitively, and intellectually, they do well in all facets of life and they thrive!
Assemblage/ Sonic Sculpture
Medium: Chicago Public School Chair, Number 18, Construction Date 1961, Chicago Board of ED; Black Bamboo (Phyllostachys Negro) Chimes; Nylon Cord, Bamboo and Aluminum Rod Chime; Aluminum Plate Gong; Deer Skin Chair Drum; Plywood Cajon; Steel Couch Legs Bells; Piano Wire, Eyelet Screw and Guitar Tuning Machine (Chair Berimbau/Monochord), Steel Nuts and Bolts, and a Pentatonically Tuned Aluminum Rod Chimes.
Dimensions: Height 35” X Width 16” X Depth 16”
Public School, Public Pronouncement
Public Place, Public School
Public School, Public Chair
Public Chair, Public Seat
Public Seat, Public Perch
Public Position, Public Priorities
Public School, Public Propensities
Public School, Public Probabilities
Public Speech, Public Soundings
Public School, Vast Visions
Public School, Accelerated Achievements
Public School, Prodigious Possibilities
Public School, Public Practicability
Public School, Perennial Brilliance,
Public Education, Irrepressible Power
Public School, Public Prosperity
Public School, Public Triumph
Public School, Public Speech (Utterances)
Public School, Public Sound
Public Speech, Public Ideas
Public School, Creative Coalescences
Public School, Public Responsibilities
Public School, Public Power
Public School, Public Pinnacle
I am an ardent believer, and supporter in, and proponent, and advocate for Public Schools. Public Schools are the greatest equalizers invented in a world skewed for the privileged few. From the Public Schools come most of the world’s greatest thinkers, scholars, visionaries, and innovators. Without Public Schools, the world would have been bereft of Colossus discernments, gleanings, and geniuses. It is only in public education that the national, global and egalitarian interests are defined and safeguarded.
When Public Schools are staffed with competent, dedicated, and uncompromising teachers, and supported with sound educational infrastructures, the students display their erudite leanings, and achieve the excellence of which they are capable. Incomparable! Scholars, who have their roots in the Public Schools, are among the greatest in the world today.
Public Schools are the agents of transmission (transition?) to new frontiers and success for the systemically disenfranchised public! Education is akin to the characteristics of bamboo and imbues the recipients with flexible, expansive minds, indomitable hearts, self-perpetuating, and enduring pneumas!
Public Schools and Public Education yesterday, today, tomorrow and into perpetuity!
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