(Inflating Agitation), 2022

by Related Tactics (Michele Carlson, Weston Teruya, and Nathan Watson)

This project was initially created as part of the 2021-2022 Print Public Fellowship Residency at Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA.

Frank Bartley (Inflating Agitation), 2022

Inkjet print, 54” x 36”

Here the deflatable is tucked in the greenery at Aquatic Park, near the site where Frank Bartley, a young gay man was killed by vice police in 1969. While his murderers were cleared and blame was placed on Bartley for resisting arrest, subsequent community protests were one of the radicalizing events in local gay rights movement building.

Crystal White Cleanliness (Inflating Agitation)

Inkjet print, 54” x 36”

Here the deflatable is squeezed into a pier honoring the Peet/Colgate-Palmolive factory that once operated here. In 1961, their workers went on strike, advocating for a union. Images of the largely Black protesters contrast with archival ads extolling the cleaning power of the company’s products, including Crystal White Family Soap.

The (Inflating Agitation) series, as part of our Memories Breathe and Every Monument Deflates body of work, features an inflatable/deflatable monument base temporarily installed in specific sites that speak to often invisible moments in local community histories, particularly those linked to labor & social justice movements. The surface design of the deflatable suggests a plinth marked by guerrilla graffiti during national protests, subsequently painted over in blocky institutional gray–an acknowledgement that even without a figure upon its platform, the object continues to serve as a site for public negotiation and intervention around collective memory, power, and knowledge building.

In this set of photographs, we’ve deployed the temporary marker in Berkeley as an acknowledgement of the community struggles anchored in the sites we’ve identified, while leaving visible the energy and mechanisms (the blower & generator) that are needed to keep it inflated and activated. Unlike a marble edifice, the marker and the memory must be refreshed and tended to keep the stories in public discourse. Berkeley sites in the series include parks and former factory buildings, some more visibly preserved and marked than others.