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| NEED_X_CHANGE
is designed to help the staff and clients of Casa Segura; an HIV
prevention and needle exchange clinic in Oakland, California attain
social and political "voice",
through communication with their local community and participation
in the global information culture. As of 1998 at least one out
of every 3 AIDS cases was directly related to injection drug use.
There are an estimated 22,000 injection drug users in Oakland
and Alameda County, California. A total of 37.8% of all AIDS cases
in Alameda County are related to injection drug use. Needle exchange
programs are a proven method of reducing needle-related HIV risk
behaviors among injection drug users. Casa Segura is a community
based organization that provides easily accessible services to
promote health and stop the spread of HIV, Hepatitis C, and other
drug related harm among people who use drugs, their families and
communities. Casa Segura’s prevention strategies revolve
around a "come as you are" approach. This approach is
based on the belief that drug addicted people can help themselves
live a positive more productive life-style if given the choice
to change, the time, and the appropriate amount of support. Casa
Segura's philosophy of "harm reduction" therapy and
my own practice developing Collaborative Systems share a premise
of respect for the "client" or "participant"
and a recognition of the value and dignity of all individuals,
their experiences and their perspectives.
Through NEED_X_CHANGE the voices of the many individuals who both use and staff the center are made audible to the public through the project website. Each participant tells his or her own story in his or her own words. I have distributed inexpensive audio tape recorders and disposable cameras to participating Clients. These Clients are actively documenting their daily experience and taping their reflections on their own past experience. I have set up a small computer lab at Casa Segura. This lab provides an on-line authoring environment and training center for Casa Segura clients and staff. I am training participating clients in basic computer literacy and web publishing. I work one on one with participants to put their images, audio files and texts online. Most of the participants have never used a computer and, though they may have heard about the Internet, have never been online before. Regular meetings with me at the lab, during which I facilitate communication between clients, counselors and outreach workers, are helping to stabilize some clients and assist in their efforts to access support services and further vocational training. Because Casa Segura provides needle exchange it is politically embattled and continuously attacked by its district city council representative and others interested in the "economic development" or gentrification of the Fruitvale neighborhood of Oakland. There can be no better example of this fact than the arson perpetrated against the SafeHouse on New Year's Eve in 2000. I believe that if Casa Segura clients’ stories can be heard then the community will no longer misunderstand or fear Casa Segura or the impact of its presence in the community. The clients’ websites, a series of billboards and bus boards will provide information about Casa Segura, its services, its staff and its clients, to the Fruitvale community and the bay area. The public graphics will be created collaboratively by allowing staff and clients who have developed their own web pages to participate in the visual design of the billboards that disseminate their stories. To understand this work as a work of art one must move from questions of ontology, (what is art?) to questions of pragmatism, (what can art do?). Instead of representing, or critiquing the political issues it engages from an individual or monolithic perspective NEED_X_CHANGE attempts to make new practical and political realities possible for the individuals and communities engaged. |