Project Description
Tele-Vecindario (1992-93) was a project commissioned as part of Sculpture Chicago's Culture in Action public art program. The project's organizational processes sought to bridge the social and cultural isolation of residents of West Town, a neighborhood of Chicago, and create a space for dialogue. Through the project, artist Inigo Manglano-Ovalle aimed to transform and reclaim the neighborhood street, territorialized by gangs, into a communal promenade. The project was centered in the artist's own neighborhood of West Town, a predominantly lower-income, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Central, and South American neighborhood. The usual urban problems—lack of jobs, high drop-out rate, crime, drugs, gangs, teen pregnancy, and AIDS—affect the area. Video emerged as "the very tool of the tertulia (conversation), the means by which a dialogue between peers and with adults could be facilitated." The project took the form of multiple video dialogues among neighbors, known cumulatively as Tele-Vecindario. A youth division of the project named Street-Level Video (S-LV) became a central force.

A Street Level Video Block Party was a major component of S-LV's multiyear work; an event encompassing one residential street, using seventy-five monitors, involving four rival gangs and S-LV members, with an audience of more than a thousand people. For 12 hours, video monitors were grouped in multiple installations. The event, both a block party and video installation, also included a stage with teen performers and a peace mural whose negotiated design involved S-LV, gang representatives, some neighbors, and graffiti artists. Insiders and outsiders to the neighborhood blended as they strolled down the street for the evening's tertulia. They conversed with each other or listened to each other on videos. As the evening progressed, the monitors lit the street and provided, albeit ephemerally, a neutral site for cultural and social exchange.

Civic Engagement/Dialogue Activities

Video itself emerged as the artist's tool for engaging the neighborhood, enlisting students, meeting other people, and learning the terrain. Manglano-Ovalle visited more than 40 social service agencies in order to refine his approach to the project. The artist knew that active involvement of area leaders was essential to integrate this project into the life of the community. He formalized the associations and alliances he had been building over a year's time with the creation of a new coalition of youth organizations that called itself West Town Vecinos Video Channel. S-LV, now known as Street Level Youth Media, remains actively engaged in the community with a storefront location. It continues to hold an annual block party among its many programs.

Information Sources

Jacob, Mary Jane. Culture in Action, Seattle: Bay Press, 1995, p. 76-87. interview, Inigo Manglano-Ovalle.