City Meditation Crew

2010-11-07T13:25:00.000-08:00

The Manhattan-based City Meditation Crew is a fictitious city department whose workers make silent gestures in “public” spaces to inspire passers-by to pay attention to their surroundings, both physical and cultural, one moment at a time. Clad in white coveralls emblazoned with the orange “slow moving vehicle” triangle, CMC workers are recognizable as they complete mundane tasks a little more contemplatively than usual, breathing new possibilities into their performance and interpretation. CMC members remain nameless to emphasize collective actions over individual identities.

Click here to see a 1 minute video of City Meditation Crew in action

September 11th, 2010 CMC members silently read passages of the Qur’an suggested by Tanweer Haq, the Syracuse University assistant Islamic advisor at Hendricks Chapel.

2010-11-07T13:02:00.000-08:00

Photo Maria T Salatino

CMC contemplates a toxic waste retaining wall at Wykoff Superfund Site on Bainbridge Island.

2010-10-15T10:33:00.000-07:00

The site is known to locals as the second most toxic waste dump in the state of Washington. It exists approximately one half mile from the site where Japanese-Americans were boarded onto Ferries that would take them toward internment camps during WWII.

Photo Joel Sackett

CMC walks the path Japanese-Americans were forced to take as they were interned during WWII.

2010-10-14T16:32:00.000-07:00

Photo Joel Sackett

CMC walks toward Wykoff Toxic Waste Site and Japanese-American Internment Memorial, Bainbridge Island, Washington

2010-10-14T16:16:00.000-07:00

Photo Joel Sackett

Passers-by engaged in recording videos from a perfectly still point of view as an experiment in viewing the world from a reflective and non-violent point of view. Seattle ArtSparks Festival.

2010-10-14T16:05:00.000-07:00

Photo Joel Sackett

CMC reworked Bocce game traditions to create a collaborative performance. Seattle ArtSparks Festival.

2010-10-14T15:43:00.000-07:00

photo Joel Sackett

Seattle ArtSparks Festival - Radiant Silver Circle of Gum Wrappers

2010-10-13T09:38:00.000-07:00

At Occidental Square Park, CMC members worked with hundreds of silver foil gum wrappers, initially used by the gum industry to add value and glitz to their products. CMC subsequently reclaimed cast off wrappers from the margins of parks and city streets during walking meditations, or received them as donations from project supporters.

Seattle’s Occidental Square Park is famous as a popular tourist area, gathering space, and the origin of the phrase “skid row” which referred to a pathway for transporting recently cut down trees and subsequently became synonymous with poverty and homelessness during the Great Depression.

photo Joel Sackett

photo Valerie Ross

CMC walked and observed Nevada Salt Flats and Las Vegas Strip

2010-03-09T14:43:00.000-08:00

2009-10-05T11:05:00.001-07:00

Gum wrappers were laid into a radiant silver circle on Gandhi's 140th birthday by City Meditation Crew as part of Art In Odd Places. Union Square, NYC

2009-10-05T11:02:00.000-07:00

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EMAIL US at info@citymeditationcrew.org

2009-10-03T17:07:00.001-07:00

photo credit Jason Mandella and the City Meditation Crew. Jason generously volunteered his photographic expertise. http://www.artdocumentation.net/ Top image by Steve Sartori with photo manipulation by Stephanie Massa.

2009-08-20T16:40:00.000-07:00

2009-08-01T15:03:00.001-07:00

2009-08-01T15:00:00.001-07:00

Tasked with inspiring hurried urbanites to notice their city one moment at a time, members of the newly formed City Meditation Crew complete mundane tasks a little more slowly and attentively than usual, breathing new possibilities into their performance. Clad in white coveralls emblazoned with the orange “slow moving vehicle” triangle, CMC workers are recognizable as they walk slowly, collect silver foil gum wrappers, and affix them to the sidewalk near the Gandhi statue to create a radiant, silver mosaic circle. Everyone is welcome to gather and press foil wrappers onto the sidewalk on October 2, Gandhi’s birthday.

Artist/Company Bio:
The newly formed volunteer corps City Meditation Crew includes those who consider themselves “artists” and those who don’t. CMC manifests attentiveness and open awareness through secular practices of contemplation in public. The worldwide non-violence movement and the often unacknowledged influence of Buddhism on western contemporary art inspire our practices.

FRIDAY OCTOBER 2, 1-5 pm, RADIANT CIRCLE of silver foil on Gandhi's birthday at the Gandhi statue, SW corner of Union Square Park at 14th Street and Union Square West.
SUNDAY OCTOBER 4, 10 am to 12 pm, Walking slowly and other performancest at the Gandhi statue, SW corner of Union Square Park at 14th Street and Union Square West and other locations throughout the park.

Presented by Art in Odd Places 2009: SIGN, an annual festival exploring the odd, ordinary and ingenious in the spectacle of daily life.

Art In Odd Places: Sign
http://www.artinoddplaces.org/

Special thanks to: Art In Odd Places, Ed Woodham, Erin Donnelly, Radhika Subramanian; the anonymous and fabulous City Meditation Crew volunteers and stage manager; The Office of Sponsored Programs at Syracuse University and Trish Lowney, Janet Ippolito Lafata; Jason Mandella; students of the Institute of Technology at Syracuse Central High School; students of Contemplative Arts, Colloquium, and Time Arts at Syracuse University; Lynn Kobel, Alexandra Fiust, Pam McLaughlin, Paul and Cheryl Molesky, Cedar Nordbye, Becca Smith: University of Memphis, Richard Lou; Joanna Spitzner, Yoko Ryan, Jill Long, Alsco Uniforms and Ann Marie Rivolli, Bob, Sollish; Nina Verdal, Stephen Sartori, Stephen Kearn, Matthew Williams, John, Joan, Jenna, Max, Michael, Martha, Pat, Ernie, Diane, Patricia, and Ernest Beffel, Al Meusel, Meg Hamlet, Ben Landman, Center for Contemplative Mind in Society.