#Luxury project in kalyn west

[defendourhoodz]

Art for the People, Not for the Rich!

Defend Our Hoodz - Defiende El Barrio - Austin and Riverside Tenants call for a full boycott of:

Austin Creative Alliance and the Riverside Arts District

Pump Project Arts Complex and all their associated artists.

Come and Take it Theatre

Tapestry Dance Company

Sun Radio

Soundwaves Art Foundation

Wall Austin Foundation

Almost Real Things (ART club of Texas)

Any other businesses or groups involved with the ‘Riverside Arts District’ or the ‘Pop-Up Arts District’

(See the ACA’s and Presidium’s Arts District pitch here)

These organizations have all aligned themselves with the ‘‘Riverside Arts District’, which is headed by the Austin Creative Alliance in collaboration with Presidium Group, the developers who want to build a ‘Domain on Riverside’. We will boycott these groups and businesses as long as they maintain ties to the developer to their own benefit and at the expense of the working-class and oppressed residents of the Riverside area. This collusion between sell-out artists, non-profits, and a gentrifier developer is a slap in the face to the tenants of Ballpark and Town Lake Apartments and all working-class residents in Riverside. While the developers are attempting to rezone our apartments in order to tear them down and build a luxury development, they are cutting deals with gentrifiers. The Pump Project will be the anchor tenant of the ‘Interim Arts District’ at 1600 Pleasant Valley, directly across the street from Ballpark West. The land that it is holding space on is slated as part of phase 2 of the ‘Domain on Riverside’.

This arts district offers nothing to the working-class, Chicano, Black, and immigrant community who live in the Riverside Area. While the working-class creates art by and for the people, developers use art to cover up their plans for our destruction. The arts scene and artists can not remain neutral in the fight against gentrification and displacement. They must choose to side with the people, not the developers, landlords, and other hustlers who exploit us for profit. If you side with the developers, we will treat you no differently than we treat them, as unwelcome invaders. We will not allow Riverside to go the way of central East Austin, without a fierce fight.

Gentrifiers have only one agenda - the full displacement of working-class communities. There is no entertaining them as equal partners with the working-class who they displace. They have waged war against us but we call on the people to fight back. Boycott the Riverside Arts District! Boycott Non-Profit Hustlers like Austin Creative Alliance! Boycott the Pump Project! #dumpthePump Defend Riverside! - No ‘Domain on Riverside’!

Please sign-on to join the boycott here! Artists, organizations, and businesses signed on to boycott:

Savannah Garza, Mopac Media, JT Kelley, Keith LLC, Adam Serwa, On The Fringe Productions, Sean Shirley, Outer Limit, Anna Suits, GEOFFE & EVERYBODY, Dyrtwülf, Street Sects, David Rawlinson, Kriss Bellatrix, Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears, Latino Comedy Project, ChiClopz, SOMAR ATX, La Lucha Sigue, Austin Tango Blast, Home Rituals, Stonewall Militant Front, symlink, Maddy Brotherton, EHSP16, ATX Barrio Archive, Oscar Ornelas, Social Justice Warboy, Sertified, Filiberto Mendieta, Nepantla, USA, The Gnarly Florist, Doppelgengar, Jumpolin, Christelle, Palestine Solidarity Committee - Austin, Texas, Desert Flower Designers, AlexAlco, Hex in the City, SMiiLE, Roleros Cosmicos, Mary Bryce, Skullcaster, Nino Soberon, Jack Stallion Media, Erin Green,  Instagram @hooligan_iconoclast,  Instagram @tattoos.bydhalia,  Instagram @paologrippo, exhalants, Drawn By Frankie, Being Dead, Kate B. Meyer, Kalyn Kane, Lee Reed,  Mamalarky, Tåsi, Chronophage, Lechuza Blanca Vintage, Lestat Castillo Art, Silk Club, Instagram @miasaidno, Body Pressure, G E N D R · S L Æ R, Salvasquared, TORSO, Women's Militant Front, Cop Slaughter

More Information

Austin Creative Alliance

has been working hand-in-hand with Presidium Group, the main force behind the “Domain on Riverside” to create their Riverside Arts District. They are soliciting numerous other artists and try to get artists, art groups, non-profits, and more to be part of what is nothing more than a real estate scheme with the mask of a cultural project. The site they are beginning to develop is shown as the second phase of the ‘Domain on Riverside’ maps created by the developers. Groups like the Pump Project are highly aware of this, and we can assume they expect to get subsidized space in future massive developments by colluding with the Presidium Group. Austin Creative Alliance will be a tenant in the ‘Interim Arts District’.

Pump Project

will be the anchor tenant of the ‘Interim Arts District’ at 1600 Pleasant Valley which sits on land owned by Presidium slated for development as the ‘Domain on Riverside’. They rent studio spaces to mostly white, middle-class artists, and recently left their space in the historic East Austin Barrio endind up in Riverside,

claiming a narrative of displacement that they milked for sympathy and $$$money$$$

Pump Project offers nothing to the working-class and immigrant community who live in the Riverside Area. While the working-class creates art by and for the people, the predictable oil paintings, geometric jewelry, and corny Etsy shops are the products of an empty, self-indulgent, middle-class consumer culture that is passed off as creativity. Their studio spaces are for people with the luxury of having art as a hobby or selling overpriced handmade jewelry. In fact, one of the Pump Project Artists, Limbo Jewelry, has a storefront in the Domain itself! This fact is ironic after the revelation of the racist Domain ad that described a typical Domain customer as ‘well-heeled woman’ who describes herself as ‘Anglo, Jewish, or Asian’ who drives two cars and  wears designer jewelry...that she probably got at Limbo! Come and Take It Live has Presidium Group as a landlord. This in and of itself is not our grievance. Instead, they are receiving reduced rent from Presidium Group and are part of Presidium’s overall push of the Arts District.This reduced rents is a slap in the face to the Ballpark Residents who are facing rent increases as their complex is targeted for rezoning. By taking Presidium’s bribe, they are acting as scabs. They should reject any special treatment or deals with Presidium if they stand with the working-class of Riverside. Artwashing is a well-known strategy in the toolkits of gentrifiers. Property owners and developers use the cultural cred of the arts scene in order to facilitate their agenda of raising the status and profitability of neighborhoods. They do this by catering to and uplifting first-wave, artist gentrifiers who are directly involved in transforming a working-class neighborhood into a gentrified community. These artists are typically mostly white and middle-class, though gentrifier artists come from all backgrounds. To combat artwashing, we look to the brave people of the Boyle Heights barrio of Los Angeles, who have upheld a long-term boycott campaign against art galleries that have invaded their community. They have successfully shut down five art galleries and counting. They understand, and we agree, that the arts scene and artists are not neutral in the fight against gentrification and displacement, and must pick a side. Their struggle inspires us and shows that when the people fight back, with commitment and ferocity, we can win, and reverse the course of strategies that developers have employed to mask their exploitation of working-class hoods.