WHAT DO WE DO NOW?

By Occupennial Co-organizer Paul McLean

Since late September, Occupennial has provided artists with the opportunity to share art inspired by the occupation of Zuccotti Park in the financial district of lower Manhattan, and satellite occupations that have sprung up around the country and the world. Occupennial has opened a virtual space in which documentation of #OWS and other occupations can be catalogued and revisited. We have created areas for memorializing the artist actions that have helped shape and empower #OWS, and we have built the architecture for occupant artist community and production, including listings, proposal throughputs, resource exchanges and a growing network of organizations and venues dedicated to supporting 99% expression in all its peaceful, artist forms. Occupennial has also initiated a program of actualization for occupation-generated artist projects, starting with our successful collaboration with Printed Matter in Chelsea, with other amazing ventures currently in process.

The police action and clearance of Liberty Square in the early morning hours of November 15 remind us of the tremendous importance of establishing and maintaining an archive of the Occupy art that is inspiring the 99% to stand up and displace the 1% choke-hold on our commonwealth, and democracy. The urgency of your contributing to our database, chronicling this historic moment couldn't be greater. It would be a tragic cultural loss to let the memory of #OccupyWallStreet, and the hundreds of occupations that have occurred in communities of every description, spanning the globe, to fade away. Therefore, we at Occupennial once more ask you to please send us your photos, videos, poems, songs, paintings, drawings, cartoons, ideas, texts and art-action documentation, so we can continue to grow a communal archive for the occupation.

Contact us:
Use the CONTACT button at the top of the page or send your content via email to occupennial@gmail.com

Send us your Occupy art, etc., and occupation documentation:
Use the CONTACT button at the top of the page or send your content via email to occupennial@gmail.com; or use the Drop Box in the sidebar.

Sweeping away the encampment at Liberty Square will not stop the Occupation. It's too late for that, now. ...But it's up to us, the 99%, to insist on our own survival as a movement, and as free people. To ensure our cause doesn't disappear we must commit to preserve the shared memory of what we've done individually and together, what we've expressed, to continue our actions in support of #OWS and all the occupations, and to create new expressions of 99% solidarity every day, wherever we are.

With love and appreciation,
Paul