How it Works
Collective White House is installed in public space to function as a peoples’ embassy— a collective platform and gathering place for discussion and participation on the role and influence of US politics.
Throughout the world, the White House is an icon of United States power and the aspirations of human progress. Collective White House is an arts project that reimagines this power structure. We transform the White House from a symbol of institutional authority into a collective social space.
Agency of the Mobile Studio
Cartographic Agency
Agency of Inclusion
The Office of Complaints Fears and Desires
Agency of the Minuteros
Agency of Sign Language
Human Bureaus
The Collective White House features an agency addressing human issues for each room in the building. Each agency tackles critical concerns affecting people's lives.
Learn more about the agencies in the Casa Blanda experience from Colombia.
Explored how discriminatry language affects afro-columbian communities through stories and the music of resistance and mourning.
Over three years, six hip-hop artists were killed and wrongly labeled as criminals by the media. We built a mobile recording studio to help young people in Medellín's comunas produce and share their music. This supported a city-wide effort to build more peaceful communities through education and creative expression.
We created silk-screened city maps and distributed them through public libraries. People filled in the maps with their own views of their neighborhoods and communities. The completed maps—20 to 40 in total—were displayed at the Museum of Antioquia.
Escritores, typist using mechanical type writers, are a part of the informal street economy of Medellin. Fund on a side street of Plaza Botero, they type etters for those who cannot.
Many unemployed Colombians became "minuteros"—street vendors who rent out phone calls from cell phones attached to their vests for about 8 cents per call. This work provided steady income and helped people rebuild their lives after Colombia's violent conflict period
Subverting the unspoken exchange of signals common to the drug culture, we designed a series of new urban gestures that reflect on peace, social inclusion and progress- new gestures of an affectionate city. Diagrams of these signs are pasted around the city.
What's Inside: Casa Blanda (Soft House)
A collection of community-created art:
Music recordings
Embroidery
Maps and videos
Interactive displays
Costumes and performances]
A symbol of hard power transformed into something soft, intimate, and community-owned.
Collective White House nº1, 2011
Built from Motel Bedsheets
We built a 1/5 scale White House replica in Columbia using donated bedsheets from local motels.
These bedsheets represent the temporary lives of travelers, immigrants, and workers—people affected by global power but excluded from it.
Local residents and craftmakers helped construct it
Everyone adds their personal touch
The building process brings people together