Takin' It to the Streets

Did you ever notice that most of the sidewalks downtown are privately owned? Tiny plaques embedded in the concrete announce that pedestrians have "the right to pass by permission only" -- permission granted, for the time being, by the company that owns the skyscraper next to the sidewalk. This is the kind of situation that has the Department of Space and Land Reclamation's Western Division very cheesed off.

Migrant Sign Makers

Détournement or comedy? You make the call at "DSLR West."

Details

Begins Thursday, Oct. 2, at 8 p.m. with an orientation for event participants. The event continues through Sunday, Oct. 5, at various locations.

Admission is free

www.dslr west.org

Balazo/Mission Badlands Gallery, 2811 Mission (at 24th Street), S.F.

More About

• Department of Space and Land Reclamation

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Peeking mischievously out from behind this official-sounding name is a loose confederation of artists, activists, and geographers who have decided to band together and reclaim the Bay Area's public spaces. ("Kinda like the A-Team," the alliance's press materials explain, "but not all dudes.") Reclaim them from what? Here's an explanation, found on the group's articulate Web site: "Global capital has reached such a point that both the physical and intellectual landscape have been completely purchased. To exist today means to tread on the property of others. ... Like a minefield of manipulative codes, urban space has been designed to maneuver us from one point of sale to the next." The organization has a strong presence in Chicago as well, where activities have included guerrilla gardening and putting up signs encouraging loitering.

"DSLR West," as the group's San Francisco-based event is known, is designed to reconfigure urban spaces in order to put them at the service of citizens, not corporations (at least for the weekend). Organizers invite one and all to plan projects to achieve this goal, using a combination of art, street theater, protest -- and hide-and-seek, sardines style: One of the event's participants, Meg Duguid, plans to instigate a neighborhoodwide version of the traditional children's game. "I will be trying to cram as many people as possible into odd public spaces," she e-mailed us recently. Hers is just the kind of intelligent, off-kilter perspective organizers hope to foster.