MOST of us are aware of the standard definition of the word “community,” often tied up to a specific place with people in the society exhibiting shared concerns, characteristics and often gathered through prevalent forces such as social, economic, and political interests.
Although this is correct, the idea of community goes beyond that definition. According to Lucy Lippard’s book, The Lure of the Local: Sense of Place in a Multicentered Society, place and community are not the same thing, but both coexist, not limited to the idea of the physicality of space but also about the unique sense of place. A common misconception is that people within the community bond together only for dependency. A community does not mean understanding everybody and resolving issues and indifferences but knowing how to work around them as they change and evolve.
“Common unity” captures different stances of ideas, art practices, methods, and approaches of each artist, drawing away from the specificity of a general belief that is similar to the notion of “good neighborhood” often connected to tribalism that creates a confusion of identities. Instead, “common unity” embraces ideas of a healthy community exhibiting permeability and offers diversity. It derives its richness from explicit disagreements as much as from elicit agreements. “Common unity” draws out the innate nature of people’s belongingness and gathers a collection of multi-disciplinary artists, unique to each of their own art practices that developed through their own chosen paths, created with a common foundation: the streets.
