The term guerilla has different connotations. For some it means an action done with an illicit nature rather than legal activities. For others, it refers to projects like the Guerilla Girls and refers to engaged activities in the city that compel us to change and think but is not necessarily illicit.
Islands of LA believes that we, as individual and responsible members of the community, have the right to use available public space as long as we do so in a manner that is not harmful . This type of activity does not does not require permission because we have it, implicitly. In the United States, traffic islands are part of our roads, like sidewalks. Islands with pedestrian access are most likely protected under the First Amendment for free speech and peaceable assembly.
We can have picnics in the park or drive down the street. Why not use traffic islands for art that involves intimate meetings and activities that compel thinking, discussion and community? If we can walk down the sidewalk without a permit and are trusted to not jump into traffic, why do we think we need permission to engage in safe activities on traffic islands?
If signs are placed throughout the city from various groups – music bands, yard sales, electricians, phone repair – why should we not exercise our right to free speech and put up content that engages us to think? Should we not, as citizens, be able to balance out the thousands of words we read everyday on the streets which are predominantly advertising or city information and regulation with words that invite us to think and inquire?
This project is a revitalizing, civil agent not a threatening and destructive or oppositional force. It engages in a fair use of traffic islands in a manner that exercises our first amendment rights. Rather than focusing on a term like guerilla art, which can limit how the project is understood, perhaps we can consider if the project is done in a safe and responsible manner that is compelling and meaningful.
Moreover, we can ask the question of who is allowed to use public space and in what way and how this impacts our city and experiences? Or, as Margaret Crawford put it: “The question is, how is public space to be created – by designers, by the state, or by the people who use it?”
