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THE VENDORS VISION PROGRAM MANUAL
VENDORS VISION PROGRAM (VVP) ORGANIZATION MISSION The Vendors Vision Program is an art-based, community movement project developed by Bonnie Netel and Jessica Kisner, students at Parsons The New School for Design. Founded in Spring 2014, the Voice Incubator seeks to spark a movement through a mobile device that plugs into singular street vendor carts in order to provoke conversations concerning both street vending practice and public space. The street food cart is a point of reflection to open a conversation of: what is public? What is ours?
VISION Our vision is to engage citizens to be empower to decide what should be done in their public space.
PURPOSE / GOAL Protests are multiscalar and exist within the everyday. Everyday, tensions and disagreements occur, but often built to a moment of rupture--hence our usual vision of what it means to protest. The Vendors Vision Program seeks to visualize the tensions that slowly build in the everyday and to enrich the voices behind them. By doing so we are opening spaces for dialogue and negotiations, which carry a strong message on how citizens want their public space to be constructed.
VALUES + RESOURCES Social recognition -respect, appreciation Sense of accomplishment -making a lasting contribution Achievement -attaining personal and professional goals
CALL TO ACTION: Public spaces are being compromised from privatization, commodification, & securitization.
INPUTS Staff, Food Vendors, People on the Street, Time, Money for Salary + Materials, Materials for Program, Materials for Printmaking
ACTIVITIES Fieldwork, Interviews, Community Workshops, Creative Labs on the Street, Printmaking for Branding, Cultural Production/Conversation, Eating
OUTPUTS Appropriate Vendor’s Umbrellas, Record/Transcribe Narratives, Graphic Materials for Vendor Branding
PERCEPTIONS Increase Value of Vendors in Community, Greater Understanding of Public Space, Engage Space for Voicing Needs/Dreams, Increase Active Citizenship in Public Space & Community
ACTIONS Visual Movement Building to Connect Vendors, Ongoing Field Work and Workshops/Labs
IMMIGRATION RACISM
T
HARRASSMENT
POLICE T UNEMPLOYMENT BLACK MARKET S VETERANS
BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICTS
DISPLACEMENT
PERMITS 5”
SPACE I S
BEAUTIFICATION PRIVATIZATION SECURITIZATION
STREE POLICY BORDERS COMMODIFICATION LANGUAGE PLACE FOOD JUSTICE
CULTURE
LOCAL ECONOM
1. STREET FOOD VENDORS ARE AT RISK IN THE EVERYDAY Due to years of evolving legislation and regulations, the ability to operate increasingly becomes impaired. The vendor must have both a license and a permit in order to sell food on the street. No permit = no ownership of a street cart. The street cart? Careful outlined and defined by food preparation safety and placement on the street. Stainless steel must be used for easy cleaning. The cart must be at least 20’ from a commercial storefront, but also 10’ from a crosswalk. The intent behind these laws is cleanliness and congestion control, but what happens when the street has storefront upon storefront? Twenty-feet, twenty-feet. No vendor? If these laws are not abided, there can be as many tickets in one instant, $1,000 each. This does not equate with what the vendor earns.
2. STREET FOOD VENDORS ARE MONEY ON THE STREET If someone is buying food from a vendor, he or she is helping a local economy. Street vending attracts people and as we all know the more the merrier. By buying food from a street cart you are helping thousands of families to reach their dreams, you are helping to keep the money in the neighborhood, you are helping bringing people to the street, by buying food from a street vendor you are assuring the future of the neighborhood.
GREEN CARTS ENTREPENEURS FRUITS AND VEGETABLES COMMISSARIES STORE FRONTS LICENSE
TAXES
TICKETS SIDEWALK DEPARTMENT OF STREET CART HEALTH ”x10” REGULATIONS
SAY I VEND FOOD ON THE ET : HERE’S WHAT IS ALSO N FOOD BEING SAID
E
E
MIES
3. STREET FOOD VENDORS ARE CONNECTED TO THEIR COMMUNITY Street vendors are always on the street, they know you, know your family, know the street and know the problems each community faces. Street vendors are constant observing the streets of New York. Because of their role of constant observers, street vendors are experts in understanding the concerns of citizens in relation to their neighborhood. For these reasons, the voice of the street vendor is one that should not be shut down, but on the contrary should be given a voice to communicate community’s needs.
4. STREET FOOD VENDORS ARE PLACE Without street food vendors, space is just space; merely becoming a place. Street vending helps each neighborhood have a different life and style because of the diverse experiences that people bring to the street. Street vending is the character of the street, and without character, the street is merely an infrastructural component of the city devoid of the things that make place: memories, experiences and senses.
5. STREET FOOD VENDORS ARE NOT TO BE DISPLACED
RESEARCH BUILD TRUST
ORGANIZ
BEFORE ENTERING THE STREET FIELDWORK DO YOUR RESEARCH GET TO KNOW THE PLACE AND PEOPLE
START BUILDING TRUST UNDERSTAND THE SITUATION & ISSUES
Internet, news, books, documents... Be in space Talk to people Map, draw, take pictures, videos...
Interviews Semi-structure interview format: some question determined but leave space for other questions and answers to originate.
Be clear about your intent. Make sure to question: who, what, when, where, why. Observe and question, but do not judge. Document all your experience, questions and ideas.
Workshops/Focus Groups
Document and Analyze: Review what you have gathered. Transcribe and read the interviews and conversations. Use relational objects. Work with objects you find through your previous research stage. Examples: the gloves vendors use in daily to serve and prepare food.
*Before you enter the street, be aware that this project only occurs from midApril to mid-October, during the weekdays for a maximum amount of 3 hours with each vendor.
ON THE STREET EXECUTION ORGANIZE & ARRANGE
HEADING OUT
GETTING READY
CREATE, EMPOWER & EXCHANGE
1) Select a vendor to work with 2) Determine if the vendor owns the cart or is an employee of the cart
Install your booth Start to workshop
3) Call or go and explain what your going to do-which lab and intervention you will perform-, have their approval and decide which date and hour is the best for both parties.
with vendor What do we have in common?
4) Gather all materials and tools
without vendor
Commoning Voice Knowledge exchange
How to make objects talk?
Communicate
Empowering creativity
Intervene umbrella or make a poster using the stencil Translate
Create movement Repeat
ZE
BE ON THE STREET SAMPLE SEMISTRUCTURAL INTERVIEW
Name:__________________________________________ Sex: F M Approx. Age:_________ Date and Locations:_______________________________ Tell us how and why you started vending? Before you were a vendor, what were you doing? In that time, what was your perception of street food vending? and why? Tell us your first experience as a street vendor: were you selling the same thing? what did you use to vend? what problems did you encounter? If you were not vending on the street, what do you think you would be doing? What are your motivations for vending? Does anyone help you with food preparation? Getting the food? Selling? Is vending enough to support you and your family? How much do you spend in food, transportation, permits, etc.? Who in this space do you normally interact with, in addition to the customers that come and go? Where do the police normally patrol? What aspects of this place are important to you? With which vendors do you have a good relationship with? Are there any vendors with whom you have problems, why? How do you envision your neighborhood? What do you think is a problem that needs to be addressed in the neighborhood or city? What is the greatest memory you have while vending?
RESEARCH
GETTING TO KNOW WHO YOU ARE WORKING WITH
vendors with permits (check the sticker on side of cart)
When preparing to do your research and conducting your labs, make sure to know which type of cart the vendor you are reaching out uses to vend. This may be a conversation starter in terms of what questions to ask in addition to getting to know the story and motivations that drive that person to vend. 0/24
3
6
9
12
15
18
21
7 hrs
Non-permit Grill
5 hrs
7 hrs
Non-permit cart
9 hrs
11 hrs
Permit Pushcart
11 hrs
Food Truck
12 hrs
6 hrs
Fruit Stand Non-permit cart
Not all vendors have the same schedule. Be sure to ask when is the best time to work and to talk to them.
GETTING TO KNOW THE SPACE
ONS
A
Article 17-307: Judge determines the fine for carts that are in bus stop, w/in10 ft. of crosswalk/subway/driveway
B
Article 17-307: Judge determines the fine for carts that are against a building or structure
C
Article 89: $1000 fine for failing to have a permit decal on the cart
D
Article 89: $1000 fine for the cart not abutting the curb
E
Article 89: $400 fine for the cart taking up more than 10 feet of linear space on the sidewalk
F
Article 17-307: Judge determines the fine for carts that are on a sidewalk less than 12’ wide.
*
Chapter 6.01 24R RCNY- $200-$400 fine for non-processing cart selling processing food
*
Article 17-307: Judge determines the fine for carts that are vending at restricted time or place
12
F B
C: $1000
’-0
”
E: $400 ”
’-0
10
D: $1000
A
When operating on the street, please be informed of the many regulations that govern street food vending. For instance, the vendor may not exist physically or operationally outside of a 5’ x 10’ footprint. The above diagram demonstrates the reprecussions and fines that occur when not followed. Please follow the below checklist to begin to understand your spatial operations.
Is the cart... within 20 ft. of a commercial storefront? within 10 ft. of a crosswalk? within 10 ft. of a bus stop? on a sidewalk less than 12 ft. wide? permitted? (check for permit sticker) against the curb? against a building? within 10 ft. of a subway entrance? physically and operationally within 5 ft. x 10 ft.? within 20 ft. of a residential exit? a green cart?
LABS WITH A VENDOR
WHAT DO WE HAVE IN COMMON? CULTURE - PRODUCTION - FOOD a lab for the exploration of contradiction & the Co-Production of Change through Commons
What’s Needed: Blank Index Cards, Blank Paper, Drawing Utensils Toolbox + The Vendors Vision Program Manual What’s About to Happen: This will be a conversation of the cultural importance of an item that the vendor sells. During this conversation, you will make a recipe / cultural procedure for how the food is made. You will through this process identify what it is that the cart is unable to perform to make that food and find notions that food production on the street isn’t all that unlike what happens in your own kitchen. Through questions highlighting the contradictions of street vending laws and regulations of the street to the unmet needs found embedded in that practice as a result. How can the vendor build on what they are already doing through imagining a facilitative device? How do we constantly frame this practice as one that lives on the street, in a space we deem public? How is food and the production of food bring us together in this space? In the Vendors Vision Program manual, you will also find reference pages that lay out the laws and regulations for space and street food vending. This process blurs seeing, thinking, speaking, making and doing for the creative process to take flight.
ORGANIZE
LABS WITHOUT A VENDOR
HOW TO MAKE OBJECTS TALK? EMPOWERING CREATIVITY- CHANGING MEANINGS a lab to encourage and rethink objects & the way they talk to have other meanings
What’s Needed: Glue, Drawing Utensils, Paint, Strings, Scissors... Toolbox + The Vendors Vision Program Manual What’s About to Happen: This would be a way of appropriating the street with your thoughts. Grab any of the materials the vendor uses in his/her everyday. Think of something you would like the object to say about an issue that concerns you referring to public space. Look around, what do you see, what would you like to see, why is the space how it is, and what would you like for the space to be. Through words, painting, repositioning, collage, etc. make an intervention to change the function of the object you found. With this intervention the object acquires a new meaning. Think of all the things you can be saying! Empowering and rethinking about objects you can tell stories, protest, imagine new scenarios and change your place. Also, you can start questioning certain objects that are taken for granted but really change how we relate or communicate with public space. This process will allow for people to use the existing spaces and objects and to see them beyond the material and physical. It will spark creativity and challenge to think of the city, its objects, design and people in a whole different way.
WHAT YOU NEED TO SET-UP 1
GATHER YOUR MATERIALS
3- ACRYLIC PAINT ($4.62) 1- SURFACE PLYWOOD-4’x8’ ($12.32) 1- DUCT TAPE ($3.93) 3- FOAM BRUSHES ($0.75) 1- PAINT TRAY ($.98) 2- LAUNDRY CARTS ($40.00) 1- ACRYLIC COATING ($8.63) 1- CLOTH ($9.98)
2- POSTERS ($10.00) 3- SCISSORS ($8.49) 1- BOX OF PAPER (20.69) 1- GLUE (2.49) 2- YARN (1.30) 1- BOX OF INDEX CARDS ($13.99) 1- BOX COLOR PENCILS ($.479) 1- LADDER ($32.30)
*This prices are approximations and may vary. The prices are above are for each unit and not the total.
2
3
4
REST A SURFACE [PLYWOOD] BETWEEN 2 CARTS MARK OUT WITH TAPE YOUR SPACE (5’x10’)
CONDUCT THE LAB!
BE ON THE STREET
CREATING THE MOVEMENT
STEPS FOR CREATING THE GRAPHIC CAMPAIGN. 1
2
3
4
5
6
Take the paper, blank or with already a prompt stenciled onto it. From conversation, decide as a collective with the vendor to help determine what story should be told. Take the stencils and paint letter-by-letter the message with the acrylic paint (*Black acrylic paint works best.) Let the paint dry for 15 minutes, but continue to discuss. Spray with coating to prevent against the elements (rain, wind, sun, etc.) Let dry for another 15 minutes. Reflect, discuss, document!!
THE DOING
[POSTERS]
THE DOING
CREATING THE MOVEMENT
[UMBRELLA]
STEPS FOR APPROPRIATION 1
Take the umbrella.
2
Choose a panel to begin.
3
From conversation, decide with the vendor what story the umbrella should tell.
4
Take the stencils and paint letter-by-letter the message with the acrylic paint (*Black acrylic paint works best.)
5
Let the paint dry for 15 minutes, but continue to discuss.
6
Move the umbrella far from the cart and spray with coating to prevent against the elements (rain, wind, sun, etc.) Let dry for another 15 minutes.
7
Reflect, discuss, document!!