Whitney Johnson

9/2/15
ISU Visiting Artist Lecture: Annie Adams

Annie Adams is an artist who creates and organizes interventions. I might define an
intervention as an act that breaks us out of an accepted or unquestioned daily routine. Adamss
work, such as People Tend to Sit Where There are Places to Sit, intervenes with our everyday
lives by changing our vernacular reaction to it. Adams works with public spaces, such as open
storefront verandas, empty sidewalks, or alleys. People are often included in the media
description section of her artworks.
To change our perception of a public space and make it welcoming and inhabitable,
Annie Adams focuses on concepts of placemaking and tactical urbanism by reinterpreting
urban environments. Typically, urban and micro urban environments are originally designed by
organizations such as the US Department of Transportation. Adams, who used to think this was
stuff other people dealt with, believes it can be an artists duty to intervene and add quality to a
space.
Following this interventative nature, Adams works transparently. Her past works involve
public spaces and speakers, which repeatedly play her voice in recorded phrases such as, Im
sorry, that never should have happened to you that way. Her work brings playful, eerie, and
provocative elements of human connection into potentially isolating areas. She hopes to bring
liberation to participants by sparking awareness and jumpstarting community rituals.
Adams explained that she had been asked, whats the difference between an artist and
an urban planner? Adams then compared herself to an Alderman or a Mayor by positing that
she had nothing to lose while speaking out at community meetings. This can be seen as
another intervention, since artists seem to have an unspoken ability to move more fluidly
between various social spheres, roles, and responsibilities compared to more conventional

occupations. However, Adams seemed to be challenging that difference in the first place by
evening the playing field. In other words, her projects such as People Tend to Sit Where there
are Places to Sit, and her numerous Bike Parades, encourage citizens to be agents of change
and activate control in their communities and environments.
After Annie Adams leaves a space, the perception of it is changed for participants. A
person who might have been scared to go biking in his/her neighborhood might now feel
completely safe and involved. Her work sparks future interventions, as community members
continue to keep these traditions going. However, once a temporary placemaking becomes
more common, ritualistic, and expected, does that change its power as an intervention?