Illuminating the Arts-Policy Nexus 

Hi Anonymous (why anonymous btw? You comment is completely valid) Wooloo was asked to submit a blog post about Human Hotel, leading up to our upcoming participation in the Municipal Art Society's forum on "Building Resilience Through the Arts" (March 20th at Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn). So the aim of this article is to explain how Human Hotel works and came about. You can't get much more self-serving than that. In terms of Fairey's previous years of travels, I do not see the relevance? I presume we can all agree that things did not work out very well in this case. Which of course is an extreme example. Usually, public works are not destroyed and artists not attacked, be it physically or verbally. However, such artistic projects too often - in our experience - fail to connect with the local community in the way it could have been possible. This is largely to do with lack of proper infrastructure (including funding) for the visiting artists. The mission of Human Hotel is to improve this situation. Fyi, Wooloo initially began our hosting work in 2009, when we organized the housing of 3,000 international activists with local families during the UN Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen. If interested, you can learn more here: http://wooloo.net/New-Life-Copenhagen Or even better, if you are in New York on March 20, come join us for the Arts Forum discussion. The event is free: http://connect.mas.org/site/Calendar/1070103675?view=Detail&id=100861