I have to confess that I had a tough time with this project. I couldn't focus on one subject and really deconstruct its meaning and prevalence to the project agenda. I went from questioning the function of religious education to creating a facebook event for everyone to put something on the event wall that describes something meaningful to them (see last blog post). So I sat at my kitchen table, staring at the massive rainfall, and thought, "Why not focus on something that is literally happening now, something that is a concern to everyone in these past few days?" So I decided to transform a natural (and disastrous) occurrence, the flooding from the rain, and place objects in the trouble areas to make it something humorous. I drove around town, perusing the bad areas of my town by Lake Hiawatha, and found a spot right outside the pool I work at. The flooding completely covered the parking lot, and was draining onto the street. I placed a beach chair, beach ball, and "lifeguard off duty" sign on the flood area, and took videos and pictures of the reactions of drivers and passer-by's. I noticed that when I sat in my car, those walking by were more comfortable in stopping and observing the site-specific work. I got a lot of drivers to slow down, and some of them turned to me (I was in a stone parking lot across the street) and smiled and chuckled. The reactions were mostly curiousness, and it drew in the walkers to look into the parking lot and see the damage. Nobody was offended or bothered, they found it to be a humorous reaction to the natural disaster that persisted for days.
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