Art Strike's Back was one response to the unprecedented and unrestricted level of gentrification and displacement that we experienced in San Francisco during the "dotcom boom", impacting individual residents, small businesses, and non-profit organizations.

Click HERE to read the Art Strike's Back Manifesto

Art Strike's Back was an 8-week series of performances that took place between July and August 2000. Events included a site-specific mourning/protest dance for the rapid fire of displacements and evictions in the Mission; an action to hand out 250 signs reading the single word "Home"; a souped-up, revved-up, amped-up low-rider style Camaro charging through a wall of toilet paper that streamed through the air and provided a convenient source for personal hygiene on the street; a tour examining one city block that addressed the state of repression, and urban space, the arts and the art of profiteering, and the political ecology of fire in urban America; a Homeless teacher, asking people she encountered on the street who appeared to be benefiting from the New Economy if they would house her; a grief walk; spoken word queer rants; naked "dot comers" tied together and scurrying frenetically through the street as they discussed their IPO's, stock options, where they're going for dinner, their SUV's and Extreme sports ie. The young emperors have no clothes; a 14-woman synchronized dance troupe who aren't too cool to monkey, jerk and watusi their butts off; a missing person's campaign, searching for those who have been displaced; site-specific performances examining the way that the current dot-com phenomena and its resulting boom economy make assumptions about space and entitlement; the unveiling of the "last Mexican found in the Mission;" a rash of eviction notices served by Evictor to reclaim the Mission's precious space; posters advertising "Black People For Rent" to meet the comfort zone quota for diversity at DCP's (Dot Com Parties); and several new murals in Clarion Alley that ask viewers to consider the changing face and culture of the neighborhood.

Art Strike's Back Organizers: Lise Swenson and Megan Wilson


Art Strikes Back: The Devilettes, Performance, Summer 2000




Art Strikes Back: The Emperor's New Clothes, Performance, Summer 2000