JB Pravda,Installation

Proposal:"Thoreauly 'Wall-ed In'----Main Thoughts via Channels from the MainStream of Conscientiousness"

High concept: Historic figures contemporary with and/or inspired by Henry Thoreau pithily comment upon the zeitgeist of this cross-subcultural movement predicted by the late Howard Zinn in his Chapter 12, 'The Coming Revolt of the Guards',  of 'The Twentieth Century' (itself excerpted from his 'A Peoples' History of America'), wherein he foresees (he calls it a hope, not a prediction) the 'guards'-----professionals, academics, and a whole panoply of those in manipulated service to an ever-divisive status quo orchestrated by the 1% wealthy class----finally coalescing around their commonality of interest and their common exploitative adversary.

And, whilst this struggle is hardly new (Marx, Engels, et. al. 's spark of violent revolt having merely replaced oppression using other descriptive names), what is new is Zinn's prescience in being the first to employ 'the 99%' to describe these people, inclusive of their 'guards', and the '1%' at perhaps ten years before his 'hope' became realized.

I propose window exhibits, all rather simple, featuring excerpts from this Chapter 12 aforementioned, featuring a life-size 2D or 3D effigy of Howard Zinn, perhaps with intended shackles in hand, espousing his detailed collective hope, seen variously teaching, then joining then, in 'death' smiling upon its realization.  Along the 'way' of this progression simple foam boarded and weatherized placards invoking encouragement from other deceased prophets, prominently featuring Thoreau, Sam Beckett, Edgar Poe, et. al. whose quotes will suit our time-------calling to mind the staying power of such an antithesis to its polar opposite, change, as the 'status quo' whose Latin name shows it to be an obvious yet normalized (by everyday usage by all) enemy of the 99%.  This time, with the aid of spirits such as MLK and his mentors Thoreau and Ghandi, violence will be the sole device of the 1%, insuring the inevitable favorable outcome of the genius of their model of civil disobedience.

Here's a link to that Chapter, in part, where he uses these now extant terms: 

http://www.harpercollins.com/browseinside/index.aspx?isbn13=9780060530341

Attached are some suggested placards.