Suzanne Lacy, Chris Johnson, and Annice Jacoby produced TEAM’s first large-scale performance art event, which featured 220 public high school students in unscripted and unedited conversations on family, sexuality, drugs, music, neighborhoods and the future as they sat in 100 cars parked on a rooftop garage. This one-hour documentary by Craig Franklin aired on KRON Channel 4, the Bay Area’s local NBC affiliate.
◇ The Oakland Projects - The Roof is on Fire (1994)
Between 1991-2000, Suzanne Lacy worked with a broad coalition of activists, artists, youth and politicians under the acronym TEAM (Teens + Educators + Artists + Media Makers) to produce large-scale projects that included youth workshops, media intervention, and institutional programs and policies. Socially oriented public performances with youth in Oakland, California challenged negative media images. Funded in part by the Surdna Foundation, The Nathan Cummings Foundation, Oakland’s Kids First Initiative and many others, this was one of the most developed explorations of community, youth leadership, and public policy in visual arts practice.
