WEEK 3: LOUNGING

I met everyone at the Greensboro Public Library.  The intention was to go on a public art walk around downtown, stopping at key sites along the way.  We wandered up the Green Street Parking deck first, where two years ago the United Arts Council commissioned a mural in the stairwell.  The mural is in spanish and english, and stretches across the four floors of the deck, and can be read in any direction.  I’ve always been rather intrigued by this multidirectional narrative—it can be perceived up and down, down and up, left to right.  After staring out into the Greensboro afternoon on the top floor, we were supposed to treck around down Market.  But one of our class participants, Elsewhere’s community coordinator Aliya, mentioned that she saw a stack of lounge chairs sitting outside for free outside of a building on her way to the library.  So then we took the detour.  Found the chairs, indeed marked free on the top.  What a stack of loungers.  8 I believe.  So we lounged instead of walking.  We lounged on the side of the road.  Then we carried the chairs around the corner and set them up in the park next to Natty Greens.  We lounged there for a long time.  And then we orchestrated our lounging, choreography.  We read magazines in tandem and outloud.  We did the wave.  We switched positions in synch.  So then, after an hour, the loungers went to the patio at the Weaver school, where there can be indefinite lounging.  Two came to Elsewhere’s alley.

It was so wonderful to have a lounging performance, and to interact with everyday street visitors while lounging.  And I am more excited about the impact that lounging will have on the school and the interactions of students, and to work with these found objects to build a better environment.