Mile End Mapping:
A Map with Back Alleys

“We began talking about the art that isn’t shown. Queer art, activist art, art by immigrants, by minorities in general. Art that has its enclaves, preferably on the periphery, private, elsewhere. Sometimes these enclaves are huge, spectacular even—an exhibition on contemporary Chinese art at the Museum of Fine Arts, for example. Prestigious exhibitions that group artists together according to their country, sex, or social class, reducing the depth and breadth of an artist’s work to its simplest, most obvious aspect, material for new ‘exotica’ at $15 a ticket. And while this same museum, an accepted temple of high art, unashamedly expands to include the worlds of fashion, design, popular music, or cinema, numerous artists, patrons, and critics make sure to exclude from their vocabulary and their practices anything relating to folk art, community, social activism, or politics even.”