Cardboard Animal Parade

Public intervention intersecting with accessible art. Everyone has access to cardboard. It’s low-cost, lightweight, flexible, reclaimed, re-usable, and a feature of everyday life. In Cardboard Animal Parade, this ubiquitous material provides a catalyst for communal engagement and collaborative intervention in the public sphere by leveraging these properties to activate participant creativity.

Parading in the streets is a powerful social and visceral act. This project provides impetus for spontaneous action, but hinges upon meticulous preparation and sharing engagement with both collaborators and bystanders. By having organizers step back from the spotlight as the event begins, and filling key authority roles with participants, this work disrupts hierarchical power structures and activates participant involvement and creative synchronicity.

An example of organic event cultivation, Krawczuk establishes a detailed framework for interactivity and then takes a hands-off approach to the event itself. Once the parameters of success are established, he relinquishes control. This allows for spontaneity to emerge, and a temporary culture of creativity to coalesce within the confines of the event.

By engaging directly with individuals on the street, this project invites joy and movement (aided by 4 different marching bands), and expresses the creative power of crowds in a safe, participatory environment. Part training wheels for civic engagement, part demonstration of the wonder of mass activity, the Cardboard Animal Parade connects impromptu expression with careful organization in a mutually reinforcing dynamic.

The first Cardboard Animal Parade was a communal effort with many wonderful artists and individuals, especially Noona Nolan and Paul Andrew Hayes, as well as many community members and groups.

For more information about this project, click here.