Part of The Empathy Corporation:
This security guard office was located in midtown Manhattan. We opened business hours from June 22—July 21, 2013 inside of EFA Project Space. Visitors, including security guards, would come up in a traditional brassy Manhattan elevator to the 7th floor. When they entered the gallery, it seemed like a strange office space shared by unlikely cohabitants, like many strange uses of space in Manhattan. Our security office was a part of a group show called Empathy Corporation: A Presentation of “The Hive”. This was presented by A Blade of Grass. The other artists have become long term comrades: Robby Herbst and Piero Passacantando.
Mutual aid network and residency program for rank-and-file Security Guards who question power and property.
2013 Description by Byron Peters and I for The Empathy Corporation:
Poets’ Security Force is not just another mobile alternative Security Firm. Poets’ Security Force is a mutual aid network, as well as a hiring and training firm for security workers who question the intentions of the security industry.
We hire security guards in various capacities and we encourage them to explore their own personal experience of security. We are dormant, though we were previously based in San Francisco and New York City, two highly securitized places. We have worked with security guards in art museums, educational institutions, and in public space.
Through employment at the PSF, we offer guards space, time, and support towards developing methods of addressing the behavioral and psychological results of time spent in the security landscape. We are dedicated to re-forming the ideas and actions of ‘work’, ‘security’, and ‘property’ both on and off the job.