Monday, August 25, 2008

Monday -- Civic Center Park



After a night at Redrocks (see Scott's post) we slept in on Monday. All the way till 9 am. We headed to Civic Center Park first -- the Convention's "free speech zone." Interestingly the park is surrounded by the Denver Art Museum, the Denver Post building, the Capitol, and another state government building (or maybe City hall). In the midst of that is a beautiful park which became home to a few protesters and one very special artist.

The protests ranged from rappers rapping about injustices of the world, folks demonstrating the abuses at Guantanamo Bay, and even some "Nobama" supporters. There was a rumor the Public Enemy was going to play, but I don't think that ever materialized. The best exhibit, in my biased opinion, was a terrific art installation by my friend Tom Loughlin. Tom traveled to Iran a couple years ago and took some photographs of the citizens of that country. His exhibit is called Pictures of You Iran (www.picturesofyouiran.com) and highlights how similar people are regardless of what country they are from. The exhibit itself is a large structure that looks a little like a Mosque but has photographs hanging throughout it. You walk through the structure, viewing the photographs that Tom took from all sides. It's interesting the responses that people had. One guy came up to Tom early that morning and said, "I want to come back here and blow this thing up." Tom asked the man why and explained what he was trying to do in creating the exhibit in the first place. The man walked through the exhibit and after more discussion changed his mind. He saw that the people photographed were just regular people like him. Another man was less convinced. He appreciated the sentiment but still held that the exhibit was propoganda for the Iranian government. The exhibit was left out in the middle of the park overnight. We'll see if it's unphased tomorrow morning.

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