Packard Jennings
Dissent is necessary for a healthy society (not that our societies are currently healthy). Debate, dissent, and radical viewpoints fight against the reductionist monoculture of corporate hegemony. Sure, we are good consumers, but down deep we are so much more. We have been corralled this direction. It is safe, orderly, and bland, but what do we really want society to look like? Let’s debate in the streets. Let’s live it!
– Packard Jennings
Packard Jennings, “Business Reply”, 2006, Digital Prints
Packard Jennings, (Center Wall) (Top) Selection from “Welcome to Geneva”, 2006 ; (Bottom) “Selection from A Day at the Mall”, 2004, Digital print
Anarchist Action Figure, 2007
Mixed media
This hand-made doll was deposited in various big-box stores in the weeks leading up to Christmas 2007. It was left out for customer consideration and brought to the register for attempted purchase. The results are recorded in an attempt to show the ease of commodification of radical ideology. It was reported on the front page of The New York Times on December 24th, 2007.
Packard Jennings, “Anarchist Action Figure”, 2007, Mixed media
Biography
Packard Jennings is a multi-disciplinary artist who uses appropriation, humor, and interventionist tactics to explore the dynamics of public spaces, and to address political and corporate transgressions against public interests. Over the past seventeen years, he has built a practice that employs interventionism, conceptual work, performance, collaboration, and social practice to engage, public and semi-public spheres. He uses these contemporary methods while incorporating the more traditional mediums of sculpture, illustration, installation, and video. He brings a high level of craft to the construction of conceptually compelling objects and is committed to pushing these objects into the broader world to test hypotheses about consumerism, politics, and social space.
He believes in sharing tools and skills with others to affect positive social change. His project, Destructables.org, is a user-generated how-to website of interventionist projects and tactics. This platform encourages anyone to share step-by-step instructions for dissenting actions, such as art actions, protest strategies, and other forms of public dissent.
Jennings has garnered critical attention across a variety of media, including: Artforum, Playboy, Flash Art, the Believer, New American Painting, the Washington Post, and the front page of the New York Times. He has collaborated with Wonderment Consortium, the Yes Men, Steve Lambert, and Helena Keefe. His work has been shown in Geneva, Turin, Paris, Stuttgart, Madrid, Barcelona, Ljubljana, Vancouver, and across the U.S. He still lives and works in Oakland, CA.