Pope.L: Is it really true that there are spirits in there?
There is something in there, isn’t there?
I remember it was one of those things that started out fairly innocently,
but just got out of hand.
A protest here that turned into a riot.
and they closed the park.
It really changed the neighborhood.
I thought it would be an interesting site to do a work that didn’t require language,
it just required an action.
A simple action, and that was simply to crawl.
I’d been writing a lot.
I mean, that’s all I did.
I was sort of getting written out, and I needed to find a more direct way
of making things happen, culturally.
It’s kind of uplifting, crawling.
If you’ve never tried it, you should.
I was out here, and I was basically along this.
The landscape of course was a bit more empty at that time.
You know, I had pretty much the run of the place, as it were.
If you’re crawling on the street, you discover all kinds of things, you know…
insect life, sometimes dead matter, piles of larvae, or…
It’s amazing the kind of things you find, if you’re that far from it.
It was a performance, so you know, when you do a performance you have to have some surface
that tells people who you are.
So I had to figure out like who was I?
And I realized: I was going to work!
Yes I was.
The suit I was wearing, it was wool.
And it was very warm.
It must have been like 98°
I decided I needed company, so I bought this dandelion, and I said, okay,
my goal is to protect this flower.
Eventually, I met this man, he sees this guy, crawling, and that’s why I never got any further…
‘cause, uh, Wesley, I think his first name was, uh, came over to help me,
and I disappointed him, because I didn’t need his help.
It’s not just crawling, it was also where you crawled.
As soon as you go outside, there’s this issue of where are you in space,
and who owns that space.
So I realized that I was setting up a tension when I crawled about being in space,
and how you’re located in that space,
and how you’re supposed to behave in that space, and who can own that space,
and how you can own it.
I think when you start making anything, you covet the place where you live.
I think my New York was different than some of my friends.
They felt that New York was pretty much the same wherever you went in New York,
and I thought the opposite.
I had different lives in New York,
I had the life with my family, that was one life,
and then I had this other life with the people I made theater with,
and I had another life with the people I did art with,
and I had another life with the people I did literature with,
and they were different New Yorks.
My grandmother is, like, real Old South,
you know, she’s not into what does she call it?
Foolishness, and devilment.
I mean, sometimes I would tease her, and I would say, well you know, I do these performances.
"What you mean performances?"
"What is a performance?"
She’s a trip.
Let’s see, now over there used to be my grandmother’s garden.
For one year, she planted cotton.
She thought that the children should know what cotton looks like.
This is where she used to live.
She used to poke her head out of here, and you know, pass plates of food out to the neighbors.
You know my grandmother used to live right there?
Emmett: Oh, in this apartment, here?
Pope.L: Si, si.
Pope.L: Do you live there?
Emmett: Yes.
Pope.L: You do?
Emmett: Yeah
Pope.L: Get out!
Pope.L: Do you mind if I see what it looks like now?
Emmett: Who are you?
Pope.L: My name is Pope.L, and I am the friendliest black artist in America.
Emmett: Hi, I’m Emmett.
Pope.L: Hi Emmett, how you doing?