In (Re)living Democracy, artists Scott Berzofsky, Lasse Lau, Nicholas Petr, and Nicholas Wisniewski have collaborated with East Baltimore organizers (KIDS/TEEN Scoop, Nia Redmond, Rose Street Community Center, Rose Street Transitional House, Glenn Ross, Save Middle East Action Committee) to turn Baltimore's Contemporary Museum into a platform for participation in a critical dialogue concerning what Lau calls “East Baltimore’s struggle against urban renewal schemes.”

The project is both shaped and informed by two intense months of conversations between the artists and East Baltimore communities and organizers. Working from the project’s focal point in gathering documentation about the impending demolition of hundreds of households and learning from community residents has led Berzofsky, Lau, Petr, and Wisniewski to state that “corporations and private developers are using the law for private profit at the expense of low-income, predominately African-American families in East Baltimore.”

The materials gathered in East Baltimore (interviews recorded, documents, open letters, documentary photographs, etc.) are coupled with information about eminent domain to produce an installation that is both information-rich and interactive.

For the course of the exhibition, the Contemporary Museum windows have been boarded-up so that visitors to the exhibition can gain insight into the alienation experienced by those who live among boarded-up houses in East Baltimore and elsewhere.

(Re)living Democracy will be accompanied by numerous public programs addressing these issues. These programs are posted at www.campbaltimore.org. Info about the Contemporary Museum available at www.contemporary.org.