Jonathan Taube has exhibited nationally and has studied at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts in Louisiana, the Idyllwild Academy of the Arts in California, and is currently a junior at the Maryland Institute College of Art majoring in Interdisciplinary Sculpture with a concentration in Curatorial Studies and Environmental Design. Taube’s works are an interaction with his environment and its social-political ecology. In the spring of 2008 he designed and directed the Baltimore Sweep Action Parade: Toward the Center for the exhibition, Beyond the Compass, Beyond the Square in Baltimore’s Mt. Vernon Place. In the fall of 2008 he created the fictional Invasive Species Containment Agency for his month long solo exhibition Detainees: Ailanthus Altissima at MICA’s Pinkard Gallery, where Taube comically portrayed detention officer of the common invasive “Ghetto Palm,” ascertaining the plants on frivolous charges and detaining them in the gallery. He has participated in George Ciscle’s Exhibition Development Seminar for two years with the recent opening of Follies Predicaments and Other Conundrums: the work of Laure Drogoul. Taube is currently studying the history of Urban Renewal and the historically segregated policies of Baltimore city.

I propose to initiate a new subdivision of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), tentatively called the Arts Right to Space Act of 2009 (ARSA) as a fictional attachment to the OMB Budget requirements of the Barack Obama Stimulus Package. The ARSA’s initiative is to creatively secure physical space in the urban environment for artful use. Participants will create applications under federal guidelines to have the right to enact artistic practices in Title 1 Art Slum Areas. An information office will be established at the H & H site to promote awareness of HUD’s ARSA. Real estate agents and property assessors will be available by appointment to share the opportunity for Artful Occupations. Participants may apply for artistic use permits and subsides. They will receive a tour of the area and have an opportunity to broker a Deed of Artistic Claim.