no-one's going to give you permission

i'm loving the NYSAT project in new york at the moment. from Cool Hunting:

Finding it difficult to locate a strip of space free from any advertising, Jordan Seiler of Public Ad Campaign did some research and found many of the billboards around New York City are illegal. To propose an alternate use of these city spaces, Seiler organized the New York Street Advertising Takeover, a network of citizens set out to transform the spaces into their own works of art.


aesthetically, there's some really lovely work in there, but what warms my cockles most is the way that we're usually so cowed by the law of ownership and the money changing hands and the simple feeling that public spaces are not OURS. how much time do we lose waiting for an elusive somebody to grant us permission to do something we long to do?


i spend a lot of time waiting for someone to write me a note or issue authorisation to go ahead. but i think i might bunk off.