Engineering seniors at the University of Maine are using Buster Simpson‘s shovels to keep the walkways clear on their plaza.
Simpson:
This collective effort provides a passage for undergraduates, serve as a civic effort to save maintenance costs, protects the campus environment from salt and abrasive sand and suggests a mental and physical college credit. Stay off the machines, keep shoveling, peace on earth.
In the 1990s, Simpson began leaving shovels in homeless encampments around the country. On the blade are painted images taken from the Boy Scout manual describing how to dig a latrine. On the handle is a warning, written in both English and Spanish, that human wastes should be buried because “unsanitary camps get busted.” Thus, he places the responsibility for avoiding police action in the hands of the people living there.
I gotta shovel my own walk. With what I pay in tuition, the college can hire people to shovel their walks for me. This is nothing but a guilt trip passing itself off as art. Gimme a break.
Al. I’m guessing you’re not a student at the University of Maine.