On April 1st, five teenager girls, ages 16 to 17, put up question block icons seen in Super Mario video games. The clever public art installation in Ravenna, Ohio got the bomb squad called in. The girls may have to face criminal charges.
The police in Raveena claimed the boxes were part of a game, but according to the website where the girls got the information about constructing the boxes, the installations are “supposed to be a comment on public spaces being routinely used for advertising. Also, despite what Police Chief Randall McCoy says, the purpose of these boxes is not ‘just to see what kind of response you get.’ It is to bring a smile to people’s faces, to get them to connect with their neighbours, to bring colour into an otherwise grey urban landscape.” You can read articles about the incidient here, here, here and here.
There have also been a number of copycat responses (is solidarity with the teenage girls) in cities and town across North America. Check out the photos here.
7 comments
I can only imagine the number of charges Kevin and Lori would be facing if they lived in Ravenna.
Teens can be very frightening.
bomb squad!? I love that Revenna even HAS a bomb squad.
Welcome to the new America. Every box is a threat, every citizen a possible conspirator.
Can I suggest that when you write links you don’t do it like this: here, here, here, and here? Because that’s really difficult to follow and hard to click on, plus the text “here” tells us nothing about what’s in the linked document.
Thanks for the suggestion. It was laziness on my part.
Note that Ravenna is just down the road from Kent State…poetic significance, perhaps…