Knoxville: Recent Developments

In 2006, Chris Molinski of the Art Gallery of Knoxville asked CUP to produce an exhibition about building community in Knoxville, Tennessee. We obliged, sending a research team to research and represent the curiosities of Knoxville’s development politics. Artist Lize Mogel, and writer Angela Starita led the ground crew. Valeria Mogilevich and I produced research and graphic design from the home office. Using the temporary privelege of being an outsider, we built some new relationships between local institutions in Knoxville (an african-american historical archive, a University planning department, the Knox County Historical Museum and a mall developer) and uncovered some patterns -both typical (a history of exclusionary land use policy, million-dollar downtown boondogles) and truly surprising: Knoxville’s spidery shape comes mostly from the fact that it’s a wet municipality in a dry county. Roadside restaurants seeking liquor-licenses have lobbied succesfully for the narrow annexation of the land adjacent to the major inroads to the center city.