PERFORMANCE/INTERVENTIONS & PROJECTS
* Countless collaborators & performers helped pull off these actions. They are the fruits of all involved.
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Stolen Belonging
2018 - 2023 A multifaceted arts organizing project which documents the belongings taken from homeless residents during the City’s sweeps, revealing the ways in which such thefts steal a person’s ability to belong in their community and the city. Using narrative-based strategy, art, and action, the project amplifies the call to STOP THE SWEEPS, asserting a RIGHT TO REST, and demanding HOUSING NOW. Dreyer worked with Coalition on Homelessness and a team of houseless or precariously housed residents who represent some of our city’s strongest homeless advocates: Couper Orona, TJ Johnston, Sophia Thibodeaux, Meghan Johnson, Patricia Alonzo and Charles Davis. Together, they collected oral history video interviews, photographs and insights from residents impacted by the sweeps throughout San Francisco. See videos and details on the project site. |
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First They Came For Our Homes... Together We Fight Back!
November 3, 2016 Unsanctioned Installation/Intervention/Action I designed and co-organized with San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition, Coalition on Homelessness, housed and unhoused residents. We strung a clothesline of 60 white outfits on the burned out site of previous rent-controlled housing representing the 60 people who lost their homes in the fire. Projected above (onto Vida luxury condos) and framed on the burned out site's gated fence were stories and images of folks who've been displaced, some made homeless, during this housing crisis that I collected from SF housing and homeless advocacy groups. We coordinated this installation with a march down Mission Street where we then moved a white painted studio apartment set into the intersection performing the spectres of the displaced while making demands for a right to a roof and the city. Together we said YES to Homes for All and NO to realtor-backed and hate-filled Propositions P, U, Q and R that would degrade our right to housing. Press here and here. Press showing installation was left up for days here. |
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Evictions, Deregulation, Entitlement, ... Love, Airbnb
November 2, 2015 Intervention/unsanctioned installation I designed and co-organized with Housing Rights Committee of SF, Coalition on Homelessness, Causa Justa Just Cause, California Nurses Association, SF Tenant's Union, Plaza 16, Brass Liberation Orchestra among others. We “shared”/occupied AirBnB’s headquarters and provided free food, music and services for tenants and homeless folks, while demanding a right to a roof and our cities. Press info here and here |
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Reclaim Disrupt
September 10, 2014 - 2015
I launched this project in 2014 at TechCrunch Disrupt (one of the tech industry's biggest conferences of the year) and resurfaced it multiple times on the streets of San Francisco. The bricks, sourced from a San Francisco demolition site, were laser etched with stories of those who have been evicted or are facing eviction. They were for sale for the price of one's hourly wage or the hourly gain of one's net wealth (half of that price if the buyer had been evicted). This elicited conversations about who is valued in the city, who is deemed replaceable and what is lost as rooted communities are disrupted and displaced as the tech boom continues to fuel real estate speculation.
Project site.
September 10, 2014 - 2015
I launched this project in 2014 at TechCrunch Disrupt (one of the tech industry's biggest conferences of the year) and resurfaced it multiple times on the streets of San Francisco. The bricks, sourced from a San Francisco demolition site, were laser etched with stories of those who have been evicted or are facing eviction. They were for sale for the price of one's hourly wage or the hourly gain of one's net wealth (half of that price if the buyer had been evicted). This elicited conversations about who is valued in the city, who is deemed replaceable and what is lost as rooted communities are disrupted and displaced as the tech boom continues to fuel real estate speculation.
Project site.
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Gmuni: Free Luxury Free Market Free for All
April 1, 2014 Designed and organized with Heart of the City Collective and multiple housing rights organizations. Activists and community members came together to stage a blockade in the form of a faux launch party (in front of Google’s luxury coach) for Gmuni, an imaginary Google service allowing the public to ride the private shuttles, “Google Buses,” for free. It unfolded just hours before the SFMTA hearing in which they voted on the legality of letting private shuttles use public bus zones for a mere $1, even though MUNI was in desperate need of funds, and a fare hike was imminent. More info here Press here |
Heart of the City Collective Anti-Gentrification &
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Gentrification Eviction Technologies (GET) OUTJune 30, 2013
Heart of the City Collective's first creative anti-displacement action, a collaboration with Zeph Fishlyn, Annie Danger, Amanda Ream, Fred Sherburn-Zimmer, Nina Rubin, Erin McEl, various housing rights organizations and tenants fed up with speculation and evictions. Tenants facing evictions, queers, artists, and activists put a faux “Google” bus in the San Francisco Pride Parade to spotlight the gentrification and corporatization SF and SF Pride, an event that historically grew out of a riot against police violence. Full project details here |
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Occupy Sesame Street Vs. Murdoch
October 14, 2011
San Francisco, CA Six performers, dressed in business suits with Sesame Street character heads, interrupted media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s keynote address at the national summit of Jeb Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education, which is hailing strategies that standardize and privatize education. The performers chanted character-appropriate slogans like, "O is for Occupy" and "Elmo is for Equality in Education, not Privatization!" The conservative and obedient crowd ripped some of the performers’ cloth heads off during the action. *Inspired by the Occupy Sesame Street photos that went viral the week before Murdoch's address on education. Featured on CNN, BBC, ABC, Associated Press, ... Action Concept, Design, Performer, Video Editor: Leslie Dreyer Collaboration with US Uncut San Francisco and Occupy SF |
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Vampires for Empire Blood Drive
August 23, 2011
San Francisco, CA US Uncut San Francisco, the grassroots anti-austerity direct action group, presented its "Vampires for Empire Blood Drive," dramatizing how corporate greed sucks the economic life force from the nation. The "blood extraction" occurred at 5 different tax dodger locations: Bank of America, Apple, Wells Fargo, Verizon, FedEX. Action Concept, Design, Performer, Video Editor: Leslie Dreyer Collaboration with US Uncut San Francisco Press here |
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iUncut: QR Coding Apple's True Colors
June 5, 2011
San Francisco US Uncut, the grassroots effort pressuring corporate tax cheats to pay their fair share, crashed Apple's World Wide Developer's Conference today, using Apple's own technology to expose the company's systematic tax dodging. As more than 5,000 attendees streamed into San Francisco's Moscone Center to hear new Apple product lines announced, they were greeted by what appeared to be an Apple publicity stunt -- men and women were sheathed head to toe in a rainbow of Apple-colored spandex body suits emblazoned with a giant QR code (like a barcode for an internet address). However, when attendees used iPhone apps to follow the code on the Internet, instead of an Apple product announcement, a new music video appeared, "Apple: Tax Cheating Doesn't Sync with My Values," which is spreading virally on the Internet. Apple was not happy to have their party crashed by creative protest. Action Concept, Design, Direction, and Performer (in purple): Leslie Dreyer Collaboration with US Uncut San Francisco Camera: David Martinez, Andy Menconi, Nikolas Koehler Editing: Andy Menconi Performers: Bakari, Sean, Liana, Leslie, C. Assistants: Myka Neus, Nina Rubin, Aaron, J. Press here and here |
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Pay Up! Flashmob at Bank of America
April 15, 2011
San Francisco US Uncut SF, in collaboration with The Ruckus Society and Brass Liberation Orchestra (BLO), kicked off Tax Day weekend (Friday afternoon 4/15/11) in San Francisco with a flashmob at Bank of America and told them to "PAY UP!" Featured/targeted by Glenn Beck's show Action Concept, Design, Lyrics, Performer, Video Editor: Leslie Dreyer Collaboration with US Uncut San Francisco, The Ruckus Society and Brass Liberation Orchestra |
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GE Press Release Hoax
April 13, 2011
This press release was sent out from GEnewscenters.com (rather than the real GEnewscenter.com) to a few hundred reporters. At least one bit—setting off a media firestorm. More info about the hoax here. Co-written & designed with The Yes Men and US Uncut |
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