User:Headtotail/sandbox

Leslie Dreyer (born 1978) is US-born artist, organizer and educator who creates tactical art, media spectacles and unsanctioned public installations in collaboration with social justice organizations fighting for a right to the city and an equitable future. She has designed tactical art and creative direct action strategies that have been featured in The Guardian, BBC , CNBC, ABC , Mother Jones , AP , Hyperallergic , Huffington Post , The Nation , and the SF Bay Guardian, Glenn Beck's Fox News show , and other outlets. She currently organizes with the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco, the San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition and Coalition on Homelessness, focusing on global real estate speculation, hyper-gentrification and the tech industry's impact on housing and inequality. Her collaborative interventions lift up the voices of those most impacted, and intersections between housing, labor, race and gender justice.

Education
Dreyer earned a BFA in Studio Art at University of Texas Austin, and an MFA in 2015 from UC Berkeley

Career and work
Dreyer lectures and organizes workshops focused on housing justice, techno-capitalism, surveillance and displacement, tactical performance, creative direct action, and media strategies rooted in on-the-ground movement work. She has appeared at Stanford University, UC Berkeley, California College of the Arts, San Francisco Arts Institute, The Art Institute of California, University of Texas Austin, and many community spaces. In 2016 her work was included in Take This Hammer: Art + Media Activism from the Bay Area at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

Awards

 * 2018 SF Arts Commission Grant
 * 2016 and 2018 UC Berkeley American Cultures Engaged Scholarship Artist in Residence.
 * 2015-16 East Bay Fund for Artists Grant for Boom: The Art of Resistance gallery show, Oakland, CA
 * 2014 The Murphy and Cadogan Contemporary Arts Award, SF Bay Area, CA
 * 2014 The Eisner Prize for Art Practice, UC Berkeley, CA

Work with US Uncut
Dreyer designed several actions with members of US Uncut's San Francisco chapter, drawing attention to corporate tax avoidance and cuts to social spending.

Just before Tax Day in 2011, Dreyer, US Uncut and The Yes Men collaborated on a fake General Electric press release that led to an Associated Press article beginning with, "Facing criticism over the amount of taxes it pays, General Electric announced it will repay its entire $3.2 billion tax refund to the US Treasury on April 18."

Two days later, US Uncut SF and Dreyer, with The Ruckus Society and Brass Liberation Orchestra (BLO), staged a flashmob at Bank of America that drew the ire of rightwing commentator Glenn Beck.

The same year, Dreyer and US Uncut SF used colorful costumes and QR Codes at Apple Inc's San Francisco World Wide Developer's Conference to protest the company's tax dodging.

Anti-Gentrification & ​Anti-Displacement Interventions
In 2013, as part of Heart of the City Collective, Dreyer designed a San Francisco street intervention that interrupted a private "tech bus" using public bus stops. Tech buses are a fast-growing network of private shuttles that ferry tech workers to Silicon Valley, and are linked to rent increases in neighborhoods they serve. The action resulted in over a hundred articles in local and international media and set off a series of tech bus blockades led by both Heart of the City and other grassroots groups. On April Fools Day in 2014, a few hours before a key city hearing on a proposal to charge tech shuttles to use public bus stops, Dreyer's Gmuni: Free Luxury Free Market Free for All blocked a bus with a hoaxed opening for a Google program to allow the public to ride private shuttles for free.

In 2015, Dreyer along with Housing Rights Committee of SF, Coalition on Homelessness, Causa Justa/Just Cause, California Nurses Association, SF Tenant's Union, Plaza 16, and Brass Liberation Orchestra filled AirBnB's San Francisco headquarters with balloons, banners, music and free pizza a day ahead of citywide voting on a proposition to restrict short-term rental properties.

In 2016, Dreyer worked with San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition, Coalition on Homelessness and others to transform the site of a burned-out affordable housing complex into an art installation, public performance and protest march calling attention to the housing crisis and campaigning against realtor-backed voter initiatives supporting further gentrification.

In 2018, Dreyer and the Coalition on Homelessness won an SF Arts Commission Grant for Stolen Belonging, an initiative to archive and spotlight personal items stolen and trashed by SF Police Department and City workers during their ongoing homeless sweeps.