This is an article inspired by the work of a dearly beloved Portland insititution called the Rebuilding Center. They are maybe best known for their 30,000 square foot warehouse where you can find pretty much any piece of second hand building supplies for cheap to support your own home repair and renovation (or maybe simply a great art project). When we were doing up our first home, we pretty much visited there on a weekly basis looking for taps, window frames, piping you name it to affordability update our home. It’s a win-win situation – homeowners get affordable new materials, massive amounts of materials are kept out of landfills and therefore less new stuff needs to be produced.
But for the purpose of this article, the importance lies in what this means behind the scenes. When a home or building is no longer habitable, the only way to salvage materials is to dismantle it. To take the structure apart with the same amount of care as with which it was built so the experts can salvage that which is still good and can be repurposed. When something is taken down with a wrecking ball, blown up, or the equivalent, everything gets smashed. The good and the bad.
You can probably see where I’m going with this. The dismantling of so many institutions in the the US in the past few months, feels like the equivalent of a demolition team. Not the mindfulness and care brought by a deconstruction team. It’s felt like smashing everything with a wrecking ball – not caring to see what might be repurposed or reborn.
I also hear the validity in other arguments. That previous, recent attempts to deconstruct systems of colonialism, white saviorism, patriarchy in the international non profit sector, have not created wholesale significant change. If I stick with house analogies, it feels like we have maybe been working in a way that is reminiscent of the way in which I try to renovate my youngest son’s room, where every time I try to throw something out, or even reorganize it, I get massive pushback and so nothing really ever changes except around the edges.
But there has to be a way to dismantle with intentionality. To look at what no longer – perhaps never – serves. To honor those pieces. Apologize for them if necessary. Grieve them and us. And then move them over to the recycling to be melted, reworked and turned into something new. But also to look at those things that should be saved. To celebrate them. Play with them. Experiment and see how they might be put back together differently.
We need to change systems and structures. I don’t believe a wrecking ball is the answer. And I’m committed to adding my hands to the hard work of dismantling.
Note: The picture was taken just down our street. At the bottom of the sign it says, “There are great materials in this building and we’re not letting them go to waste.” That pretty much sums it up.
