Bivy Sac

Shortly after the Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zuccotti Park had been evicted, Occupiers began sleeping on sidewalks in front of banks. They faced a design problem: they were not recognizable as Occupy movement participants, and although these actions were happening in a lot of places at once, they were not legible as connected. These Bivy Sacs were an attempt to solve that design problem. They were practical for the weather, cheap and easy to fabricate, and they ensured that distributed actions could be read as politically motivated and connected. The sleeping bags are part of the symbolic vocabulary of Occupy Wall Street. More than a protest, OWS represents an emergent counter-power infrastructure, a shelter, signifying protection from the weather and from an exploitative capitalist system.