Week 2_Fiona Casper-Strauss_ The roof is on fire

The artists behind The Roof is on Fire employed a naturalistic environment, authentic conversations between real teenagers in a parked car, and filled the space with an unrelated audience, free to move between (but always outside of) cars and conversations as they wish. This creates a space that gives teenagers active agency to share whatever they wish to, a platform often denied from youth at large but especially marginalized youth. Such candid behavior could give valuable perspective to audiences—the issues that plague youth are often foundational systemic issues that can be overlooked. However, there is no guarantee that this is the actual takeaway. Despite the prompts and shelter of the vehicles, the conversations are not truly candid as the teenagers are fully aware of the situation, and they vary drastically depending on which teenagers are paired together, who the teenagers are, and many more unpredictable factors. Regardless of “the moral teachings” of the event, it seemed to be extremely undeniably successful in one regard: giving teenagers a unapologetic platform for their voices.