Counting and Collecting (Votes and Trash)

Counting and Collecting (Votes and Trash) is a public forum at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston on Thursday, October 22, from 6 PM to 9 PM. It's organized by political strategist Evan Choate and conceptual artist Mary Ellen Carroll, and it runs just ahead of the November 2026 election. The evening is split into two sessions that frame two civic issues as mirror images: the largely invisible infrastructure of counting votes after an election and the highly visible problem of illegal dumping that disproportionately burdens neighborhoods of color.

Session one, VOTES, starts at 6 PM and is moderated by Texas State Senator Molly Cook, Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth and Harris County Voter Registrar Annette Ramirez. Session two, TRASH, follows at 7:30 PM, moderated by University of Houston Cullen Professor Emeritus of History Martin Melosi, Office of Council Member Alejandra Salinas Policy Director Bryce Randall, Clean the Block Houston's Andrew Beaver and Greater Fifth Ward Super Neighborhood President Joetta Stevenson. Together, they bring elected officials, policymakers, community organizers and activists into the same room to talk about how policy is enacted, experienced and made visible in Houston and Texas.

The forum is part of How To Talk Dirty and Influence People, a career survey of Mary Ellen Carroll curated by Rebecca Matalon, which stays on view at the museum through November 1. Carroll, who founded prototype 180 / Innovation Territories in Houston and co-founded DYKWTCA (Do You Know Where the Children Are?), works with public policy, infrastructure and institutional processes as her artistic materials. The people leading the night come from those same worlds: Choate is a Houston-based community organizer and campaign manager with a PhD in English from Rice University, and Melosi is a pioneering environmental and urban historian and author of Energy Metropolis: An Environmental History of Houston and the Gulf Coast.

It's free to attend, though an RSVP is recommended. The whole thing runs from 6 PM to 9 PM on Thursday, October 22, at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston.