i arrived in Dancer mode, but walked away learning some super cool tech stuff! Now i know how to transform video of a moving body into an anonymous silhouette, and then play with the colors, speeds, scale, and all sorts of other design aspects.

This is a key ingredient of my Dance Lab vision, where people are dancing in a space, surrounded by large-scale projections of their own silhouettes moving to the music. The name of the magical software is Isadora.

And get this… there was a raffle for a free copy of the pricey software - and guess who won it?! Now i have all the tools i need. So GRATEFUL! Just need to keep learning!

DanceHack SF is an annual San Francisco-based event that brings together performers and developers to inspire one another and experiment with emerging technologies, here in the SF/Bay Area and around the world. This year was the 5th annual DanceHack SF, the 3rd co-presented by Kinetech Arts and CounterPulse.

DanceHack takes place over two days. On Saturday and most of Sunday, teams of Dancers and Hackers collaborate, combining their expertise to create unique performance experiences. There are fascinating and inspiring workshops both days. Then Sunday evening, the Showcase features the original works we developed.

Credit: Open Architecture Collaborative

“Equity: just and fair inclusion into a society in which all can participate, prosper, and reach their full potential”

— PolicyLink

PATHWAYS TO EQUITY is a design leadership experience for social equity, grounded in the values of inclusion, access, co-creation, equity, diversity, justice and reciprocity. And i get to be one of 24 Fellows for this inaugural program!

The Fellowship runs Sept 2018 - Apr 2019, is led by Shalini Agrawal and Garrett Jacobs, and is a collaboration between Open Architecture Collaborative and Association for Community Design. 

We are learning proactive processes such as active listening, engaged research, personal self-reflection and responsive iteration towards responsible social impact design methods. And we get to absorb these rich lessons through designing and implementing public projects side-by-side with community partners. The lessons are not without their pain points, yet overall, i’m squealing with excitement to have this opportunity.

Equity is a big word. What do the leaders of this Fellowship mean by Equity? In this context, equity is “just and fair inclusion into a society in which all can participate, prosper, and reach their full potential." 

Feeling deeply grateful and inspired by this opportunity to continue learning such a critical life lesson, being a human in these days and times. I have a lot to learn - about the grossly imbalanced privilege and pervasive oppression built into our everyday systems and structures, about showing up as a middle-class white woman in my work, and about what it takes to be a true ally. 

“Now I see the clear metaphor for how I’ve been handling a project at work, and feel more prepared to make some decisions.”

— R.M. - a Mover @ Movement Club

Movement is an innate need that brings us truckloads of benefits. Sometimes, though, we're not very good at incorporating this cure-all antidote into our everyday lives, and being in a facilitated group environment can help. But... not everybody feels welcome walking into a dance/fitness/yoga class - and not everybody has $15 to do so. 

Movement Club is a free, facilitated, creative movement experience. Although structure and prompts are specific, the Movers can use those parameters to explore exactly what works for their individual bodies. Want an intense workout? You can have it. Prefer a slower meditative experience? It's yours. All bodies, every body is welcome at Movement Club. 

All humans have a sense of movement, technically called the kinesthetic sense. Other senses (sight, sound, touch) give us information about the world around us, while the kinesthetic sense tells us what is going on within ourselves.

What happens when we shift our awareness from the external visual to the internal kinesthetic?

After attending Movement Club, common feedback includes seeing patterns in the body's movements that reflect patterns in life. For example, one Mover shared, "I noticed I had difficulty making sudden movements; I realized I was scared to not be certain of what comes next. Now I see the clear metaphor for how I've been handling a project at work, and feel more prepared to make some decisions." 

Movement Club offers a unique playful way to be with your own body, at your own depths and your own pace. 

I just returned from two weeks in Tucson, Arizona, where I was extremely fortunate to be trained in Barbara Mettler's approach to dance. Referring to the seemingly generic name she gave her life's work (i.e., Creative Dance), Mettler insisted no other words better describe the ongoing process of improvising our movement impulses, both on and off the dance floor.

(Upon arrival to the airport, i took a tumble off the curb and sprained my ankle, hence the cast in the photos. It turned out to be a gift, spending much of the time observing the teaching process and student response from the sidelines.)

Creative Dance is rooted first and foremost in Freedom. It is not about choreography or performance, but instead about dance being a basic human need. The art of movement is central to all other arts (e.g., there must be motion for us to hear a sound). 

We typically think of dance as a visual art, but in fact, it first is a kinesthetic art - feeling the movement impulses from the inside. The body is not the creative material; it is the instrument that "plays" the material, aka the movement impulses.

The teacher training helped me see new ways to make movement accessible to all, especially "non-dancers." Dancing has been my sanctuary. After even a few minutes shaking it out in my living room, I am a new human animal. These primary experiences have shown me the power of physical movement - that when we move our bodies, we open new possibilities to move our thoughts, our actions, our world.

And we understand more about what a person is communicating through their movements than through their words. Like Play, i believe Movement is a universal language. To continue this study, I will be facilitating Movement Club in Oakland with the intention to make it a weekly gathering of movers and shakers and twisters and wigglers.

Red Bull Creation is a 72-hour innovation competition that gathers Artists, Makers, and Hackers to create something new in response to a specific design challenge or topic. The ongoing event is produced by New Creatures in partnership with Red Bull.

In its 6th edition, we brought Red Bull Creation home to Oakland, CA. And the theme is fitting: Bridges Over Walls. Red Bull Creation 2018 has two key differences: (1) individuals apply instead of teams, and (2) all Participants are local to the Bay Area. What this means is that the teams are made up of strangers who never have worked together, and likelihood of fostering future relationships and collaborations is greatly increased. We worked hard to bring as much skill diversity as possible to the "un-competition;" a team may include a metalworker, a software programmer, a social engagement artist, and a carpenter!

On June 18, Participants met their teammates at the Team Announcement Party - and learned the design challenge. These experts came together across age, gender, culture, discipline, and geography to respond to this year's challenge:

Build a Creation that connects strangers in public space.

After 3 full days of brainstorming, designing, prototyping, refining, and making, 35 exhausted Participants were high on collaborative accomplishment. All agreed they built countless intangible bridges to overcome both internal and interpersonal walls, and walked away having gained new self-awareness and friendships.

Immediately following the live build, teams presented their Creations to the esteemed judges. Then we revealed their 10 interactive Creations to the public and announced winners at the afternoon street party... complete with live DJ sets by Oakland favorites the B-Side Brujas and Indy Nyles, as well as a special panel hosted by Gray Area Foundation for the Arts exploring the power of public art and technology to build community.

Less than one week later, Participants were proud to put their Creations to the true test -- 10,000 strangers attending Oakland's First Friday Art Walk. I overheard one attendee say, "These inventions are so cool. And I love how you can hear a sea of giggles at every piece!" Success.

Social >Movement Lab combines the superpowers of curiosity, story-sharing, listening, movement, imagination, and co-creativity to instigate meaningful dialogues, to reveal deeper understandings, and to birth belonging.

 

Work In-Process: Vision + Design + Prototypes

SUMMARY

Paid Community Researchers share with one another their observations and experiences of Othering and Belonging. With key words from their stories, they are guided to respond with physical movements and body shapes. These movements and shapes then are transformed to anonymous digital silhouettes. These silhouettes, along with physical journals, audio stories, drawings, choreography and other outputs, make the creative material for a public installation that births new awarenesses around Othering vs the Belonging.

WHY?

Othering vs Belonging

Othering is the source of our most wicked problems, whether political, social, environmental. In their article "The Problem of Othering: Towards Inclusiveness and Belonging," john a. powell and Stephen Menendian define Othering as "a set of dynamics, processes, and structures that engender marginality and persistent inequality across any of the full range of human differences based on group identities." In its simplest form, Othering is when we believe "our way is right, their way is wrong," "i am better, you are worse." If we can find ways to eradicate Othering in humans and within the structures run by humans, we can move towards universal Belonging. To activate these radical shifts in our social fabric, we must better understand Othering and Belonging.  

• How do Othering and Belonging show up in our most routine human relationships?

• What are ways to encourage deeper self-reflection, empathy, and cultural humility?

• How and why do symbols and rituals that embed Belonging become tools to fuel Othering?

• How does systemic exclusion prevent universal participation in imagining a collective future?

• When and how does Othering at the human level morph into Othering at the systemic level?

• What pathways exist to unveil systemic Othering and inject institutional accountability?

• What does systemic cultural humility and inclusion look like?

These questions represent a deep curiosity i have had since before i could understand anything beyond my feelings of shame for having a facial anomaly, or my feelings of confusion at the "important difference" between Tyler and Tyrone. Still i peel away layers of naïveté every day. Using this project as a tool, i am eager to deepen my own and others' learning, to co-discover new approaches, and to expand the sense of Belonging in East Bay communities and beyond. 

First prototype - Intro page

First prototype - journal pages

WHAT?

Stories > Movements > Artistic Co-Creations

Humans will be paid as community research artists and scientists. They each will be given a Journal of Othering & Belonging. This custom-designed, professionally printed notebook is a place to record daily observations and experiences of Othering & Belonging, from multiple perspectives. The current prototype being tested includes verbal, emotional, visual and kinesthetic documentation options.

On a weekly basis for four weeks, Community Researchers form a Circle to share their stories of Othering & Belonging with one another. Ideas to explore could include (1) when and where individual othering morphs into structural othering, (2) why symbols and rituals of belonging become tools to enforce othering, and (3) what is each Circle’s collective vision of inclusion. While maintaining Researchers’ privacy, noninvasive systems of documentation gather findings. (Consent underlies every element of Social >Movement Lab.)

• Will patterns emerge?

• Will definitions change over time?

• How will the sense of belonging evolve within the group?

• How do the Circles compare and contrast with one another?

“The fact that we are here and that I speak these words is an attempt to break that silence and bridge some of those differences between us, for it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken.”

— Audre Lorde – The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action

For the next four weeks, Community Researchers form Movement Club. In response to my structured facilitation around anonymous key words and images from the journal stories, and possibly other stories sourced from the public, Researchers move their bodies. For example, verbs and adjectives extracted from the Othering and Belonging stories elicit movement impulses. Curricula is rooted in my yoga, meditation, and dance trainings (although a casual observer may not recognize any of those modalities in this less formal, more playful experimental style of facilitated movement).

Movement Club is not about creating visual choreography, but rather focuses on increasing awareness of internal sensations and what the body wants to do with a given prompt. Ultimately, when the Community Researchers are ready, we record the shapes and movements and transform them to digital silhouettes. Being recorded always is optional, and can be done in ways that maintain anonymity. Reason #26 why i love working with silhouettes.

The digital silhouette images will be the artistic foundation of an immersive environment (e.g., large grid of various black body silhouettes on solid color backgrounds, on each of four walls). Imagine this! The images derived from shapes and movements with Othering stories will be displayed. Then each silhouette tile in the grids change to images derived from shapes and movements with Belonging stories. Will the difference be obvious, either visually or viscerally? 

By the end of Movement Club, Researchers are ready to perform live! They are guided to either co-choreograph a performance or prepare for an improvisational piece. i have frameworks to facilitate either method, depending on group desires. Using elements of force, time, and space, the group's shapes and movements spawn from their felt senses of Othering & Belonging. 

Throughout the multi-phase project, a huge quantity of creative material is generated. Possibilities for public exhibition are endless.

• Stories can become audio and video files.

• The public can contribute stories of Othering and Belonging via online platforms and in-person participatory research stations.

• Journals themselves can be displayed en masse (e.g., Othering stories from the ceiling, Belonging stories outreaching in an embrace from the wall).

• Elements of journals can spawn installations (e.g., emotions as data visualizations, sketches of symbols and images, body charts of physical sensations, etc.).

• Community Researchers can develop tangible objects from their shapes and movements (e.g., shadow tracings), displayed digitally or otherwise.

• Movement Club can generate sounds to amplify the rhythms and irregularities of Othering and Belonging.

• Community Researchers can develop virtual reality objects to produce a VR immersion of silhouettes.

• Online and analog portals can gather artistic contributions from the public, while forming a repository of Othering & Belonging.

Although i see clearly the design, processes, mediums, and formats to be used in the exhibition, i absolutely am open to and expecting new ideas born from the co-creative process and stakeholder feedback as the project progresses.

WHO?

Circles of 12 > Venn Diagram > The S'MOB

The core of Social >Movement Lab is its humans. East Bay residents of all kinds are invited to apply to be paid Community Researchers, and once selected, form three groups of 12. (12 is based on work of Edward Hall, Priya Parker, and others.) Using the right outreach methods are crucial to inform residents of the opportunity. Collaboration with community partners, such as neighborhood coalitions and social justice organizations, guides outreach and selection. Time will be invested in getting to know the communities upfront. Hyperlocal geography makes meetings most accessible and increases potential for sustaining meaningful relationships.

• Could "decision-makers" in the systems and structures of Othering be engaged to join us?

• How might we welcome and encourage all spoken languages?

• What are benefits of more diverse versus less diverse groups?

i am not the most appropriate facilitator. A cohort of Community Leaders co-creates with me the framework for the Circles of 12, including structure, agreements, and prompts. They are experienced in supporting diverse groups to maintain safe, respectful space. My Pathways to Equity Fellowship begins September 2018. i am strengthening my muscles in active listening, participatory public research, personal self-reflection, and responsive organizing methods - through the lens of equity and justice.) 

Sharing Stories

Movement Club

Artistic Co-Creation

Expanding the Circle

Some Community Researchers may not wish to continue into Movement Club. (Payment milestones correlate with levels of participation.) The Circles unite for Movement Club, specifically designed for every body, regardless of perceived skill or ability.

The Researchers then embark on Artistic Co-Creation. (Those who do not participate in Movement Club are welcomed back into the mix.) By now, a "Social Movement of Belonging," or S'MOB, is emerging. The mob that so often is a mechanism of Othering transforms into an exploration of "Movements Of Belonging." What might a Social Movement of Belonging look like, act like, move like?

Community Researchers are supported to step fully into the role of Artist. With past projects, i have seen hundreds of participants enter as self-defined "non-artists" and exit knowing they are artists. In Social >Movement Lab, these community artists become stewards of Belonging. The co-creation process includes ideating, designing, and implementing ways to Expand the Circle at the public exhibition. An important element to me is that the artistic outcomes contain ways to invite real public interaction in deeper ways, whether by (1) contributing artistic material that enhances the artwork in real-time, (2) offering their own ideas for application, adaptation, and/or expansion of the project, or (3) receiving resources to implement [elements of] the project in their own worlds.

We celebrate and honor the Community Researchers and their efforts.

HOW?

Eyes & Ears > Sensing Kin > Public Imagination

From the onset, trusted longtime community resident organizers are being consulted for feedback on each phase of Social >Movement Lab - and are being compensated for their wisdom.

After being introduced to the concepts of Othering & Belonging, Community Researchers are tasked with documenting examples in their day-to-day lives.

• What will be the impacts of this new awareness muscle being exercised each day?

• Will their own definitions of Othering & Belonging transform? Will their actions begin to change?  

On a weekly basis, the Researchers choose which stories to recount to the Circle. Facilitators guide the group in ways of sharing and ways of listening that foster a sense of safety and respect, while aiming for collective empathy. Every Researcher arrives to the Circle with a different context, and offer something of tremendous value in sharing their stories.

• What will be the experience for each Researcher of being listened to, of being seen?

• What will be the obstacles to sharing these stories? By opening eyes and ears, will minds open, too?

• How will this meta-activity of Belonging impact their journal entries and sharing?  

“When the whole person, including body, emotions, and mind, is involved in a movement, we can experience ‘movement feeling.’ This feeling cannot be named. It is not specific like fear, hunger, pain, rage. It can be identified only by its qualities. For example, a dance called ‘Slow Dance’ can express all the emotions associated with slowness without being limited to any single one. It is an abstraction. Abstract form is universal. Different people have different daily experiences of slowness, but all can understand the meaning of ‘slow.’ ”

— BARBARA METTLER, DANCE AS AN ELEMENT OF LIFE

The journal provides space to record kinesthetic experiences, in the form of physical sensations, postures, and movements. This initial practice of noticing "felt senses" is a warm-up for the second phase of the project, Movement Club. Movement - like art, play, food - is an innate human requirement for well-being and a universal system of expression. Often we can communicate in body postures and movements what words cannot, and we can hear ourselves through different ears. All humans have a sense of movement, or kinesthetic sense. Other senses (sight, sound, touch) give us information about the world around us, while the kinesthetic sense tells us what is going on within ourselves. What happens when we shift our awareness from the external visual to the internal kinesthetic? 

These movement sessions are playful yet insightful. We start with very basic movement activities and build towards integration of themes from the journals. For example, the first session's prompts may include words like "wiggle," "stretch," and "twist." Eventually, we add the adjectives and verbs from the journal entries to derive shapes and movement impulses. The trust grows with each phase.

As the movement facilitator, I utilize my training as a professional coach to support someone through any intense moments, though my light and experimental style provides participants with the experience best-suited for them.

Community Researchers use all the creative materials produced to co-develop artistic installations and performances. Starting with the general concept and i've envisioned, i guide the group through designing and testing various inputs (e.g., colors, sounds, patterns, rhythms, layouts). Adapting co-creation approaches i've used in Public Imagination Collective, American Arts Incubator, Art of Play, Mad Libs in Motion, Knot Network, and other initiatives, we make art together. These artistic outputs are customizable to partner goals, and ready for exhibition, public interruption, and more! 

Universal Belonging invites all humans to imagine a collective future.

Public Imagination exists where diversity co-creates.

Public Imagination exists where diversity co-creates. Meet My Shadow reveals tangible, dynamic symbols of public imagination, activated through playful collaboration in real-time. Creators must work together to add a human form that interacts with the existing silhouettes. Attention is placed on the intersections, the meeting of self and other. In these basic yet intimate interactions, our differences can be celebrated and our collective power amplified.

This work was co-created by the public audience, guided by simple instructions:

1. Choose how you will intersect with an existing silhouette on the wall.
2. Find a playmate to trace your outline in black.
3. Fill in an intersection space with a color.

This project was co-created as part of Public Square 2018, where YBCA Fellows unveiled their yearlong projects through workshops, visual and performance art, dance, music, and more. Made up of the most daring artists, thinkers, and creative citizens from across the Bay Area, each Fellows cohort has been studying a provocative question and exploring ways to spark community engagement and action around these crucial questions:

•         How do we find and empower TRUTH?
•         Where is our PUBLIC IMAGINATION?
•         Can we make CREATIVE DISSENT matter?

My cohort explored Public Imagination, and I loved every minute of it. Gratitude to my fellow Fellows for stretching me and expanding my artistic reach, and to the staff at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts for investing in programs like this and granting me the opportunity.

Cannot give up on it

in the micro-moments -

one last little stretchy effort

discovers the success.

Lack of presence

loses future

of what you wanted 

in the past.

Trust myself

to respond well

- present -

without a plan.

WORK IN-PROCESS.

A coalition / of cultural research projects / informed by radically inclusive collaborations / across cultures and geographies / integrating ART, science, technology, all the disciplines / to develop ongoing participatory public engagements.

Have I mentioned I live two lives? To foster an open mind, I prioritize spending time outside the United States. In Medellín, Colombia, I collaborate with El Hormiguero, a collective of artists, designers, and environmental and social justice workers.

For more than a decade, this motley crew has been fighting the good fight through community arts initiatives, public workshops, neighborhood outreach, design consulting, and human rights campaigns. From amplifying the voice of discriminated and displaced populations to facilitating youth mural-making, this group of intensely passionate humans puts everything they have towards the endless fight for basic equality in Colombia. 

The 2018 International Symposium for Electronic Art (ISEA) happens in Durban, South Africa. At last year's ISEA in Manizales, Colombia, the Durban planning team invited me to support their efforts to engage local communities in a more integral and co-creative way at ISEA. I gladly accepted this exciting challenge and spent five weeks in South Africa in late 2017.

Meanwhile, I was almost halfway through my fellowship at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, exploring the question "Where is our public imagination?" The ISEA team's vision seemed to overlap with this notion of public imagination, and two weeks after landing in Durban, the Public Imagination Collective was formed. How did this come about? 

First, I met with Durban University of Technology, the City of Durban, and as many arts, culture, and community organizations as I could in the first weeks of my visit. Through these meetings and conversations, we gathered an intrigued group of creatives. These dancers, film makers, technologists, graffiti artists, poets, digital artists, community organizers, and data scientists agreed to meet regularly to explore overlapping interests and invent potential public projects.

The topic of social inequity was voted unanimously as the research theme of choice. We took field trips to observe the very tangible inequities in high-density transportation hubs, popular markets, and central plazas. Multidisciplinary project groups formed and work was underway!

As often is the case, I had to depart just when momentum was picking up speed -- but what remained and sustained was a handful of cultural research projects informed by radically inclusive collaborations integrating art, science, technology, and other disciplines to develop ongoing participatory public engagements.

Many of these engagements were featured at ISEA in June 2018, and continue to be developed. More importantly, new partnerships are envisioning new possibilities for social equity in Durban.

One minute we were playing around with our new projection mapping skills. The next minute, we were moving furniture out of the way and wrapping me in plastic.

Enjoy this spontaneous video project with my friends in Bogotá: Juan David Poveda, Vladimir García, and Hugo Alberto Trujillo. It's weird, but don't be scared. We spent only 3 hours on it, and had a total blast!

The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts has a Fellowship program that brings together creative citizens from across the Bay Area - artists, scholars, civic and cultural workers, and other rad humans - to engage in a yearlong process of inquiry, dialogue, and project generation.

And I am fortunate enough to have been selected for this awesome opportunity!

My cohort is exploring the question: WHERE IS OUR PUBLIC IMAGINATION? At first glance, it felt like an easy question. And then we started chewing on it...

Upon arrival to Colombia for the pre-exchange planning trip back in October 2016, i immediately sensed i was in a very special place - though at that time, i could not verbalize why. Colombia would be my last exchange as Director of American Arts Incubator (AAI). In that moment, i decided i would stay on the ground throughout the 28-day exchange and co-facilitate with the chosen artist. This would allow us to update our knowledge of what occurs on the ground so that we could identify misalignments and adapt the program design accordingly, prior to my departure from ZERO1.

Fast-forward nine months, and i am closer to understanding the magnetic polarities of this beautiful country. Conflict is not new to Colombians. According to the International Center for Transitional Justice, "Colombians have endured more than 40 years of conflict as a result of civil war and the evolving organized criminal activity surrounding the drug market. Murders, forced displacement, torture, rape, “disappearances,” kidnapping and extortion are part of the social fabric." Arriving to Medellín to implement an arts exchange program about inclusive peace was naive, to say the least. 

As is the process for American Arts Incubator in each country, the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá declared the social challenge to be addressed. They requested that we focus the program on the idea that peace can be for everyone, not only for those with power. This means that Nathan Ober and i would be facilitating community dialogues around these notions of inclusion and peace, while attempting to guide participants in learning and applying digital art mediums to develop public projects. Yep, two white privileged Americans completely ignorant to past and present realities of the 25 humans staring back at us. I soon realized that almost every person in the room knew only of a Colombia in conflict; most had witnessed a friend or family member killed in the violence. What this does to someone's mode of operation, belief systems, and ways of being, i only can guess.

What fun to be featured on Jeff Shiau’s podcast, Talk Human To Me. Jeff talks with entrepreneurs about everything but being an entrepreneur. Instead, he digs into what makes us angry & happy, what strikes us most about humans, and what we ultimately feel is the point of all of this.

Listen to this personal conversation between Jeff and me, as I stumble through some tough questions and stumble upon some new insights on old truths. 

Image Credit: “Winds of Change,” by James L. Brown, licensed under CC BY 2.0

Idea Seed submitted by: Kate Spacek

A do-it-yourself kit that guides user through construction of a wind chime, using upcycled/sustainable materials — maybe even from their own living space or environment. Each chime is added upon completion of a subgoal, making the wind chime louder and more layered as user accomplishes stated goals. Generates a subconscious sonic connection between self-care and the winds of change.

HAVE AN IDEA YOU WANT TO SEE REALIZED?

NEED INSPIRATION FROM AN IDEA TO EXPAND UPON?

Check out our IDEA SEED BANK for free deposits and withdrawals!

Our City is a national nonprofit working to transform how people engage with their cities. Using the power of art, design, and play, Our City creates large-scale public design events, installations, and workshops. Through the work, residents receive a new platform to imagine and build the future of their communities.

Our City and the City of Oakland partnered to produce the first Our City: Oakland Fair. This first Fair was focused on the theme of play. For three days, Frank Ogawa Plaza (aka, Oscar Grant Plaza) came alive with new public design installations and performances that encouraged Oakland kids, families, residents, and visitors of all ages to play in new ways.

Image credit: Drew Bird Photography

"Oakland has a rich history of civic engagement, arts and culture, and innovation. This creative initiative merges those three areas while inspiring a community driven planning process to determine how we use and maximize our public spaces." 

-- Libby Schaaf, Mayor of Oakland

Image Credit: Drew Bird Photography

Image Credit: Drew Bird Photography

Image Credit: Drew Bird Photography

Reinventing, upcycling, reimagining... all the buzz words apply to this fantastic 72-hour maker competition produced by New Creatures in partnership with Red Bull. And this year's edition lands in the perfect place: DETROIT, at an incredible community-centric anchor called Recycle Here!

The theme for this year’s build-off was “Reinventing the Wheel.” The teams were told to revisit an older idea with the focus being ways to improve their community. Then the clock started and away they went!

The results were superstar! And in just 72 HOURS! A pure and tangible example of what can be created with motivated collaboration. Red Bull's video tells the story better than i can...

Unity Clap opened and closed our sessions

After success in Papua New Guinea, ZERO1 American Arts Incubator continues to Country #2. Kate Spacek brings her spirit of collaborative play to The Philippines' "Capital of Smiles and Sugar" - Bacolod, the largest city on Negros Island. 

With artist Felipe Castelblanco leading the way, Kate encouraged community participants to see their familiar spaces with fresh eyes and objective curiosity. To develop a variety of digital media public art projects addressing environmental health, four groups received grants - with each project taking a unique approach. From custom-designed school kitchens in rural areas to a floating eco-resource library to a youth music video-making education program, these concepts are igniting conversations that won't end any time soon.

Rapid prototyping to trigger discussion of an ideal environment