KIPP Alumni Present “You Can Change Your City”
Last week, Rob, Patrick and I attended KIPP and public workshop’s film event “You Can Change Your City”. Two films by the Center for Urban Pedagogy were presented to inspire local Austinites to use documentary style filmmaking to get the word out about Austin-related issues. There were about forty attendees, most of them seemed to be teachers or film makers, while others were much like ourselves: regular people with a desire to participate in the conversation at large. Overall, the films were interesting, but the presentation by Public Workshop seemed to be the most effective for me. Much of the presentation was intended to inspire the group to think about their city and its spaces in a new way, asking questions such as: “what if you had breakfast in a location where you weren’t supposed to have breakfast?”, “what if you connected a bunch of hula hoops together to add drama to an outdoor space?”, “what if a playground was designed for the elderly as well as children?”, “what if a space was designed to be a game?”. The word “Imagine” was used frequently while images of urban spaces being used in non-traditional ways were projected onto the wall.
Rob, Patrick and I left with a few thoughts that have peppered our conversations since:
- Imagery juxtaposed with inspirational questions is an effective brainstorming technique for a group
- What does a playground for highschoolers look like?
- How does the notion of a “temporary space” change the way we might think about the project?
- Taking the students on a “field trip”, documenting other spaces and the ways people use space might be a fun activity to get them thinking about new ways to design their space
We’ve got a lot of work to do, but we definitely acknowledge the value meetings like this have had on our own creative process as we continue to form this project structure. Its fun to be around other people who are equally as passionate about both inspiring our local youth and “making austin weirder” with their help!
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