First Street Green with Caribbean Cultural Center, African Diaspora Institute, Columbia University, New York University, and The New School present:
Conference | Site Visit | Workshop
2012 IMAGINING AMERICA Conference
Linked Fates and Futures: Communities and Campuses as Equitable Partners?
@ First Park @ 33 East 1st Street, corner of Houston Street & 2nd Avenue, Manhattan
F train to 2nd Avenue; B, D, F, M trains to Broadway-Lafayette; B, J trains to Bowery and 6 train to Bleeker St.
Friday, October 5, 1 – 4 pm
FREE and open to the public
For more information please visit firststreetgreenpark.org or contact Ann Shostrom at 917.553.9035.
First Street Green will host a site visit “Common ground: creating dialogue through place-making”
for the opening day of the national conference, co-hosted by Caribbean Cultural Center, African Diaspora Institute, Columbia University, New York University, and The New School: Imagining America (IA), Linked Fates and Futures: Communities and Campuses as Equitable Partners?
Imagining America (IA) is a national coalition of 90 colleges and universities working at the nexus of publicly engaged scholarship and the humanities, arts, and design. For more information on the conference visit www.imaginingamerica.org.
Speakers include Jorge Prado, architect, co-founder of First Street Green and TODO DA, Lyn Pentecost, PhD anthropologist and Executive Director of Lower Eastside Girls Club; Wendy Brawer, eco-designer, founder and director of Green Map System; Emily Weidenhof, architect and urban designer, Project Manager, Public Spaces NYC DOT Division of Traffic & Planning; Jennifer Lantzas, Public Art Coordinator, NYC Department of Parks and Recreation; Laetitia Wolff, design editor, curator, founder of futureflair/expoTENtial, and director of desigNYC; Elizabeth O’Donnell, architect and consultant to artists for site specific projects, Associate Dean, Cooper Union, the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture.
Conference attendees will interact with community participants to explore place-making as a means to finding common ground. Guest lecturers will start the conversation by discussing goals and presenting strategies. Working within interactive groups, participants will transform the park both intellectually and experientially, and will map the results with drawings and writings. We will negotiate terms between the micro-local of the surrounding neighborhood and the macro-local of greater New York City. The act of place-making suspends preconceived notions of what a place is and makes room for new ideas of commonality and community.
