Blogs from the street
I really like this blog, Urban Weeds. It is a daily street style blog from Portland, where everyone seems pretty amazing. It is a collaboration between photographer Lisa Warninger and blogger/stylist Chelsea Fuss.

I really like this blog, Urban Weeds. It is a daily street style blog from Portland, where everyone seems pretty amazing. It is a collaboration between photographer Lisa Warninger and blogger/stylist Chelsea Fuss.
Mess Hall is an experimental cultural center in Chicago. It is a place where visual art, radical politics, creative urban planning, applied ecological design and other things intersect and inform each other.
They host exhibitions, discussions, film screenings, brunchlucks (brunch + potluck), workshops, concerts, campaigns, meetings (both closed and open) and more. They do everything for free - from food and drinks to workshops and events
There is an interesting article on Experimental Cultural Centers here.
I am not sure if In The Field started Mess Hall, but they are also involved in imaginative uses of space.
They describe their work:
"In the Field's work begins by looking at, listening to, and learning from how people transform the spaces they inherit and build new spaces based on their needs and desires. We seek out and celebrate the enormous creativity of these ordinary actions. Whether appearing as a spontaneously generated public space, in modifications to existing spaces, or in an example of self-housing or community generated urban planning, we take these hyper-local articulations as a rich entry point into understanding the complex ways in which the built environment is shaped."
While I was in Philadelphia last week I had the great pleasure to pop in the Community Design Collaborative based in the AIA offices in the centre of town. I had a chat with Haley Loram (right above) who has been working for the CDC for the past year as a Philly Fellow, a graduate scheme which sponsors individuals to work for non-profit organisations for a year. We met at the Reading Terminal Market - a wonderful place where an incredibly wide range of food is on offer. Haley told me that it was named the Philadelphia 'Sacred Space' by Professor Elijah Anderson because there is no dominant ethnic group.
If you haven't registered for The Big Lunch yet you need to get going. It is the idea fresh out of the Eden Project and it invites everyone to organise or attend a local Big Lunch on the 19th July.
"My interest is in drawing out the common themes and the knowledge built up by people setting up and running spaces like this - and helping build networks that enable this knowledge to be shared.
Been rushing between home and work like a headless chicken? Leaving random lost items strewn across the city in haste? Barging through crowds like your journey is the most important on the street? Forgetting what a lovely place London can be if you take the time to look?
Well for heavens sake sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow down!
Slow Down London - events and ideas to get Londoners to take things at a more sedate pace
Will the downturn compel us to turn inwards, to become a nation of close knit families driven by individual needs? Or will it force unprecedented collaboration, creating a Britain that is focused upon the common good?
Artiscycle is a project to further an understanding of the role of art in building community, creative problem solving and situated learning.
The San Francisco-based interdisciplinary artists collective Futurefarmers presents The Reverse Ark: In the Wake at the Contemporary Museum, starting March 28.
Simon has written to remind us that the One Flag Poster Competition, currently being run by Adbusters, is open for voting. A sample below.
Original post: The One Flag
"At Google, we like to reflect the ever changing world of our users through the logo designs on our homepage. The 'Doodle 4 Google' competition asks young people across the UK to design their own 'Google Doodle' and the winning entry will be used on the Google homepage in the UK on 1st October"
5 year old Tommy Fosbery:
"My Community is Camborne it has alot of trains especially steam trains
on Trevithick Day. I have doodled a steam engine built by Richard
Trevithick because he was important to Camborne and he made engines so
that we can drive vehicles now."
We had such lovely entries - thank you everyone!
"I love Thriving Too because their positive framing of issues helps me to not feel so hopeless about the world; their diverse collection of resources lets me know how others are actively tackling social problems and this encourages me to keep trying; and they just seem like awfully nice people."
A great video from one of my favourite publications,Good Magazine which shows the impact of volunteerism - based on US stats but meaningful where ever you live....
Youth worker Nelsa Libertad Curbelo Cora describes the inspiration behind Barrio de Paz (Peace Town), a non-violent youth movement in Guyaquil, Ecuador. Barrio de Paz brings together street gangs to provide services to the struggling community. Gang members band together out of a need for unity, structure, and love when their social fabric has been torn apart. Mirroring the society that marginalizes them, gangs use this unity for domination and aggression. Nelsa shows how this instinct toward oneness can be transformed into a power of service, life, and love.
MTV, the Metropolitan Police and Urban Youth Charity XLP have got together to 'pimp' a Police riot van and turn it into a mobile community music unit.
Reported on by the excellent Sense Media, a youth led social enterprise run by volunteers.

Dr Jerry Stein is coming to London and is holding a half day seminar on the 14th November. Dr Stein who is based at the University of Minnesota's School of Social Work, has developed the wonderful Learning Dreams project.
This inspiring project builds social connection through learning, inviting everyone in the community to participate in both formal and informal learning.
Learning Dreams has resulted in many significant outcomes, and the project is being replicated in several other communities.
- Increased parent and child participation in learning
- Better school outcomes
- Increased social capital
- Increased community capacity to support learning
- Increased participation in learning by other members of the community
"Learning Dreams is not about activism and protest, it's about applying tools, strategies and new forms of power"
This seminar will be really fascinating if you are interested in social innovation, networks, social capital, community facilitation, life-long learning, participation, young people ...... and would like an entirely new perspective.
To reserve your place on the 13th November please send me an email
The pic pretty much speaks for itself? Students from ten middle schools across Portland and Central Oregon are participating in Caldera's Hello Neighbor project. Along with photographer Julie Keefe, the students have begun to identify, interview and photograph diverse people of all ages in their neighborhoods.
From their work, the Caldera students will create photo-and-word portraits to be displayed on large, 7 foot by 5 foot banners throughout their communities.
Thanks for the link David Barrie. We love this kind of stuff :)
Bruno Taylor has a few good ideas about reclaiming public space for play. He writes:
71% of adults used to play on the streets when they were young. 21% of children do so now. Are we designing children and play out of the public realm?
Play equipment, as we commonly think of it, dictates the user - playgrounds full of bright colors and thick plastic are for children, not adults, and this unspoken rule is a maxim we adults don't frequently break. But should public space - the places where we all gather, and where so much social interaction happens - be devoid of play? Bruno thought not, and took direct action.

Above: Bruno Taylor's installation of a swing in a London bus stop. Photo source.
He has just completed a Masters in Industrial Design at Central Saint Martin, and has designed both the swing set above, and a rocking bench for the reclamation of public space for play. You can find more pictures and details at Pixelsumo.

The Global Oneness Project is a wonderful web-based video initiative exploring how the simple notion of oneness can be lived in our increasingly complex world.
They are traveling the globe interviewing creative and courageous people who base their lives and work on the fundamental understanding that we are all connected and thus bear great responsibility for each other and our shared world. Our living library of films is available for free from our website or on DVD for events and educational use.
How fantastic!
Here's an idea. How about we all help each other out for the love of it. For the feeling of doing something positive. For the buzz of knowing you've made a difference. For the friendships that develop through sharing an experience. For learning a new skill and teaching others something new.
How about we all join the Freeconomy and do what communities are supposed to do.
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