City As a live creature / Public neighborhood mapping
What do we know about our city?
Through a public art commission from Intersection for the Arts, we created City as a Live Creature, engaging the SOMA neighborhood in San Francisco. We activated one block of Minna Street in San Francisco during Intersections Common Ground Festival, to understand our city through three lenses: histories - what was here before; the present - what we know about now; and the future - what we wish for tomorrow. Participants surveyed the block with memories, hopes and forgotten histories. We are developing an online archive from this public participation to share narratives of a changing neighborhood and city. Writing on paper tags in response to these three prompts, participants placed them on buildings, fences, and other spaces on the block, creating a temporary archive of shared knowledge and questions that held their stories and dreams. The rich history of Mina Street started to unfold in the stories of participants. This process marked the block with community imagination, allowing participants to talk to their city:
We built this city together
Dreams were made of gold - the madness of our American dreams
We used to unlocked front doors because it was safe
What I know about the present is that there is more change coming
I know we need to be respectful and loving to all our neighbors
There are a lot of drugs and disarray but our community is
beginning to rebuild
How will the city protect us from earthquakes and sea level rise?
I want a park instead of concrete
I want green everywhere -a redwood forest growing here again
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