Collective Conversations
Collective Conversations are gatherings that activate public spaces through creative conversational exchanges and sharing meals from our cultures. These conversations are modeled after our own collective bi-monthly virtual meetings, collapsing geographic and time zones. Our Collective Conversation gatherings engage larger conversations with a variety of participants around social ideas we are interested in exploring with others.
We welcome opportunities to host future Collective Conversations, please contact us.
Collective Conversation at the The Party of Migrant Peoples Assembly Space, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), San Francisco, 2017, a community invitation from Tania Bruguera during her 2017 exhibition and tea post discussion. Through our interest in the idea of the “commons”, we were moved by Bruguera’s statement “We understand the need to revive the concept of the commons, of the earth as a space that everyone has the right to access and enjoy.” We used this as a starting point for the collective conversation at YBCA.
Home: Making Space for Radical Love, Oliver Gallery, California College of the Arts, 2017 In April 2018, at California College of the Arts, conversation and tea for exhibition: Home: Making Space for Radical Love, to engage students, faculty and the general public in a collective conversation on the theme of home.
Collective Conversations has also taken the form of discussions and exchanges with experts to understand ideas, processes and histories that engage our work. We have assembled conversations with experts in museums, in local park lands, along coastal shorelines, and various locations in our urban centers. Our expert conversations have include: Tom McKeag, Bio-Designer , co-founder and editor of Zygote Quarterly and Director of the Center for Green Chemistry at US Berkeley; Mary Muszynski, Landscape Designer and City Park Planner; Susan Schwartzenberg, Curator of the Fisher Bay Observatory, Exploratorium; Lata Mani, feminist historian, cultural critic, contemplative writer & filmmaker; Dr Yellapa Ready, former Researcher and director of the Forestry Services, Karnta, Chief Conservator, and Secretary, Department of Ecology and Environment, in Karnataka, India, among many other distinguished citizens.
Contact us to learn more…