Shanai MattesonField Guide: From our Education & Community Programs department, an evolving guidebook navigating the expanded terrain of art and creative life.
Grocery Shopping with Artist + Field Office Fellow Ben Garthus
Field Office Fellowship artist Ben Garthus takes his handmade shopping cart for a spin in the first of a series of experiments stemming from his Mobile Creative Outpost (M-CO) project.
If you were at Rainbow Foods on Lake Street & Minnehaha Avenue last night around 9:30PM, you might have noticed an unusually creative and crafty customer. Artist Ben Garthus, whose Mobile Creative Outpost has been popping-up at festivals and public spaces around town over the past months, was turning a late night grocery shopping trip into an opportunity to experiment with his evolving artistic project.
Image from Ben Garthus: http://www.bengarthus.com
Garthus describes Mobile Creative Outpost (M-CO) as “…a nomadic social gathering point that redefines spaces into areas of creative, self-determined activity.” The project has taken the form of a wooden trailer filled with objects – odd pieces, parts, materials and tools. Garthus invites passersby to use these objects in a form of creative free play and self-expression inspired by adventure playgrounds. Children and adults have had fun inventing games and creating objects around M-CO, using the outpost as an art studio, a workshop, and a stage, among other things.
This summer, Garthus is one of 8 Walker Field Office Fellows who is experimenting in public, pushing their existing artistic projects and practices in new directions, and exploring what contemporary public practice can be and do in the twin cities. Each of the 8 Field Office Fellows will be completing a small project and sharing the results during informal, public conversations inside the FlatPak house, which Walker Education & Community Programs staff are re-imagining as Field Office for the duration of Open Field.
Throughout July and August, Garthus will be building and using handmade shopping carts like the one he took out for a spin at Rainbow Foods last night, turning the routine activity of purchasing food and household items into something that invites glances, questions and conversations. The cart pictured here is just the first in a series of evolving models. In the coming weeks Garthus plans to debut more elaborate, interactive carts with opportunities for strangers to interact with him and even to create or play in the prescriptive consumer environments of big box stores and shopping malls. Garthus is even considering a cart-building workshop in a parking lot, inviting shoppers to build their own carts using M-CO objects and tools.
Artist Ben Garthus with his handmade shopping cart // Photo by Zoe Prinds-Flash
All of this serves a rather simple, but thought-provoking purpose: to encourage creativity and play in unexpected places. It will be interesting to see whether the act of shopping for groceries in private stores can be turned into an opportunity for public experiment and creative expression.
Ben Garthus’ Website: http://www.bengarthus.com
More Pictures from Last Night’s Shopping Trip: http://www.flickr.com/photos/worksprogress/sets/72157627134028846/with/5910419940/
An NPR Piece About the Disappearance of Adventure Playgrounds in the US: http://n.pr/r2WVHw
Make a real world connection to a real person at a real location, really!
Join artist and Field Office Fellow Mike Haeg for an Arrow Workshop on the Open Field, Thursday, July 7th, from 3 – 7PM. Visitors can bring arrows from home, or design an arrow with other Open Field participants. This workshop is free and open to all ages.
Next Thursday at Open Field, Mike Haeg, Mayor of Mt. Holly, Minnesota, will present the first of two Arrow Workshops. In these free workshops, visitors will explore ways of bridging the distance between people and locations in a more tactile manner than is afforded by digital social media. Visitors will design, construct, exchange and display handmade arrows pointing to places they choose around the globe.
Mike Haeg is one of the artists participating in this summer’s Field Office Fellowship project. Over the summer he’ll be bringing his M*A*S*H Pole project to the Walker’s Open Field, where he’s created a new W*A*L*K*E*R Pole for Open Field visitors to create and exchange arrows with one another.
You can stop by on Thursday between 3 – 7PM to drop off an arrow you’ve made that points to a place you love, or spend that time with Mike and other Open Field folks designing an arrow to be made at a later date. Throughout the summer, the W*A*L*K*E*R Pole will be up inside Field Office (FlatPak) if you’d like to stop by to exchange arrows!
Walker Open Field Arrow Workshop
Thursday, July 7th, 3:00 – 7:00PM
Make a real world connection to a real person at a real location, really.
Bring your home or studio made arrow to a Walker Open Field Arrow Workshops and trade it for another handmade arrow. It works like this:
1. Make an arrow (be creative in your choice of destination, material and message)
2 Bring your arrow to a Walker Open Field Arrow Workshop
3. Swap your arrow for one on the pole
4. Bring your new arrow home and point it toward its intended target, creating a unique, personal bond to a new person and place.
Questions? You can leave them here in the comments section, or you can reach the Mayor directly through this project blog: http://walkerpole.blogspot.com/
Experimenting in Public with the Field Office Fellows
Introducing the Field Office Fellowship program, an experimental summer-long project. Nine creative researchers will explore public participation and public spaces on and around the Open Field.
photo by Zoe-Prinds Flash | http://www.zoeprinds-flash.com/
This summer, as part of the Walker’s Field Office program at Open Field, myself and Colin Kloecker from the art/design collective Works Progress are partnering with Walker ECP staff and 8 creative researchers to produce a series of experimental public art projects. The projects will range from installations to workshops to participatory interventions, and will take place both on the Open Field and elsewhere throughout the twin cities. Each Field Office Fellow will explore different questions and themes related to public participation/public space, and the will return to FlatPak after their project is complete for an informal public conversation on what was learned.
The 8 Field Office Fellows come from a range of creative backgrounds and practices, including participatory art, community planning & design, architecture, organizing and activism. Each Field Office Fellow will be creating a small project that explores questions relevant to their own creative practice, and that provokes expanded thinking of what public practice can be and do in the twin cities.
Field Office Fellows include artist and Mayor of Mt.Holly, MN, Mike Haeg; Amoke Kubat, artist & founder of Yo Mama! The Mothering Mothers Institute; landscape design/architecture researcher & artist Virajita Singh; artist & new media professor John Kim; artist Ben Garthus; artist & on the commons associate Rachel Breen; poet & publisher of Coffee House Press, Chris Fischbach; and Christian Dean & Bob Ganser, designers with City Desk Studio.
We’ll be blogging about each of these 9 fellows and their projects here, so stay tuned! There will be plenty of opportunities for public participation in the projects themselves, as well as in the Field Office conversations that follow.
Locating the Open Field: a think tank in progress
Back in early June, Works Progress helped to convene a small group of creative thinkers, makers, and doers for a conversation at the Walker Art Center. The goal of this initial effort seemed simple; As a group we would critically examine and engage the Walker’s summer-long [Open Field](http://walkerart.org/openfield/) project, an experiment that inspires multiple interpretations, and lots of questions.
Back in early June, Colin Kloecker and I (Works Progress) helped to convene a small group of creative thinkers, makers, and doers for a conversation at the Walker Art Center. The goal of this initial effort seemed simple; As a group we would critically examine and engage the Walker’s summer-long Open Field project, an experiment that inspires multiple interpretations, and lots of questions.
Among the questions that we were interested in pursuing were those regarding the role of the Open Field project in the broader creative cultures that surround and intersect the Walker Art Center. At a time when so many artists and art organizations are promoting the value of participation and community, proclaiming openness, and championing the transparency of their creative process, what does it mean for an institution of the Walker’s size to invite anyone—be they performing artist or bull whip expert—to present a program, performance, or project in the open space outside the museum’s entrance? What opportunities and new challenges does this project present for the Walker? For artists and other creative participants? For visitors and the Walker’s immediate neighbors?
We thought we had some idea where to begin our discussion. The concept of a “cultural commons,” however difficult it was to define, seemed relevant, especially in light of Opening the Field, the kick-off program we helped facilitate in which the cultural commons had been a focus. We started our initial “think tank” conversation looking for clues as to how the Open Field did or did not succeed as a cultural commons, a gathering place and shared resource for collective creativity. Were the invitations to participate cast broadly enough? Were the tools that someone might need easy to access? Were the agreements and protocols appropriately defined? Was there trust?
At the end of our first conversation we were left overwhelmed by the scope of these questions. The cultural commons was simply too big, too ill-defined an inquiry, and we left the Open Field less certain than when we’d arrived.
Sometimes, to get useful perspective on the thing you want to understand, you need to place it in a surrounding framework of space and time. We decided that rather than spend our thinking time in the Open Field focused on its specific qualities, we needed to also venture out into the surrounding city—even beyond it—locating the Open Field in a cultural context in order to give it an honest critique.
After talking amongst ourselves, recalling things we’d read or happened upon that had provided some clarity or inspiration, we focused on six sites that _we_ saw as open fields—spaces that were defined, negotiated, or designed with a similar purpose in mind. We knew that in these spaces artists, as well as landscape designers, community organizers, and the sought-after ‘public’ were already engaging in acts of collective creativity. What insight could we gain from their efforts?
Streets and Lawns – these are places where people daily negotiate their private and public lives, balancing creative expression, curiosity, and a desire for community with a need for time and space to reflect. Empty lots, open fields —these are features of our landscape constantly being reimagined and reactivated, negotiated and even contested by people and groups with sometimes opposing needs and desires. Markets and Tables —these are spaces where artists and non-artists alike come together, creating economy, relationships and value, while also finding fellowship.
For these reasons we decided to begin outside of the Open Field. We invited our think tank to join us in exploring 6 specific sites from the broad categories above. It has been our hope that by listening to the experiences of those who populate these open fields we might find more clarity with which to approach the Walker Art Center’s project.
As we meet in these places, we’ve been documenting our conversations in audio and in pictures. The short synopsis presented here are the beginning of what will be a more substantial creative offering that we will bring back to the Open Field, along with our questions, at the end of the summer.
If you have any questions, or want to join us on any of the remaining think tank explorations, listed here, say hello!
Commons Census: A Public Research Project In the Open Field
“The Census Bureau doesn’t care about people; it cares about statistics. A statistical agency is very different than a program agency, which has to care about people.” – Ken Prewitt, Former Director of the U.S. Census Bureau Almost a full year ago we began seeing advertisements for the 2010 U.S. Census everywhere—on television, in supermarkets, [...]
“The Census Bureau doesn’t care about people; it cares about statistics. A statistical agency is very different than a program agency, which has to care about people.”
– Ken Prewitt, Former Director of the U.S. Census Bureau
Almost a full year ago we began seeing advertisements for the 2010 U.S. Census everywhere—on television, in supermarkets, at bus stops, and finally, in our own mailboxes. These ads urged us to consider how important it is to be counted, how safe it is, and how simple. Just fill out and return a form with ten questions and you will be personally responsible for improvements to your community—including schools, roads, parks, and of course, government representation. Neglect to fill out the survey, whether because of laziness or genuine fear, and the imminent downfall of your community will be your fault.
Though we didn’t completely understand it at the time, the census was obviously a very big deal. When the ads started appearing offering jobs to census workers (in the midst of a recession!) it appeared as if an urgent army was being assembled, and indeed, it was. The census was mandated by the U.S. Constitution in 1790, but never in history has so much money and power gone into the seemingly mundane task of counting the people of this country. Over the summer 1.4 billion people are doing the counting, and 15 billion dollars will be spent in the process, at least some of it on “hip” advertisements like this one.
Coming from the world of non-profit administration, we’re aware of how museums also act as statistical agencies, counting their visitors and studying their behavior. In some cases visitor surveys are administered to improve the quality of exhibitions, museum experiences, and education efforts, but information is also gathered and used by marketing professionals and communications experts to craft an image for their institution that will lure in the desired audiences. These surveys are rarely very personal, or we should say, they are rarely concerned with people.
Similarly, the information gathered by the U.S. Census, while private in its details, is public in aggregate, making it useful to marketing professionals across the spectrum of goods and services. The census doesn’t only help the government determine where to put public resources, it also helps Target decide where to place its next bullseye.
What does any of this have to do with Open Field, you might be asking?
Well, it seemed to us as we learned more about the Open Field project that efforts at counting people and transforming them into statistics, both for the sake of the broader American enterprise and to lure and engage Walker visitors and patrons, run parallel and overlap in interesting ways. The U.S. Census is a tool that allows for the justification of resource allocation. So are the ubiquitous surveys that institutions like the Walker impose upon their visitors. In many ways, Open Field is a response to these surveys, perhaps not the ideas and inspirations behind Open Field, and probably not your individual experience of it, but certainly the rhetoric surrounding it, and also, the systems and structures that produced it.
We are interested in these systems and structures. We are also interested in people. Unabashedly, unashamedly interested. Why did you choose to come to the Walker to take part in a drawing club, or to hear a program about Native American Governments, when you could have stayed home to watch the drama unfold around America’s Next Top Artist? Where do you fit into the creative landscape? How do you engage? How do institutions like the Walker answer these same questions?
We are in a moment when ordinary survey questions about gender, income, neighborhood of residence, sexual orientation, ethnicity, citizenship – are ever-present, seemingly inadequate, and also weighted by the realization that vast inequalities exist. It becomes tricky to consider what is meant by buzzwords like community, access, openness, creativity and engagement when we so clearly have a long way to go before these concepts ring true with the reality of many of our places and spaces.
As cultural producers ourselves, we suspect that the intersection of these things—the realization of inequalities and the simultaneous realization that new tools and forms can help to create exciting possibilities and connections (or not)—has produced a situation in need of a careful study, and importantly, a critical language.
Commons Census is our attempt to move that conversation forward. Using Open Field as a kind of case study and an inspiration for research into existing cultural commons, we will begin collecting information from, about, and with visitors, staff, and participating artists at the Open Field. The information we gather will be used to create data visualizations for new understanding, as well as visions for the future. We have brought together a small group of local makers, thinkers and doers to help us make sense of what we learn, and will be going out into the city with this group to research our commons spaces and possibilities for engagement. At the end of the summer, we will publish and present our research findings to the public at the Walker Art Center.
We’ve developed survey tools using existing US Census questions, museum visitor studies, and a bit of historical digging. We will be at the Walker periodically, including tonight, when we will be conducting the first in a series of Commons Census Surveys with visitors to the Walker Art Center.
Follow this blog for more information and updates, and don’t be afraid to ask questions, as well as answer them!
Shanai & Colin | Works Progress
Opening the Field: Laura Musacchio & Making Space for Commons
To help kick-off Walker Open Field, five guests from across the spectrum of art and ideas have been invited to share thoughts and pose questions on the cultural commons, framing a conversation that will continue throughout the summer. We’ll be posting our notes on each of these presenters over the next two weeks, and encouraging them [...]
To help kick-off Walker Open Field, five guests from across the spectrum of art and ideas have been invited to share thoughts and pose questions on the cultural commons, framing a conversation that will continue throughout the summer. We’ll be posting our notes on each of these presenters over the next two weeks, and encouraging them to drop by Walker Blogs to recommend readings and other resources. The event kicks-off at 7pm on Thursday, June 3rd. Save the date!
Much of the conversation that abounds about the cultural commons seems to focus on digital culture, which makes sense given the profound changes that have happened in technology over a relatively short time span. There’s simply a lot that we still need to sort out.
Urban landscape ecologist and ecological designer Laura Musacchio is concerned about how well people are adapting to the stresses of urban living in high-density cities and metropolitan regions, and how the proliferation of technology in their lives is transforming their urban experiences of nature – including what urbanites like, know, feel, and appreciate about the natural world, other people, and non-human wildlife. This situation has raised a few questions for her about the physical commons as interactive spaces.
“Social interactions are really the foundation for creating a civil society. We certainly see social interactions happening all the time online, but these are mediated through computers or mobile devices. What happens when this becomes the norm? When we have fewer and fewer reasons or opportunities to practice face-to-face interaction?”
Laura pointed to some articles she had read recently about the impacts of social technology on the social skills of teenagers. When so much of the interactions that help people to build trust and understand human nature are done in the abbreviated world of text, what happens to our collective creative culture?
Naturally Laura thinks about the spaces where this interaction can continue to happen.
“In addition to some of the more obvious examples, like parks and plazas, cities have all sorts of leftover and unused space. How can we use it? How can we activate those spaces so that they become spaces for civic engagement? For a kind of cultural commons?”
Laura sees the Walker’s Open Field project as an experiment with exactly this question, and is excited to see what will happen when the public is invited to use the large open field for recreation, social interaction, education, or simply to gather.
“It’s like a giant lawn, and lawns can really act as a canvas for people.”
While chatting with Laura about her background, which combines design with ecology, I learned that she doesn’t only think of people when she is considering the elements needed for a healthy cultural commons.
“Practice with face-to-face social interaction, which is really what play is, that’s important. So is connection to nature, to natural cycles that are present in cities, but often invisible to most people who live in these places. Understanding how they work is as important as understanding people and how they work.”
Many of us have probably heard of this idea of the Tragedy of the Commons, whereby individuals chip away at our shared limited resources. Laura is interested in the places where the physical and natural resources of space overlap with our cultural and civic lives.
“Healthy civic spaces give us a sense of trust, and they inspire rather than hinder creativity. We know what the norms are, but we also believe that we can push the limits in new ways.”
This is what I find most exciting about the summer’s Open Field project. In many ways it’s a chance for us all to consider these questions, and also to test out some of ways that they might be addressed through creative public engagement.
“I spend a lot of time on my computer, and when I do, I start to feel a distance from the physical spaces I share with others. I don’t want to sound like I’m blaming technology, but I do worry that a lot of us are spending so much time immersed in digital social spaces that we are starting to put individual choice above the give and take of collective culture. I am not sure that’s a good thing.”
Laura will share some examples from her own research and work at next Thursday’s Open Field kick-off event.
Opening the Field: Sumanth Gopinath | Mobile Music, Ringtones & Cultural Commons
According to Sumanth Gopinath, the ringtone is a remarkable cultural phenomenon that is demonstrating a high degree of popularity and is undergoing rapid transformation. It’s a powerful lens through which to view the dynamics of cultural production. He’ll help us do this at the Open Field kick-off on June 3rd!
To help kick-off Walker Open Field, five guests from across the spectrum of art and ideas have been invited to share thoughts and pose questions on the cultural commons, framing a conversation that will continue throughout the summer. We’ll be posting our notes on each of these presenters over the next two weeks, and encouraging them to drop by Walker Blogs to recommend readings and other resources. The event kicks-off at 7pm on Thursday, June 3rd. Save the date!
We met Sumanth Gopinath just a few minutes after he’d left an experimental music concert at the University of Minnesota, where he teaches music theory with a focus on globalization. From his emphatic description of the performance it seemed a wildly creative and moving experience, one that flew completely under the radar of most Twin Cities music fans.
“The University has one of the best experimental composers in the world, James Dillon, working right here in town. He’s absolutely amazing! And the School of Music brings some of the world’s most creative performers to the Twin Cities. They host wonderful concerts that are open to the public and totally free.”
Although Sumanth is on temporary leave from the University while finishing a book project, he regularly attends the School of Music’s concert series, just one of many untapped cultural resources he hopes more people will utilize.
While talking with Sumanth about Open Field and the cultural commons, we learned that his interests and knowledge are wide-ranging. He sees myriad connections between digital technology, politics, culture and the everyday. He’s critical of notions of cultural commons that don’t take these connections into account.
“Ours is a capitalist world-economy. One could argue that various forms of unpaid labor have always made capital accumulation possible, making practices like creative commons nothing more or less than part of a longer history of common repositories for cultural forms.”
Over the course of an hour our conversation meandered between the concept of commons in the writings of Karl Marx, Sumanth’s own philosophical views on the production and dissemination of creative work, his passion for experimental music and art, and his interest in the global ringtone industry.
“The ringtone is a remarkable cultural phenomenon that is demonstrating a high degree of popularity and is undergoing rapid transformation. It’s a powerful lens through which to view the dynamics of cultural production.”
When it comes to questions of music production and the cultural commons, we often hear the familiar outcry that file-sharing and a laissez-faire attitude toward intellectual property, especially among those under 30, is killing the music industry. In fact, it’s an argument that’s been taken up again recently in the Atlantic (nice response here). Sumanth pointed out that the proliferation of ringtone versions of popular songs happened in tandem with the proliferation of pirated music.
“Ringtone providers’ increasing use of copyrighted popular music meant that music publishers were licensing material for ringtones and receiving royalties — thus planting the seed for the music industry’s plan to make up for financial losses due to file sharing.”
Sumanth will be discussing these often overlooked connections at the Open Field kick-off, asking us all to consider the technological as well as the political histories of the creative tools we use, as well as the bits and bites of information that make them work and that provide access to art and culture. In many cases our mobile devices, small as they are, contain extensive libraries of music. Some of them even allow us to compose new works.
In the case of ringtones, this music doesn’t just play through our home stereos or headphones, it blasts unexpectedly in all kinds of private and public spaces, becoming part of the fabric of our physical commons, as well as our amorphous digital one. These questions of intellectual property, common ownership and the politics of cultural production will undoubtedly be raised again and again over the summer.
For now, one thing Sumanth is interested in learning which ringtones visitors to the Open Field have chosen for themselves, and why. Anyone? I’ll start by confessing that much to the annoyance of everyone around me my ringtone is set to an obnoxious Girl Talk mashup, which I am pretty sure I got from a free file sharing website. Because I am a freeloader.
READ MORE & LISTEN
A Brief History of the Ringtone
Opening the Field: Michael Edson & Museum Commons
For a very long time museums have focused on buildings and galleries, revered physical spaces built to keep and display collections of stuff. In the digital age, how should museum content be created, shared and managed? What is the role of a museum in the digital commons? Web and new media strategist Michael Edson will take up these questions and others at the Open Field kick-off event on June 3rd.
BAR Photography | CC BY-ND 2.0
To help kick-off Walker Open Field, five guests from across the spectrum of art and ideas have been invited to share thoughts and pose questions on the cultural commons, framing a conversation that will continue throughout the summer. We’ll be posting our notes on each of these presenters over the next two weeks, and encouraging them to drop by Walker Blogs to recommend readings and other resources. The event kicks-off at 7pm on Thursday, June 3rd. Save the date!
For a very long time museums have focused on buildings and galleries, revered physical spaces built to keep and display collections of stuff. Around all of this stuff museums have created content, the explanations and interpretations that help us make sense of our cultural past, present and future.
Michael Edson is the web and new media strategist for the world’s largest museum complex, the Smithsonian, which holds over 137 million objects in the public trust. A person could spend a lifetime walking through the Smithsonian’s museums and research centers and still not see everything there is to see, let alone read all of the labels. This sheer volume of objects and information is just one of the challenges the Smithsonian faces when considering how to make their resources accessible to audiences via the web and new media. Another more formidable challenge comes from the nature of the the web itself. While physical museums have traditionally been about hoarding stuff and authoring expert knowledge for public consumption, our new media tools encourage free and open sharing of creative works and ideas, valuing crowd-sourced knowledge over individual expertise.
In this environment, how should museum content be created, shared and managed? What is the role of a museum in the digital commons?
Michael will take up these questions and others at the Open Field kick-off event. He has a unique perspective from which to contemplate the vast cultural resources that museums represent. A painter and printmaker, he understands the importance of objects and their ability to teach and inspire. His first job at the Smithsonian was cleaning display cases, so he also knows the invisible dimensions of museum work that are so critical to how these institutions function.
As a new media strategist, Michael has made it his goal to break down the display cases and walls that institutions historically place around their collections, and around themselves. Using web-based tools to encourage content-creation at all levels of museum staff and public, he hopes to redefine the role museums play in our society, looking to the old idea of the commons for inspiration.
According to Michael, “Commons have historically been created when a property owner decides that a resource—be it grass for grazing sheep, land for parks or even intellectual property—will create more value if freely shared. A museum commons functions much in this same way. Ideas and creative works are shared freely, creating more value for society.”
The result of Michael’s exploration of these ideas has been the creation of a new strategy for online engagement called The Smithsonian Commons. A new digital presence for the museum, the Smithsonian Commons “is dedicated to free and unrestricted sharing, and encourages new kinds of learning and creation through interaction with Smithsonian researchers, collections and communities.” While on stage at the Walker Michael will share a few ideas that led him to this project, as well as how it has fundamentally changed the institution. He’s hoping others will come with thoughts and ideas about the future possibilities of museum as commons.
In our conversation, Michael pointed out that “Museums right now are asking themselves, how will we survive in the digital age?”
It’s a good question. It seems the days are long gone when people were satisfied with museums that act simply as knowledge creation and dissemination engines, or worse, as tombs for creative culture. Today’s museums perform real, meaningful work in our society – and artists and individuals are equipped to participate.
Michael and others see the Walker’s Open Field project as an opportunity to test out a museum commons in real time and space.
Read More
Hello from Works Progress | Open Field Kick-off Details
You might not know us – we’re new to Walker Blogs, but for the past few months Colin Kloecker and I (Works Progress) have been working with Sarah Schultz, Sarah Peters and other Walker staff on some programming in conjunction with Open Field, including the June 3rd kick-off event. We’ll be posting more information in [...]
You might not know us – we’re new to Walker Blogs, but for the past few months Colin Kloecker and I (Works Progress) have been working with Sarah Schultz, Sarah Peters and other Walker staff on some programming in conjunction with Open Field, including the June 3rd kick-off event.
We’ll be posting more information in the coming weeks about each of the presenters who will be sharing their ideas and stories at this event, as well as linking to some of the remarkable resources they’ve pointed us toward. Their varied perspectives on the Cultural Commons will help to frame the rest of the summer’s Open Field activities, and so will you!
In addition to hearing these fascinating thinkers, makers and doers talk about their projects on stage, this event will be a chance for you to contribute to the evolution of the Open Field by showing up, participating in the evening’s activities and adding your ideas to a crowd-sourced ‘definition of the commons’ that will be started that night.
Don’t forget to put June 3rd on your calendar and to RSVP on Facebook for updates!