I worked on this project during my exchange semester (Fall 2019) at the Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn, NY.
Read local news coverage in the Brooklyn Eagle of the project here.
A broad question about who should be designing our public spaces (designers, government, companies, citizens??) led to an installation artwork that celebrates the value of community ideas in wake of a controversial redesign for Brooklyn’s treasured Fort Greene Park. Over the course of two months, I learned about Fort Greene Park from Friends of Fort Greene Park and park visitors.
As an outsider, it was not my place to design for the park. Instead, I wondered: what if the people proposing the controversial redesign had listened to what community members actually wanted? In collaboration with Friends of Fort Greene Park, I decided to use the design process to engage with and listen to a diverse group of Fort Green Park enjoyers.
The resulting illustration visualizes my findings. Each color represents a community perspective. To communicate the project back to the public, I built a 2.5 m wide public installation, that was shown during a public event, on site in the park. Stories, memories, opinions, ideas, and dreams illustrated on a transparent piece of acrylic – show a collective imagination for what “could be” in the park.
The project is part of an ongoing conversation about how we could make design more inclusive – and how to increase the public’s stake in design that affects their lives. Friends of Fort Greene Park will continue this conversation in the park, and I hope to continue it in my next projects.
