Produced seperately with the City of El Paso and the Baltimore Museum of Art, Crafting the Corridor, Visioning Home Mapping, and FutureSite Baltimore were interactive mapping installations and activities in which residents wrote on and placed laser cut cardboard signs within immersive maps to illustrate and discuss their neighborhood assets, challenges, and new ideas.
Crafting the Corridor
October 6, 2018
El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso, TX
Color vinyl banner, laser cut pop-up signs, play doh, tape, markers
10’x20’
Project partners: Planning & Inspections Department of the City of El Paso, Offices of El Paso City Council Representatives Peter Svarzbein and Cissy Lizarraga
Through the Crafting the Corridor community tour and interactive mapping workshop, El Paso residents, business owners, planners, and elected officials shared personal perspectives and identified local assets, challenges, and ideas for strengthening their neighborhoods along the city’s new streetcar routes. Locals participated in an interactive hop-on/hop-off bus tour that took them along the North and South streetcar loops. At each stop speakers shared points of interest and perspectives on current issues, local history, and opportunities for preservation and growth. Participants returned to the El Paso Museum of Art for a facilitated discussion and creative mapping session led by public artist Graham Coreil-Allen and El Paso 1st District council representative and artist Peter Svarzbein. Residents used laser cut cardboard signs, colorful tape, and play doh to write, illustrate, and sculpt their neighborhood assets, challenges, and new ideas for building on the city’s streetcar revival. They placed their handmade signs and sculptures on corresponding locations within an immersive, colorful 10’ x 20’ vinyl floor map. El Paso city planners documented participants’ numerous contributions as input for the El Paso Streetcar Corridor Plan.
BMA Visioning Home Mapping Workshop
September 23, 2017
Baltimore Museum of Art
10 Art Museum Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218
gaff tape, laser cut cardboard, spray paint, play doh, markers
24' x 24' x 12”
Project partner: Baltimore Museum of Art
Visioning Home was a day-long workshop at the Baltimore Museum of Art that invited participants to challenge the entrenched narratives about Baltimore neighborhoods and envision possible futures. As part of the Imagining Home exhibit series, forty residents from across the city gathered for this meaningful day to learn about civically engaged art, find inspiration in the museum’s collection, and take part in a series of facilitated conversations and artmaking activities designed to spark creative thinking about changes and opportunities in Baltimore. El Paso artist and city councilperson Peter Svarzbein presented on how his fictitious advertising campaign to revive a defunct trolley raised $97 million in funding to re-establish strong cultural and economic bonds between El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico communities. Group discussions were captured throughout the day by visualizations drawn onto the studio's walls by graphic recorder Lucinda Levine. The day of engagement culminated in an interactive mapping installation and activity created and led by public artist Graham Coreil-Allen. Participants used laser cut cardboard signs to write and illustrate their neighborhood assets, challenges, and new ideas. They placed these signs on corresponding locations within an immersive, 22’ x 24’ floor map made of brightly colored tape. Residents highlighted and sensitively discussed a range of issues such as the school-to-prison pipeline, food deserts, and industrial pollution; and proposed new ideas such as job-creating urban farms, universal tuition, and completing Baltimore’s mass transit rail network.
FutureSite Mapping Baltimore at the The Necessity of Tomorrow(s): Mark Bradford—Making a Path
Saturday, November 11, 2017, 12pm-3:30pm
Presented by the Baltimore Museum of Art at Union Baptist Church, Baltimore, MD
Partners: The Baltimore Museum of Art, Union Baptist Church
How do you make a path to power where none exists? How do you assess a community's needs and create access for a community to self-determine?
Presented by the Baltimore Museum of Art at Union Baptist Church, FutureSite Baltimore invited participants to challenge the entrenched narratives about our city and envision possible futures by sharing their neighborhood assets, concerns, and ideas. This interactive mapping activity was presented as part of the The Necessity of Tomorrow(s) lecture series featuring luminary artist Mark Bradford in conversation with BMA Director Christopher Bedford. Bradford’s talk explored how the artist grapples with “making a path,” and other key questions in his artistic practice and community-based work. Afterwards, attendees were invited to contribute to the FutureSite Baltimore map by writing on laser cut signs and creating play doh sculptures representing their inspired visions for the future of Baltimore City. Contributions to the map were collected by the museum to inform forthcoming programming.