23 March 2011

Powers of Ten (AMP-style)

I recently completed a five month program offered by the Regional Arts Commission: the Community Arts Training (CAT) Institute. Each year eight artists and eight people committed to social betterment, study, play and learn together in a series of intensive sessions monthly from November and March.

This year instead of 16 CATs, there were 17. I believe I am the first architect to be included in the program and perhaps was selected as the 17th CAT since I didn't entirely fit the profile of either an artist or a community activist.

CAT AMP team: Maggie Ginestra, Pamela Jackson and Andrew Raimist.
As part of the program, we worked in teams to develop a proposal for a community-based arts program. My team designed an intergenerational digital storytelling effort that would bring together ten young people and ten elderly people. They would interview each other and then tell the story of the person with whom they were paired. We call our project "Powers of Ten".

To get an idea of what we've been up to, check out the video we created to document our process: