Culliton Park

Culliton Park Phase 2

From March-July I will be engaging neighbors and anchor institutions in three creative processes. Each project will culminate in a large scale collaborative piece that we will celebrate with a reception in the park. This is Phase Two of work in Culliton Park. The goal and vision is to cultivate the park as a crucial third-space or space where the community can gather, work through issues, share their stories, honor their history, and imagine new futures all through the process of creating together.

SCALE-UP!: Large Scale Ideation

Participants will be guided through a process of starting with a small sketch and scaling up designs. We will discuss how to communicate effectively through larger scale paintings of messages to share with the immediate community. I will help folks work through a design process that is about communication and collective discussion/critique. The driving question/prompt is: “How can my community be like water? How have we been like water?”. We will translate the small sketches and responses to plywood 12x12 or slightly larger plywood to hang them along the fence to create a collaborative mural-like installation. This was a big success last year (some of the 10x10 panels are still up!).

Community Tapestry

Looms and a variety of textile materials will be provided. Fabric markers will be available for participants to write their story on the textile provided. The driving question is “What memories or stories do I have of this community?”. After writing responses, participants will weave their stories into a textile square that will ultimately be about 10x10 inches wide (see example below). The squares will be assembled in a final quilt by me (the artist). The goals is to highlight the stories we share of this neighborhood and how unique our experiences are. Literally weaving them together shows us that we are all interconnected and dependent on each other and our diversity of experiences makes this neighborhood such a beautiful place. For longevity, the textiles will be sealed with a weather proofing solution and hung outside until the fence is removed.

Mind Map

The mind map is a creative way to collect input from neighbors in a collaborative way. A large roll of paper will be present at each community workshop and the content is generated from community input. The central question will be “What is the future of this neighborhood?” Smaller questions will be “How can I/we contribute to our ideal future?” and “What do we have now/What is happening now that is moving us toward this future?”.

Culliton Park Phase 1

The goal of this phase of Community Engagement is to facilitate creative and collaborative community meetings and actions to communicate the future vision of the Culliton Park neighborhood, create a sense of ownership in the redeveloped Park, ease the transition of redevelopment in the neighborhood, and create better communication/trust between Lancaster City authorities involved in the redevelopment process and residents of the Southwest quadrant of Lancaster City. Additionally, to creatively incorporate an understanding around the need for redevelopment of the park that includes improving management of storm-water while also being sensitive to the history of traumatic redevelopment and it’s after-effects that the community has lived through.
Due to construction delays, the park will not be renovated until Fall 2019,

love notes to a park (may 20, 2018-indefinite)

Residents will be invited to write a Love (or Hate) note to Farnum/Culliton Park. The notes will be written on recycled countertop and flooring chips and tied to a portion of the chain link fence around the park. Residents will be invited to decorate the fence with the chips, heart shaped cardboard for longer notes, and yarn.

photo credit to: Michelle Johnsen and Sara Code-Kroll

art pop: pop up arts and crafts

I will set up a tent and table with craft supplies to both finish the Love Notes to a Park mosaic and have Pop-Up Craft time. The tent and table will be vibrantly painted so that residents can easily recognize it from afar. As previously mentioned, families have expressed two key needs: an arts and crafts outlet for their children and wanting everyone to feel safe in the park. I believe that having pop-up crafting sessions throughout the duration of this pre-renovation phase will help establish a sense of community amongst all park attendees and will allow me some unfiltered conversation/conversation without a deliberate agenda. Making together, much like sharing a meal, has the capacity to break down barriers, open up new avenues for conversation, and reveal bonds that may not otherwise be exposed. Using a tent and table, I hope to create a visual presence that is inviting and non-exclusionary. I believe that as more residents from various backgrounds begin to occupy the park, we can start to see healing, community, and a sense of local pride emerge again.

LIKE WATER: COMMUNITY ZINE (JULY-AUGUST 2018)

LIKE WATER is a community zine that explores the resilience of a community through water as a metaphor. We discussed the history of the place (Water Street in Lancaster City) and how despite all kinds of human intervention, the stream still seethes beneath us and reminds us that it is unstoppable. What happens when a community is like water? Through this lens we asked ourselves: What memories have we had in this place? How did they makes us feel? How did they inform how we think about this place? What memories do we want to have in this place? How can we start to flow in that direction? We created pages for a collaborative zine that will be printed and distributed to the community and to city officials in the Fall of 2018.