What is your vision statement for your major project? My project will be a resource in a toolbox we are putting together to attempt to attract, engage, inform, and activate residents (especially those less inclined to be involved) toward participation, engagement, and ultimately an amplified voice in issues of development in the community. This development is informal as well as formal.
What ideas do you have for your major project? A series of 3-5 video shorts (perhaps 30-sec each) will target various underrepresented and/or exploited populations in the community highlighting several key facts about local development, participatory design, and community engagement and illustrate ways that residents can be involved in creating or participating in opportunities to be heard.
What are you planning to investigate and how does it support your vision of Detroit’s Future? Development (and decision-making in general) happening without the words/opinions/engagement of the community. The celebration of our suggested methodologies/values should be illustrated and referenced during the video as well as specific suggestions of ways for people to be engaged in community processes/development (in formal and informal ways). This engagement is particularly effective where people are connected to opportunities that utilize their interests and skills in ways that meet other’s needs.
Within these values the residents of Southwest Detroit benefit from a collective consciousness of support for passion-based learning and earning. Simply put, each member of our society's calling is where their passions intersect others' needs. It is here that they are supported in their passions to continue to build and practice their skill full time while meeting others' needs, have access to engagement and expression, experience being valued by others, and build relationships.
You are interested, now learn something from/about it. You learned something, now let it change you. You are thinking and changing, now take action. You are activated, now apply it in a way that inspires you and makes a difference to someone else. This alternative economy of valuing people and their contributions as capital places “resources” in the hands of those who are willing to cultivate and share. This alternative economy is my vision for Detroit’s future.
What media skills do you need/want for to complete your major project?
In order to build this video series and its supporting elements I will need to be able to marry a familiarity with a variety of media skills and the ability to employ them to evoke emotion in educating, empowering, and activating their audience. For me, right now, this means adding technical knowledge about creating videos as well as honing all the accompanying skills it requires… writing, storytelling, and condensing and delivering a concept.
In preparation for the first class of the new workshop series on storytelling I'd like to share an example of a segment that inspires, informs by telling a story, and illustrates a point with its medium. This is one of many audio slideshows in the series One In Eight Million by the New York Times. This series, ongoing for the past two years or so, features an individual at a time living and/or working in New York City. It includes a series of photographs paired with narrative from the subject.
