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Video: Center for Urban Pedagogy
The Good, the Bad, and the Empty
This is the deceptively simple question posed by students at Walt Whitman Middle School in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, and it propels The Good, the Bad, and the Empty, the latest video exploration created by the Center for Urban Pedagogy
Working in partnership with the Brooklyn College Community Partnership, CUP teaching artist Douglas Paulson and the Walt Whitman students deploy a variety of story-telling techniques — from sock puppets to site videography — to tally up and analyze the empty lots in the neighborhood.
The students interview local landowners, city officials, an environmental consultant, an advocate for the homeless, and a high school administrator, among others, and learn some of the non-intuitive rules of urban real estate (e.g., why it's often more profitable to leave a lot vacant and trashy than to construct something useful and attractive). They take their video cameras to the streets, and read the fine print fine on the signage, noting that the lot owners are usually absentee suburbanites. They find that most of the empty lots look derelict, cluttered with garbage and junk, but that some show signs of life (e.g., a few rows of corn (!) planted in one lot; a full-fledged community garden in another).
Along the way the students delve into alternative futures (locals focus on parks and gardens, which have become a kind of urban open-space default, but the students don't hesitate to think big: one imagines an embassy), and they make the essential connection between land use and community well-being. As they discover, it's a connection that city leaders and urban developers too often overlook.
The Center for Urban Pedagogy
Teaching Artist: Douglas Paulson
Project Leader: Valeria Mogilevich
Project support: Christine Gaspar, John Mangin, Leslie McBeth
Brooklyn College Community Partnership
Walt Whitman Middle School Students: Alex Frederick, Ragjay Green, Jeannegeilia Mathelier, Freddie Larry, Angela Weeks, Evette Drawhorn, Latifah Shim, Stephan McKenzie, Lauson Albertine, Deshawn Lindo, Shanice McBean
Program coordinators: Steve Ausbury, Jill Beale
Special thanks to Walt Whitman Middle School, Chen Tamir, Andy Kennedy, Marlisa Wise, Dave McGrath.
Project support: Christine Gaspar, John Mangin, Leslie McBeth
Brooklyn College Community Partnership
Walt Whitman Middle School Students: Alex Frederick, Ragjay Green, Jeannegeilia Mathelier, Freddie Larry, Angela Weeks, Evette Drawhorn, Latifah Shim, Stephan McKenzie, Lauson Albertine, Deshawn Lindo, Shanice McBean
Program coordinators: Steve Ausbury, Jill Beale
Special thanks to Walt Whitman Middle School, Chen Tamir, Andy Kennedy, Marlisa Wise, Dave McGrath.
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Comments (6) | JUMP TO MOST RECENT >>
Great stuff guys. I just popped in quickly and got totally hooked and now I'm late for work! Impressive trigger for much needed community conversations.
Interesting article, thanks for posting.
Very interesting project of environmental education. Thanks for posting.
I worked on a project with a similar message, and ended up taking a slightly different route. Here is the site, the project was called SHOUT. I was going to write a short essay about it for DO, now I think I might!
http://detroit.aiga.org/about-us/shoutaigadetroit
http://detroit.aiga.org/about-us/shoutaigadetroit
What a great project! Check out Depave (www.depave.org), a local project in Portland, OR that works to transform our vacant lots into community spaces, like community gardens! We love to see more of this happening all over the country, and think it is wonderful to see it happening at the youth level in Brooklyn. Way to go!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The Center for Urban Pedagogy makes educational projects about places and how they change. The Brooklyn-based organization is inspired by the idea that the power of imagination is central to the practice of democracy, and that the work of governing must engage the dreams and visions of citizens.More Bio >>
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