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    Holocaust Remembrance Day honored nationwide on April 13

    Published April 2, 2015 by

    By National Jewish Theater Foundation On April 13, 2015 organizations across the country including major theaters, universities, memorial museums and embassies will unite to honor victims of the Holocaust by joining in the first ever Remembrance Readings for Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah). This event was conceived and launched by...
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    Knight Cities Challenge winner connects people rebuilding Detroit

    Published April 2, 2015 by

    Brick + Beam photo by Julie Edgar. A trio of Detroit building preservationists, along with a crew of urban designers, had the opportunity to test-drive an idea that propelled them to winning a grant in the nationwide Knight Cities Challenge. An Urban Prototyping Lab, funded by Knight Foundation earlier this year at Parsons School of Design at The New School in New York, enabled the Michigan Historic Preservation Network to get a head start on its proposal. The idea: creating a one-stop shop for Detroit rehabbers and renovators who are looking for resources and fellowship with other DIY’ers.
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    Friday Night Lights yields lessons in building community in Charlotte, N.C.

    Published April 2, 2015 by

    Image courtesy of No Barriers Project. Chisun Rees is a graduate student at Parsons The New School for Design, which is piloting an Urban Prototyping Lab funded by Knight Foundation to help make cities better places to live. The No Barriers Project, just announced as a winner of the 2015 Knight Cities Challenge, held its highly anticipated Friday Night Lights event at Anita Stroud Park in Charlotte last week. The project identifies physical barriers between diverse communities that may act as real and symbolic divides, and encourages communities to work together to connect, create and celebrate within that space.
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    Global Editors Network awards recognize best work in data journalism

    Published April 2, 2015 by

    Karen Burke is director of communications at the Global Editors Network, which Knight Foundation supports to promote innovation and excellence in journalism. Journalists from all over the world have less than two weeks to submit their work to the Data Journalism Awards, an international competition organized by the Global Editors Network. Submissions close at 11:59 (GMT) on April 10, and, this year, we hope to surpass the 520 entries we received last year. Make sure you don’t miss out on this fantastic opportunity to showcase your work. If you haven’t heard of us, the Global Editors Network is a cross-platform community of editors-in-chief and media innovators committed to high-quality journalism. Our aim is to empower newsrooms through digital programs designed to inspire, connect and share. We’ll present the Data Journalism Awards on June 18 during our Global Summit in Barcelona. The summit, June 17-19, provides practical solutions for immediate implementation in newsrooms.
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    San Francisco experiments in improving public life offers opportunity for Knight communities

    Published April 2, 2015 by

    San Francisco, as viewed from Twin Peaks. Photo by Flickr user Andrew Mace. Deborah Cullinan is CEO of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. This month leaders from several Knight communities will visit us here in San Francisco as we explore the future of the main artery of our city. Laid out 150 years ago, Market Street spans three miles from the waterfront to the hills of Twin Peaks. It has history and purpose. It also faces serious challenges, and we see an opportunity for other cities to learn from our experimentation. Market Street has carried horse-driven streetcars, trolleybuses and cable cars; it has hosted parades and celebrations marking worldwide events; and, every day, it carries thousands of pedestrians, transit riders, skateboarders and cyclists. Yet, its wide sidewalks, busy transit centers and distinct neighborhoods aren’t working to create inspiration and connection.
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    Poetry, everywhere, in Miami this month

    Published April 1, 2015 by

    By Fernando Gonzalez, Miami-based freelance writer Photo courtesy of O, Miami. When the stated goal is to deliver a poem to the more than 2.6 million residents of Miami-Dade County, politely inviting people to readings and hoping for the best is not a promising option. So...
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    Knight Cities podcast: Reimagining Philadelphia’s civic commons

    Published April 1, 2015 by

    Shawn McCaney, program director of creative communities at the William Penn Foundation, has been a leader in reimagining Philadelphia’s civic commons, those places that together encourage us to cross paths with our neighbors, encounter new ideas and make broader connections. Shawn has been an aggressive advocate for better planning, design and land use practice, for model planning initiatives, and for capital investments that demonstrate quality design. Most recently, the William Penn Foundation and Knight Foundation joined in an $11 million investment in five civic assets – old and new – in Philadelphia neighborhoods.
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    French culture takes Florida

    Published April 1, 2015 by

    Jean Cocteau's films and themes run through FLA-FRA fest, such as "Beauty and the Beast." Starting today, Knight Arts grantee Tigertail Productions will host a month-long frenzy of French-related cultural events, performed and created by both locals and those from the Francophone world. While heavy on...
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    Artist Michael Bahl combines science and imagination to startling effect

    Published April 1, 2015 by

    Michael Bahl at work. Not many artists are called unique and actually deserve it. But sculptor and Paleo-osteological interpreter Michael Bahl makes work that is truly unlike anything else in the art world. Bahl’s newest project, thanks in part to a Knight Arts Challenge grant, will be a bronze skeleton of a large imaginary mammal with a ribcage that functions as a bike rack. But it all started with a cow pelvis. Ask Bahl how he got into this work and he’ll tell you, “When I was a kid I always wanted a dinosaur skeleton.” As an adult he found himself with access to a cattle ranch bone yard in Florida where a cow pelvis caught his eye. He ultimately collected 17 large boxes of bones. “We shipped them back to Minnesota, labeled as old wooden toys,” Bahl said. “Then I learned how to clean bones using trial and error methods. All of my work is essentially trial and error.” The cleaning and preparing of bones ended up being a surprisingly difficult and messy task, but after developing a system, Bahl was able to start making creatures of his own.
  • Article

    Poetry, everywhere, in Miami this month

    Published April 1, 2015 by

    When the stated goal is to deliver a poem to the more than 2.6 million residents of Miami-Dade County, politely inviting people to readings and hoping for the best is not a promising option. So O, Miami, the annual festival celebrating National Poetry Month that begins today, did the next reasonable thing: it took to skywriting, putting fake parking tickets with poems in car windshields, holding a “Poetry Is Dead” parade, having poems sneakily sown into thrift store clothing and more. In fact, it also enlisted the help of the locals, enticing them with poetry writing contests, where submissions had to include the line “That's So Miami.”