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    New documentary features Detroit’s Knight Arts Challenge winners

    Published March 30, 2015 by

    “We gotta be the change, Detroit!” –Invincible/Complex Movements, from Beware the Dandelions I have just spent the last few weeks promoting the third year of the Knight Arts Challenge Detroit.  Each year, Knight Foundation reaches out and invites our Detroit community to tell us their best idea for the arts.  And the result?  Remarkable, inspiring, heartwarming, powerful, excellent ideas.  In the last two years, Knight Foundation has granted nearly $5 million to 114 arts projects in Detroit. They have represented all corners of Detroit, all kinds of people of Detroit, and all kinds of stories of Detroit. At 7:30 p.m. on April 7, a wider audience will get to see a slice of what has inspired me about the challenge.  Detroit Public Television will premiere “Acres of Diamonds: The Story of the Knight Arts Challenge in Detroit.” The half hour documentary follows the projects of local artists after they receive challenge funding from Knight Foundation to make their ideas to reality.
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    Martín Nusspaumer, the loves of a Swiss gaucho

    Published March 30, 2015 by

    By Sebastian Spreng, Visual Artist and Classical Music Writer Dichterliebe (A Poet’s Love) is a song cycle by Robert Schumann with lyrics taken from the poems of Heinrich Heine. A peak achievement of the Romantic Movement, the Lieder join poetry and music in an inseparable embrace. The 16 brief poems...
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    Miami takes on future of tech + music

    Published March 28, 2015 by

    Panel, 12 Months Later: How We Raised Millions. From left to right: deejay Guti Talavera, Steve Martocci from Splice, Justin Golshir, of JustGo, Bora Celik from Jukely and moderator Lilia Luciano. Photo by Luis Olazabal. On the same day Miami Beach was celebrating its 100th birthday with major music concert, the Miami Music Summit 2015, a conference bringing together music, technology and entrepreneurship had an eye, and an ear, on South Florida’s next 100 years. Held with the support of Knight Foundation at Miami Beach’s Colony Theater, the Summit offered hard numbers and eye-opening rags-to-riches stories;  long views and specific, how-to-ideas. And there was, of course, live music. “This event is so important because it brings together people from different disciplines, “said Miami-based music and media producer José Tillán, a multiple Grammy and Latin Grammy winner. “You could be a tech entrepreneur, or you could be an artist and many times you’d be looking for the same thing but in different languages. And It´s important for Miami because this event is a place that unites the local community but also attracts people from the outside world: entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, people in technology and with them, many good ideas.
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    Stunning, small paintings make a dreamy suite

    Published March 27, 2015 by

    A blurring painting from Odalis Valdivieso. With small, delicate paintings, photocopies and photographs, Odalis Valdivieso has created a deceptively large, swirling environment at the Museum of Art + Design, where more than 70 of her works are hung around the main gallery for her solo exhibit,...
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    With your ideas and $305K, The Miami Foundation is fueling a livelier Miami

    Published March 27, 2015 by

    Javier Alberto Soto is president and CEO of The Miami Foundation. Below he writes about the Public Space Challenge, an initiative of The Miami Foundation. The Public Space Challenge turns 3 this year. Over the last several weeks of events, we’ve watched the community come together in vibrant, reimagined gathering spaces. It’s a testament to how Greater Miami has taken this idea and ran with it. In 2013, we set out to create a unique platform for funding new and enhanced public spaces. Both the 2012 and 2014 “Our Miami” reports highlighted the importance of parks and public spaces for our residents’ physical well-being and facilitating connections to our city and each other. Miamians have taken that concept, and coupled with the hard work of numerous local organizations leading this cause year-round, ignited a countywide movement, championing the expansion and protection of these important spaces that belong to all of us.
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    Looking across languages: Seeing the world through mass translation of local news

    Published March 27, 2015 by

    Imagine a world without language barriers, where journalists and citizens can access real-time information from anywhere in the world in any language, seamlessly translated into their native tongue and where the articles they write are equally accessible to speakers of all the world’s languages. Authors from Douglas Adams to Ethan Zuckerman have long articulated such visions of a post-lingual society in which mass translation eliminates barriers to information access and communication. Yet, even as technologies like the Web break down geographic barriers and make it possible to hear from anywhere in the world, linguistic barriers mean most of those voices remain steadfastly inaccessible. 
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    New tools aim to help transform San Jose, Calif., into a more livable city

    Published March 27, 2015 by

      Stuart Cohen is executive director of TransForm, California’s leading transportation advocate, and Ann Cheng is director of GreenTRIP, TransForm’s green building certification program for new residential, mixed-use development. San Jose is one of 26 Knight communities.  Silicon Valley is the world’s leading center of innovation. Yet San Jose is trapped in the era of floppy disks and 8-track tapes when it comes to mobility and development. Traffic congestion is getting worse every day, but we are still building homes and apartments in San Jose like it is 1978, expecting every household to own two or more cars.  When we design new homes around cars – with massive garages and seas of parking lots – it drives up the price of building homes, often by $100,000 or more. The costs are even higher when you consider the loss of valuable space that could have been used for community gardens, gathering places, playgrounds – or even more housing.
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    The Florida-France Festival runs every day in April

    Published March 26, 2015 by

    The Florida-France Festival, or FLA-FRA, is a community-wide series of French-inspired events during the month of April. Produced by Tigertail Productions, FLA-FRA promises to bring elements of French culture to South Florida every day. Concerts, films, performances, pop-up culture clicks, food and a chasse au trésor (treasure hunt) will run...
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    ‘Knight Cities’ podcast: Building a new kind of economy

    Published March 26, 2015 by

    Is it time for a new kind of local economy in our cities, one that’s based on people sharing their knowledge? Tessy Britton believes it is. Tessy and her colleagues at Civic Systems Lab are building a city framework where people can teach skills to those around them and learn new ones. It’s part sharing economy, part neighborliness. I asked Tessy about the Civic Systems Lab and what she calls the “new civic economy” she is helping to build.
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    When a house is an opera: Creating spaces for art in Detroit

    Published March 26, 2015 by

    Many areas of Detroit, including downtown and Midtown, are flourishing. New eateries and other businesses are opening at a pace unseen in decades. Excitement is building. But, there is much work remaining, including what to do with tens of thousands of vacant houses. Architect V. Mitch McEwen is taking one of those off the city’s hands, and transforming into a place for and of art. McEwen will use a $10,000 Knight Arts Challenge award to fund the transformation of a derelict dwelling in southwest Detroit into a neighborhood opera house, and possibly down the road, an artist residency studio. It's an exploration of performance, community and form, she said.