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    New York Restoration Project strengthens community by improving open spaces

    Published May 23, 2014 by

    Photo credit: Ellen Xie/New York Restoration Project. A team from Charlotte, N.C., a Knight community, will shadow the work of the New York Restoration Project to improve quality of life in the city by transforming open spaces through the Resilience in the Public Realm initiative. RELATED LINK "Charlotte, N.C., team to import ideas from work of New York Restoration Project" by Susan Patterson on Knight Blog "New York Restoration Project will develop a shareable model for community revitilization with $250,000 from Knight Foundation" What if every walk from home to school, school to work, work to the grocer, promoted physical fitness, prevented crime, cleaned the air and water, offered opportunities for urban agriculture, provided habitat for birds and pollinators, and generally fostered constructive social behavior? With help from Knight Foundation, New York Restoration Project will answer those questions with our project Resilience in the Public Realm. This multi-year initiative seeks to foster social and environmental resilience by bringing all open spaces in one low-income New York community to their full potential. Without support from Knight Foundation, we could not undertake critical planning, including spatial analysis to identify a community; the formation of an evaluation framework; and preliminary design concepts. Green infrastructure, public health, affordable housing, social services all coincide in the public realm. As the vital connector between these overlapping urban concerns, public open spaces can support and amplify efforts intended to improve environmental quality, health, housing and other fundamental urban issues. With Resilience in the Public Realm, we will bring every open space in a single neighborhood – each street tree, vacant lot, park, community garden, median and the like – into a network designed to improve quality of life indicators such as public and environmental health, crime reduction and community engagement.
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    The anatomy of a sound cue

    Published May 22, 2014 by

    By Kira Obolensky, Ten Thousand Things The innovative use of sound in Ten Thousand Things’ productions comes from the happy collaboration of necessity and imagination. Because Ten Thousand Things performs with the lights on, the ways in which light can be used to shape a play—to delineate time, to set...
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    Dinorah de Jesús Rodriguez is an artist in action

    Published May 22, 2014 by

    Dinorah de Jesús Rodriguez is a multi-talented artist and a significant voice for women and Miami's cultural continuity. Her work as an experimental filmmaker pushes the boundaries of cinema to create politically minded work that attempts to change perceptions within segments of the population and the community at large. [caption...
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    Gary Sczerbaniewicz and convoluted crawlspaces at Vox Populi

    Published May 22, 2014 by

    Tom Ridge, the former Pennsylvania Governor turned first United States Secretary of Homeland Security, is brought back into public consciousness at Vox Populi with Gary Sczerbaniewicz’s interactive installation, which bears his name. Although the Knight Arts grantee has a plethora of other great pieces on view this May, it is...
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    Detroit’s Jit gets night in spotlight with new documentary

    Published May 22, 2014 by

    Photo credit: Knight Foundation on Flickr.  Growing up in a hardscrabble swath of Detroit's west side, Haleem Rasul had a start in life that wasn't all that auspicious. Dance was his escape. Rasul’s cousin got him into Breaking and Popping, dance forms popularized on the East and West coasts. But Rasul fell for the Jit, so much so that he got in touch with the McGhee brothers who originated the dance in Detroit in the mid-1970s. A series of filmed interviews with the three brothers led to the documentary, "Jitterbugs: Pioneers of the Jit," which debuts Friday at the Detroit Institute of Arts. The event, sponsored in part by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, is free with museum admission. The movie, which took five years to make, includes appearances by luminaries such as Motown singer Kim Weston, who supported the brothers, as well as footage of the McGhees performing at local parties and events like festivals and auto shows throughout the mid 1980s. It also includes a bonus instructional on Jit steps and style, so anyone can learn the dance. Rasul, 36, said the film chronicles how pioneers Johnny, Tracy and James McGhee gained local stardom only to fade from the klieg lights, leaving a rich legacy. The brothers are scheduled to perform at the premiere, along with other area dance groups including locally prominent Jit forerunners.  The event, called “Jit Happens at the DIA,” also will feature top acts that have helped spread the Jit's influence beyond the Detroit area.
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    Charlotte, N.C., team to import ideas from work of New York Restoration Project

    Published May 22, 2014 by

      Photo credit: Ellen Xie/New York Restoration Project. The New York Restoration Project is about to embark on an exciting project, and Charlotte will learn along with them. The timing couldn’t be better. Charlotte is developing its Capital Improvement Plan with a focus on coordinated work in targeted neighborhoods. In June, New York Restoration Project will launch a multi-year initiative to improve the quality of life in a high-need neighborhood by bringing every open space – vacant lots, parks, community gardens and sidewalks – to their full potential. Knight is supporting that process as well as having a Charlotte team “shadow” the process. Dave Cable with Trees Charlotte will lead the Charlotte team, which will include representatives from the public health, urban design and planning, public safety and transportation sectors. For many of the planning sessions at the New York Restoration Project, Dave will be in the room participating. Sometimes, several members of the Charlotte team will travel to New York and observe. Throughout the yearlong process, the Charlotte team will take what they’re hearing and explore together how it might apply in Charlotte. They’ll also share what they’re learning with co-workers, professional associations and the community, deepening our collective understanding of how such intentional neighborhood-based work can be designed. Public sector participation is key, and City Manager Ron Carlee and Planning Director Debra Campbell have embraced the project.
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    Innovation pilot at Hampton University to prepare new journalists

    Published May 22, 2014 by

    Brett A. Pulley is dean of the Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications at Hampton University in Hampton, Va., which is receiving $245,000 in funding from Knight Foundation to create a pilot program for a Center for Innovation in Digital Media.  Above: HU Scripps Howard students get first hand experience on-camera and behind-the-scenes in the school's TV studio. Photo credit: Hampton University. The precipitous decline in value of traditional content producers, together with the extraordinary rise in value of new digital distribution platforms, has brought us to where we are today – a period full of both tremendous uncertainty and opportunity. For the old gatekeepers of media, it’s a time of uncertainty, as these companies search vigorously to find new ways to capture consumers on new platforms and generate strong profit margins at the same time. However, the gates of media are wide open. The opportunity to find ways to profitably blend quality content with burgeoning digital platforms abounds. Students such as ours who possess digital instincts and unconventional ideas will chart the future of the journalism and communications industries. Global media needs a new breed of diverse, innovative, young thinkers, and we here at the Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications aim to fulfill that need with our Center for Digital Media Innovation.
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    An inside look at the Arts + Business Council of Greater Philadelphia’s “Designing Leadership”

    Published May 22, 2014 by

    By Emily Sullivan, Arts & Business Council of Greater Philadelphia Throughout March and April the Arts + Business Council of Greater Philadelphia held its first ever leadership program targeted towards the arts and cultural nonprofit and creative for-profit sectors. This program, called Designing Leadership, was a five-session-long series that helped...
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    Entries open for 2014 Online Journalism Awards

    Published May 21, 2014 by

    Photo credit: Heikki Pölönen. The following is cross-posted from the Online News Association's website.  The 2014 Online Journalism Awards -- the only comprehensive set of prizes honoring excellence in digital journalism around the world -- open today, marking their 14th anniversary. It's worth taking a spin through their short but distinguished history, since they collectively mirror the stratospheric arc of digital journalism.  The OJAs were launched in May 2000 by ONA's pioneering founders. As you might suspect, there weren't a ton of entries that year, in part because there weren't a ton of "online" journalists. There were only 11 categories to choose from, with titles like "GENERAL EXCELLENCE IN ONLINE JOURNALISM, ORIGINAL TO THE WEB" and "CREATIVE USE OF THE MEDIUM, ORIGINAL." In hindsight, these categories look like baby steps, but they signify the commitment, excitement and sense of possibility surrounding journalism and the brave new world of the 'net.  As digital media exploded, so did the number of OJA entries and categories. Over this time, our dedicated volunteer chairs and committees were prescient enough to know they needed to be nimble, viewing each year's awards with an eye toward the breakneck evolution of online news. Categories emerged focusing on technical tools and welcoming news start-ups and nontraditional media. ONA also was able to put its money where its awards were, thanks to generous and forward-thinking support from the Knight and Gannett Foundations that gave winners the encouragement to keep the innovation coming.  This year, under the direction of Chair Josh Hatch, the OJAs open with 33 categories. Ten of the awards now come with a total of $52,500 in prize money, honoring data journalism, visual digital storytelling, investigative journalism and technical innovation in the service of journalism, as well as those important touchstones from 2000, public service and general excellence. Some things should never change.