• Article

    Designing cities for everyone

    Published May 6, 2015 by

    A busy intersection in Copenhagen, Denmark. Photo by Torbjorn Larsson. Jeff Risom, a partner at Gehl Architects and managing director of Gehl Studio, the firm’s practice in the United States, will lead Gehl Institute, an urban design nonprofit launching today. As an American living in Denmark, working in all the geographies of the world, I am very aware of how fast urban cultures are changing and how differently cities are responding. Cities have always had their own ever-evolving identities. For some people, it is the monuments and structures of the city that define this identity. For me it is also about the life of the city: where people spend time, the activities they engage in and the buzz or tranquillity of a place. Understanding how people behave in public spaces, testing how they respond to new forms of public space design and applying this knowledge to address global trends is the essence of the work of the new Gehl Institute. Funding from Knight Foundation will allow us to investigate the impact of robust public space and vibrant public life on how people from different socioeconomic backgrounds meet and interact—and civic engagement.
  • Article

    New report offers insights into digital transformation in newsrooms

    Published May 6, 2015 by

    Michele McLellan is senior program consultant to Knight Digital Media Center at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. She is co-author of “News Improved: How America’s Newsrooms Are Learning to Change” and “Digital Training Comes of Age.” Below, she writes about a new report, “Digital Leads: 10 Keys to Newsroom Transformation.” As traditional news organizations move to digital platforms, new skills and tools are essential. But other factors – leadership, strategic goals, an open organizational culture and staff ownership – are also critical for successful transformation. Those are key lessons of the  $10 million Knight Newsroom Training Initiative and of Knight-supported training and coaching for more than 100 news executives at the Knight Digital Media Center at USC/Annenberg since 2006. Building on those lessons, the center developed a process to speed the digital transformation of Journal Media Group (formerly E.W. Scripps) newsrooms in 13 local markets. Knight Digital Media Center, acting as a consultant, has worked with the newsrooms for more than two years. The effort is far from complete. But a new report, “Digital Leads: 10 Keys to Newsroom Transformation,” looks at some of the lessons we’ve learned. Among them: •      When journalists learn to conduct, analyze and act on consumer research, they more readily embrace digital change and create content and engagement that connect with digital news consumers.
  • Article

    FGO readies for Menotti’s ‘Consul’; Seraphic Fire joins forces with Piffaro

    Published May 6, 2015 by

    Kara Shay Thomson in rehearsal for "The Consul" at Florida Grand Opera. Photo by Brittany Mazzurco. By most reckonings, the season has already ended, but for a few Miami organizations, this time of year is when things turn somewhat edgier. Two multiple-event programs begin this week, one of them tonight, and the other on Saturday. Florida Grand Opera: The chill of the Cold War is all over The Consul, Gian-Carlo Menotti’s 1950 opera of a dissident’s wife up against the secret police and an indifferent bureaucracy. Staged using the Seattle Opera’s 2014 production, which is dominated by an oppressive set in which floor-to-ceiling file cabinets seem to close in on the unfortunate diplomatic appellants in the consul’s office who are forced to wait for long stretches of time and fill out mountains of paperwork, The Consul is a powerful and moving meditation on dehumanization.
  • Article

    Here & Now 2015 opens this week at the Miami Light Project

    Published May 6, 2015 by

    A few weeks ago, in full stealth-mode, I snuck into the Miami Light Project to borrow their bench and ice-cold air. A rock was propping the side door open. It was hideously hot, and the air conditioning at the Wynwood Warehouse, where I was working across the street, wasn't cutting it. I'm not shy, so I walked in. I hate to sweat. While I sat on the bench, I heard voices, music, footsteps wonderfully merge into a semi-melodic, circus-like symphony. And that's when it hit me. They were rehearsing for the 17th annual Here & Now festival, which commissions and presents local works. Here & Now 2015 will feature new work from Miami-based artists Liz Ferrer, Lazaro Godoy, Hattie Mae Williams and Michael Yawney. Hattie Mae Williams. I got up. Pulled out my laptop. Walked toward the music. I found Godoy, Mélanie Martel and Carlota Pradera gearing up and stretching to rehearse for Harmonicum Accordion / Act I, Godoy's homage to circus life via the story of a dysfunctional family. I sat on the cement floor as Godoy talked about the concept of the performance and the soundtrack played on loop in the background. "
  • Article

    Around Akron, paintings are popping up like spring flowers

    Published May 6, 2015 by

    Elmer Novotny, The Artist and His Wife, 1938. Reproduction installed 343 E. Cuyahoga Falls Ave., Akron, OH 44310. Photo courtesy of Chris Rutan Photography. Framed reproductions of paintings – some relatively small and delightful when discovered, others impressively large and impactful – have suddenly emerged like spring flowers in the neighborhoods of Akron, Ohio. This is Inside|Out, a community activated art project funded by Knight Foundation that brings art reproductions from the Akron Art Museum’s collection into the streets and outdoor spaces of Akron. To celebrate the launch of Inside|Out, the art museum will host a block party May 7 in the middle of downtown. The party will take place at the museum from 5:30 to 8:00 p.m. and will include live music, local food, art activities for all ages and guided tours of the museum galleries. Adding to the festivities, a trolley tour will bring party-goers to a number of Inside|Out installations in the downtown area. The party will also provide an excellent opportunity to meet representatives from the community partners who have worked with the museum to bring Inside|Out to their neighborhoods.
  • Article

    I.F. Stone’s legacy: A fulcrum for journalistic independence?

    Published May 6, 2015 by

    Allan MacDonell is an expert on I.F. Stone. Knight Foundation funded “The Legacy of I.F. Stone: Part One,” a film about the late investigative journalist, which is being released this week, along with a companion video. The I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence, awarded annually by Harvard University, says on its rim: “From Pariah to Gadfly to Institution to Fulcrum for Journalistic Independence.” These two companion videos aim to use I.F. Stone’s distinguished career to embolden and encourage journalists to speak up and to guard their independence jealously. A commitment to free speech and journalistic integrity was the guiding light of Stone’s career. A pariah during the McCarthy era and considered a gadfly by mainstream media outlets of his time, the fiercely self-reliant journalist earned a grudging respect and an unparalleled legacy through his self-published I.F. Stone Weekly. Started in 1953 with a few thousand initial readers, Stone’s newssheet grew into a profitable and influential circulation of 70,000 by the time it closed when he retired in 1971.
  • Article

    Arts collaboration transports ‘Romeo & Juliet’ to the subtropics

    Published May 5, 2015 by

    The Langston Hughes Outside the Box performance on the YoungArts campus. Photo by Michael D. Bolden. William Shakespeare speaks to our human condition in ways that transcend place and language. But in “Romeo & Juliet Outside the Box,” created specifically for the plaza on the YoungArts Biscayne Boulevard campus, playwright, actor and director Tarell Alvin McCraney and filmmaker Andrew Hevia give a classic story a distinct Miami accent. The performance at 7 p.m. Friday, May 8, is free and open to the public. It is the last Outside the Box performance of the season. The series, which started in October 2014, has included events featuring the Borscht Film Festival, Miami City Ballet, McCraney and, most recently, “The Langston Hughes Project,” a multimedia concert performance of Hughes’ “Ask Your Mama: Twelve Moods for Jazz,” on April 18. The Outside the Box series uses the plaza outside the iconic Jewel Box building, in what once was the United States headquarters of the Bacardi rum company, as a performance space.
  • Article

    MCB and Miami-Dade County Public Schools Announce “Ballet Bus”

    Published May 5, 2015 by

      Miami City Ballet, in partnership with Miami-Dade County Public Schools and the office of the Superintendent of Schools Alberto M. Carvalho, announces the launch of Ballet Bus, a year-round dance scholarship program reaching deep into the Miami-Dade County community to provide arts education and access to students from all backgrounds. The pilot year of the program will target 30 children from District Title I Schools with both talent and need – and provide a long-term investment in each child. Superintendent Carvalho will announce the launch of Ballet Bus at the Meeting of the School Board of Miami-Dade County, Wednesday, March 18, 2015 at 5pm. This nine-month, 34-week program will provide 30 local children, ages 7-10, with everything they need to succeed and excel in one of the nation’s premier dance training academies, including:
  • Article

    Zac Beaver’s memories are lucid dreams on windowpanes

    Published May 5, 2015 by

    Like many others, Zac Beaver is a working artist. He spends his days on construction sites, from which he often salvages the old windows that serve as surfaces for his paintings. On display at New Boon(e) in a solo exhibition called “Awake in the High,” a collection of these wily, reverse acrylic paintings on glass demonstrates Beaver’s pop-cultural and personal background, illustrative style and wit. Zac Beaver, "89 DangerCart II." Each piece by Beaver is not only a standalone idea isolated from a greater narrative, but generally also a single image portrayed alone in the ether. By applying paint to the back side of his transparent material of choice, these creations could feasibly exist in any environment in which they are placed, since their surroundings would be perfectly visible through the unpainted sections of window. In the gallery setting, however, these depictions emerge from a field of whitewashed purity; a celestial blank slate of colorless void.
  • Article

    Nick Cave wraps up Soundsuit shoots at the Eastern Market, but the summer fun is just beginning

    Published May 5, 2015 by

    The scene around Nick Cave's Soundsuit shoot at the Eastern Market on Saturday. On Saturday, May 2nd, artist Nick Cave and a bustling entourage appeared at the Eastern Market for the last in a series of photo shoots of the artist wearing one of his "Soundsuits." These shoots were the first phase in a series of activities and community events created to coincide with a massive installation of old and newly commissioned works by Cave at Cranbrook Art Museum—all made possible with funding through the Detroit Knight Arts Challenge. Cave is assisted in preparation for the shoot. Organized in partnership with Cranbrook's Curator of Contemporary Art and Design, Laura Mott, the event series is already gaining interest and traction, with a group of everyday market-goers pulling away from the usual run of produce and plant shopping to witness Cave posing in a Soundsuit in front of a stand of live ornamental trees. The piece is one in Cave’s ongoing body of work since the early '90s that deals with the relationship of black male bodies in the world. The Soundsuits are full of color and motion, and deploy many of nature’s tricks of self-protection—creating intimidating or exaggerated forms, camouflage, or deceptive outcroppings that draw attention away from vulnerable areas.
  • Article

    Local entrepreneurs share lessons from Portland, Ore.

    Published May 5, 2015 by

    Exploring the Tiny House Hotel. Photo by Elizabeth Miller Tilis. Restaurant owner Philip Stanton jokes that running his Mississippi Pizza Pub in Northeast Portland is more stressful than his former job as a nurse practitioner in an emergency room. And yet it is Stanton’s clear passion for his neighborhood and a desire to learn from his community that keeps him going. “You may have an idea of what you want to do as a local entrepreneur, but actually it’s not really your choice,” Stanton explains. “The street and the community will tell you what it wants; it’s simply your job to listen.” That message was echoed by nearly a dozen small businesses owners, restaurant entrepreneurs and economic developers who addressed participants on the first day of a Knight Foundation-funded Portland study tour.
  • Article

    SportsManias Digital Media Summit tackles the future of sports journalism

    Published May 5, 2015 by

    Vicente J. Fernandez is the co-founder and chief content officer of SportsManias. Below, he writes about his vision for the SportsManias Digital Media Summit, which is sponsored by Knight Foundation. The summit will be live-streamed Friday, Aug. 21, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EDT. Watch at knightfoundation.org/live.  Not so many years ago, diehard sports fans waited for their morning newspaper to get a recap of the previous night’s games. A box score let them know if their division rival won or lost. The beat writer was a master storyteller of sports, the gatekeeper to all its glory. Not so many years later, diehard fans are one tap away from news about their teams. First the Internet, later camera phones and now social media, the world’s universal publishing technology, has redefined what we call “sports journalism,” how we create it and where we find it. Social technology is impacting every facet of our lives, which is why it’s time we ask the question: What does this mean for the future of sports journalism? My colleagues and I created the SportsManias Digital Media Summit to address that question. On Aug. 21, digital media leaders, sports editors, writers and industry executives will gather in Miami to discuss the evolution of journalism and its intersection with social media.
  • Article

    Conscience Under Fire: The MDC Live Arts Veterans Lab Showcase

    Published May 4, 2015 by

    Brooke King, Veteran Poet reading at Veterans Event in Bbar at The Betsy - April 19, 2015. After the debut performance of “Conscience Under Fire,” a spoken word theatrical performance drawn from the experience of four Iraq veterans, consensus ruled the room. This production is ready for New York. Maybe Off-Broadway. True, it was a small room – the Betsy Hotel’s B Bar, presented under the O, Miami umbrella– but the place was packed, with standing room only six deep in the back. “We are talking about what next,” said Katherine Garcia, visibly exhilarated by what she had just witnessed. Garcia is the executive director of the Miami-Dade College’s Miami Live Arts!, and with help from the Knight Foundation, sponsored development of the show. “It exceeded our expectations. It was a very good first performance. It can only get better.” The four writer/performers did not have the appearance of amateurs. From the moment they marched in front of the crowd they commanded the room. Each wore a t-shirt that read “Post Traumatic Stress” on the front, with “stress” marked through and “growth” inserted in its place. Director Teo Castellanos, who workshopped the show intensively for weeks, divided it into three acts – before, during, and after military service. “You can’t tell me my mom’s not a goddess,” rapped Andrew Cuthbert, of the birth of his brother. “She makes people.” Another Veteran, Alan Minor, seethed with resentment toward an absent father.  All spoke of the harshness of their time of war.