RC08 - The World Cafe
25th Street before the festivities on June 9th, 2007
If you remember back to RC01:Relocation, you may recall an interview with Karen Heisler and Marc Tognotti wherein Marc talked about his organization, Neighborhood Assemblies Network, and his interest in blocking off 25th street and turning it into a “World Cafe” where people could discuss what their dream of a perfect neighborhood was. Now, here we are, about one gestational period later and, well, 25th street has been duly closed to traffic, and tables have been set-up, and people have arrived to discuss their hopes and dreams for the neighborhood. There is a memory wall, where people are invited to note significant moments in the history of the neighborhood, and a grafitti wall where neighbors were asked to write their hopes for the neighborhood. The future and the past are combined to engender a sense of shared experience for people who may have previously just been strangers. Marc and his partner Kenoli did most of the legwork of forming a committee and distributing fliers and doorhangers to promote the event, and we facilitated by assisting with the planning and set-up, designing some of the promotional material, inviting local musician and perennial Mayoral candidate Cesar Ascarrunz to pump out the jams, and local artist Julio Morales of the SFAI City Studio program. keep scrolling for the audio, the details and the pictures.
As photogenic as the man is, somehow we did not manage to get any pictures of the dashing gentleman we all know as Mayor Ascarrunz, but we did capture the sounds. and here is what Cesar provided to get the atmosphere set for the Connexion Communitaria.
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Cesar Ascarrunz
After a couple of hours of fantastic music and banter from our old friend it was time for the dialogue to start, and people sat at tables as Kenoli proposed some questions for them to consider.
Kenoli Oleari gets the World Cafe started with a BANG!
Marc began by thanking some of the people who helped put the whole event together, and then introduced his partner Kenoli. Kenoli describes the Neighborhood Assembly Network’s process, and facilitates understanding between the neighbors by asking people to stand if they have a positive response to a series of demographic questions. Unfortunately Kenoli was not playing to the radio audience so we don’t know exactly how many people stood up for each of the questions posed, but when we hear our fabulous translator Patricia say “Wow”, you get a sense of who’s in the audience. Anyway, here is where the dialogue begins… you will here the remote feed cut out from time to time and the music will swell. For that, we apologize, but bear with us, and you’ll definitely get a sense of what was happening. And the real opportunity that this event gave these neighbors to connect, both because of, and sometimes outside of the parameters of, the event.
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Ist of 3 parts of the dialogue
Minerva Hallacy of Lucy’s Hair Salon knows what time it is (and so does Patricia).
In addition to streaming difficulties, we had a brief flare-up of wireless microphone feedback which apparently had people scared of the sound system. As long as LeE didn’t start messing with the wiring of the mixing board, and Kenoli didn’t point the microphone at the speakers, we were ok. And the dialogue continued…. as part of Marc and Kenoli’s World Cafe format, people would move from table to table having similar discussions with a new group of people each time. Kind of like musical chairs. It seemed to work very well for some of the issues that were brought up.
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2nd of 3 parts of the dialogue
Whizz drops a microphone into the proceedings
This last bit of audio is provided to document the process of determining winners of the raffle for services from local businesses. Just because Patricia won, and she was the translator for the event, does not mean the contest was rigged… this was, luckily the first time Patricia ever won a raffle. Like John Lennon said….. “Instant Karma’s gonna get ya”.
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3rd of 3 parts of the dialogue
Katina and Jon test out the wireless mics.
Jon provided some musical accompaniment to the space of contemplation and back-patting that remained after the dialogue was done.
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Jon Brumit soundscape
As the energized cafe participants were slowly dispersing from the scene of the dialogue, NPR’s invited guests, Julio Morales and Christine Lee of the San Francisco Art Institute’s City Studio program. Julio played a 7 minute escerpt track that his class produced on the theme of “archiving and experimental journalism” and then Jon spoke with Julio and Christine about the program and what it’s like working with “at-risk” youth, the power of music, and the nature mentorship.
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Julio Morales and Christine Lee of the City Studio program
The last moments of a 9 month experiment.
Finally, after 9 months of hard labor on the Radio Cartography project with Southern Exposure and funded by the Creative Work Fund we took a few minutes to reflect and appreciate what we had produced. We also sang a brief tribute to Southern Exposure’s director and NPR’s favorite friend Courtney Fink.
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This is the End, My only friend…the end
Courtney Fink at the memory wall, without whom none of this would have been possible