In this section, I discuss one of my design conjectures: building a fairy house community at one of the local parks.
ABOUT
Community is a huge part of promoting change, and art is a great vehicle to produce that community. I explored various methods of artist endeavors to learn about how the community can motivate and teach people. In theatre, we are able to role-play as someone from a completely different background as someone else. That builds empathy for others, ,and allows us to recognize situations outside of our own lived experiences. It also allows us to build a collective good, recognizing that we all play an equal share in the final product (Rabin, 2009). Everyone playing their own part is a critical piece of keeping a waste-free community. Cool art builds community, by attracting visitors. Interactive art is even better. Thomas Dambo created large trolls out of recycled and reused materials to display in parks, bringing in visitors and teaching about sustainability (Dambo, n.d.).
When tasked with a design conjecture, I wanted to combine that destination piece of art, interactivity, and role-playing. So the Fairy Grove was created.
Visitors of the park can come help build fairies houses out of scraps of found nature materials nearby. This location is set near a beach, so seashells and driftwood would be abundant. It’s also next to a forest, so bark, branches, leaves, and moss would be available too. By allowing visitors to create, we would be building a community where people felt connected to the work they were doing. It is my hypothesis that by acknowledging the idea of “fairies” in a shared space, it would promote cleaning up of human trash. Keeping the fairies home clean allows for role playing that children and adults can become part of.
REFERENCES
Dambo, T. (n.d.). Hi, I’m Thomas Dambo – recycle artist and activist. Thomasdambo. https://www.thomasdambo.com/Rabin, C. L. (2009). The Theatre Arts and Care Ethics. Youth Theatre Journal, 23(2), 127–143. https://doi.org/10.1080/08929090903281436
Rabin, C. L. (2009). The Theatre Arts and Care Ethics. Youth Theatre Journal, 23(2), 127–143. https://doi.org/10.1080/08929090903281436
