A visit from Dan D'Oca and the MFA Curatorial Practice students

 

It's always exciting when we have visitors in our space and that's why most of us were really looking forward to Professor Dan D'Oca's lecture at MICA Place and a happy hour with the students from the MFA Curatorial Practice programme. Luckily, our new ping pong table arrived and it was installed in the studio!

What's interesting about meeting the Curatorial crew is we're both brand new programmes at MICA and MFA Curatorial Practice is the first of its kind in the country, initiated by founder and director of the The Contemporary Museum in Baltimore George Ciscle. Furthermore, the Curatorial crew is based in Station North, Baltimore's arts district, off campus and attempting to engage a community in their work just like us, which means we're sharing similar experiences.

Dan is challenged to a game of ping pong

 Dan discussed the work his firm Interboro Partners has done, the book they are releasing soon about 101 weapons that either open or close a city, his exhibit at MOMA PS1 and the Baltimore Open City exhibit. Overall, very interesting stuff. My favourite quote? "White people come in with their farmer's markets and think they'll change everything."

A visit from the Commissioner of Health

In week 4, the commissioner of health, Dr. Oxiris Barbot, paid us a visit to discuss the city's latest initiative, and our next project, "Healthy Baltimore 2015." Healthy Baltimore 2015 (HB2015) distills and targets health priorities in Baltimore and focuses on 10 priority areas that account for the greatest possible preventable disease, disability and death:

1. Promote Access to Quality Health Care for All 
2. Be Tobacco Free 
3. Redesign Communities to Prevent Obesity
4. Promote Heart Health 
5. Stop the Spread of HIV and Other Sexually Transmitted Infections 
6. Recognise and Treat Mental Health Needs
7. Reduce Drug Use and Alcohol Abuse
8. Encourage Early Detection of Cancer 
9. Promote Healthy Children and Adolescents 
10. Create Health Promoting Neighbourhoods 

Dr. Oxiris outlined the challenges and opportunities of the programme and how we can contribute to the success of the project including communication, facilitation and integrations.The goal of HB2015 is to address these areas from three perspectives: policy development (health in all policies) to improve environmental, social and economic conditions affecting the health of Baltimore, promote prevention, and access to quality healthcare and maximise community engagement - informing, educating and engaging Baltimore residents to improve their health and the health of their communities.

Since we were already working on Bike Box, we decided to focus on #3: Redesign Communities to Prevent Obesity. Obesity is a huge issue in Baltimore and is linked to serious health conditions. For HB2015, redesigning communities means increasing physical activity levels and improving dietary patterns (including the consumption of more fresh fruits and vegetables) and providing more readily available access to fresh foods. With Bike Box, we want to hire the youth of the community to be the delivery people which will also increase physical activity, and since Bike Box is a grocery delivery system and produce cart, we're touching on access to healthy foods and bringing fresh fruits and vegetables closer - hoping to encourage grocers to open a store and serve the community.

Storefront churches

East Baltimore has a lot of churches and numerous storefront churches, most of which are now closed and boarded up. One of the first assignments during grad school was called the 10x10x10. In groups of two, we had to go to 10 places, meet 10 people and collect 10 artifacts. My team targeted churches and what we noticed was an abundance of storefront churches. These churches had some of the best mottos and taglines ever and some great painted signs.

Grad School characters

[Via: Open Culture]