Face to Face

In 2008, after the Obama campaign packed up and left town, young people in my city were incited to do something good, something big, in our own way. A few 20-somethings in my city started meeting in an art gallery after hours to talk about what we could do to engage each other in meaningful ways, to create positive change locally. We were teachers, artists, social justice workers, librarians, politicos, PR pros. Over pizzas, cheap wine, and some difficult conversations, we launched Face to Face, a project that would change my life and the face of our city.

Word of Mouth

First, we thought we should just get people together. We built an event somewhere between a bar and coffee shop. A kind of conversational party. The idea was to unplug from your device, and plug into real life. We curated an evening of conversation starters and, the highlight of the night, we built a yurt that would act as a photobooth. It was a place for people to get a little more intimate, and capture that togetherness in a photograph. The event was a hit, and set the stage for the a local movement of alternative and meaningful guided engagements. Local press took notice.

Word of Mouth 2

Following the success of our first event, we did it all again, on a rooftop this time. Our promotions and messaging leaned in on the idea of breaking away from the digital world to connect IRL. We threw out conversation starters, such as playing a Dave Chappell monologue that asked questions about monogamy and its relevance in contemporary society.

Word of Mouth 3

For our third event, we stretched ourselves around the theme of the seven deadly sins. We took over a space downtown and built seven installations around the space, one for each sin. For instance, we had a VIP section that no one could enter: Envy. We set up a cheval mirror in the center of the room, with a spotlight on it: Vanity. We setup a video camera in a small room where participants, could vent: Wrath.

Soapbox poster evite.jpg — The Soapbox Salon Series

While we were having fun getting people together, we wanted to make a difference, so we developed a series of more targeted events that focussed on a specific issue: Green Jobs + Low-Income Families; Simple Living in a Complex Age; and Social Practice: The Art of Creating Meaningful Interaction in the Community. Each event was led by an expert in the respective field.

White Oak handcard_back.jpg — Green Jobs + Low Income Families

We partnered with the Beloved Community Center, a social justice organization in town, to explore the phenomenon of so called green jobs that were becoming available as a result of block grants made by the Obama administration. The event was held in a historic mill village on the east side of town, a neighborhood most of us had not visited before. The crowd was intergenerational. The event would catch the attention of the more established leadership in the city, setting us up as partners for future endeavors going forward.

Simple Living Handcard.jpg — Simple Living In a Complex Age

In graduate school I met Dr. Charlie Headington an expert on systems such as slow food, permaculture, and livable design. I took his course on Simple Living and proposed it as an event for our group. We held the event at a Quaker meeting house, using Quaker principles as a jumping off point for a greater conversation and lively debate of the issues surrounding simple living. Charlie and I would go on to become friends, and I now consider him a mentor and one of the most influential figures in my life.

bowling_poster_final small.jpg — Social Practice

Another professor I met was artist Lee Walton who was teaching at my local university. When we met I learned about his genre of art, called social practice, wherein the relation of people to each other and in society is the basis for art, rather than the traditional art mediums. He and I saw an immediate, common correlation and created an event for our Soapbox Salon series. Walton conceptualized an evening at a bowling alley, where each lane would compete to have the most average score. After bowling, Walton gave a short lecture on the history of social practice and then presented the winning team with very average trophies. This would launch my own foray into the art world, and would catalyze the art collective that would become Spare Room.

Good Hair Card-front.jpg — Good Hair

We explored this issue by screening Chris Rock’s Film “Good Hair,” stopping the film intermittently to facilitate a discussion among audience members. We had local experts in the audience, including a representative from a black-owned hair supply company. The issue was complex and problematic for people of every creed and color. Creating space for these difficult and often guarded conversations was what we were all about.

american flag.jpg — Immigration and Naturalization

Immigration was an issue we wanted to know more about. It’s so complicated and convoluted and impacts so many lives. So we gathered three experts to help us understand the process better. To lean into the experiential element, we created an entry into the event that was cryptic and arbitrary. Also, participants wore questions on their shirts taken from the naturalization test, questions to which most citizens don’t know the answer.

City Council Wants to Hang Out with You

We wanted to use our power to connect young people into the civic process. As young leaders we saw how easy it was to get in front of your local elected official and the influence that can have on your district. So we threw a rooftop party to get our elected officials and our audience together in a relaxed atmosphere. It was all part of our larger civic engagement platform called Show of Hands.

A Casual Affair

One of our last parties we threw was an experiential Valentine’s event. We invited a local artist to draw naked caricatures of participants. We had our attorney friend don a top hat and argue with participants about mundane and serious topics. You could make a Valentine for a stranger, pick a name from the phone book and we mailed it to them. And we had the city’s best stylist doing dollar-per-minute haircuts in the front window.