Three Streets, World Sweets #3streetsworldsweets
Sunday 15 March 15
We focused on KEEP LEARNING, of the 5 Ways to Well-being. In order for people to Keep Learning, we felt knowing one’s culture and its history was key to fostering the energy and confidence needed to want to Keep Learning. Here, we noticed an historic image of Cornmarket Street in Cork, posted on the wall of a Jewellers on the street. This was our first bit of inspiration. We thought historic imagery was an effective way to show people about the histories of the places in which they live. Sunday 15 March 15
Soon, we started to notice much historic imagery in different places in Cork.
Sunday 15 March 15
We went into museums, galleries, and culture centers of Cork to see how institutions represent historical imagery of Cork for people to Keep Learning about the history of the city. Here is an image of Cork city circa 1600 AD, when the Main street truly was the MAIN Street in Cork. We took interest to of the historic streets in Cork--Cornmarket St., North Main St., and Shandon St. Sunday 15 March 15
Here is some recent, cultural literature we picked up from culture centers of Cork. We looked at these materials to see what ways people can Keep
Learning, through these centers. For example, many centers offer classes, history tours, historically-themed events, and more. Sunday 15 March 15
Description of Action So, Â After much meaningful discussion, we decided to focus on the multitude of
cultures in the close proximity of the historic streets. We wanted to focus on something positive from each culture’s presence on the streets. Most of the cultural shops sell food products, so we thought the sweets of the shops would be a fun focus to learn about and then share with the public. We thought to represent the main cultural presences of the three streets--
Shandon St., Cornmarket St., and North Main St.--by visiting at least 2 shops on each street of different cultures.
Sunday 15 March 15
Our Streets
Shandon St. Cornmarket St. Norht Main St. Sunday 15 March 15
We Went Out As research in the city, We went to many different culture’s food shops on the three historic streets. We made great effort to buy and try at least one sweet from each shop. We visited general Asian, Eastern Asian, Polish, Slovakian, Indian, African, and Irish shops on the three streets. We chatted with the shop owners and asked many questions about the cultural traditions and origins of certain sweets. We focused on the seemingly most authentic and cheap sweet product of each sweet, to share and promote in our informational cards with the public.
Sunday 15 March 15
As partners, we
introduced each other to many new sweets,
and learned a lot about each other’s cultures.
Sunday 15 March 15
Engagement with the Public We wanted to engage with the public in an informational and
educational way. We thought making fun, informational cards would be a good way to pass out information, for people to choose to engage with.
We wanted to encourage people to Keep Learning by
providing information that was interesting, appealing to
various interests--like costs, cultural identities, and positive childhood interests of sweets.
Sunday 15 March 15
We shared our project information and some
different culture’s sweets to
some of the shop owners of
the shops on which we were
focusing. We received general enthusiasm from the shop
owners of our focus shops when we explained our
creative take to promoting their local, authentic, and cultural products, to the public.
Sunday 15 March 15
#3streetsworldsweets The front and back of our cards!
Sunday 15 March 15
Sunday 15 March 15
We found a basket, which helped in our presentation to the public. We were able to more easily
share the cultural sweets we had.
Sunday 15 March 15
At the end of the day, we only had a few sweets and cards left! Sunday 15 March 15
Nurturing the Public Ideally, we designed our creative intervention to provide learning experiences for the public. We worked to nurture directly people’s knowledge of the different cultural presences in the historic area of Cork.
We aimed to provide information in a fun and interesting way so that the gain of knowledge provided to the public would affect individuals’ attitudes positively, in regards to the different cultural presences in Cork. Ideally that, people’s interests could be peaked in an open, and accepting way of the different cultures around.
We designed our information and face-to-face approach to the public so that our positive behaviors could rub off onto the people. We feel that the positive approach to the sharing of this cultural information would affect people’s behaviors as GLOBAL CITIZENS, in becoming more knowledgable, cultured, and understanding of the richness of Cork culture in their lives. We feel sharing information on cultures’ varying foods is a good way for people to learn about and empathize with the various lifestyles of people all over the world.
Sunday 15 March 15
Gain and Change We feel the public of Cork could have gained knowledge of many kinds and varieties of sweets in the world, the availability of various cultures’ sweets in their area, the presence of different cultures in Cork, particular health benefits of different cultures’ sweets, other options regarding buying sweets (Tesco vs. local, authentic shop, for example), the coming of different cultures’ presences to the historic area of Cork, and more...
In our minds, the attitudes of the public can change by seeing other cultures’ products in a positive and accessible light. We feel the public’s attitudes could gain sense of openness and appreciation for other cultures’ lifestyles. Essentially, people could feel empowered and more self-confident in knowing more about their own culture’s foods and how to share information about them, and in turn have more of a comfortability towards learning about other cultures’ foods.
Behavior-wise, the public’s ways of acting towards each other and towards shopping habits can change. People may feel more confident in knowing more about cultures’ foods so that they shop differently--look for different authentic and delicious products, shop at new places, encourage friends and family to try new things. In turn, people may come to act differently towards each other, as more aware, sensitive, culturally responsible growing global citizens!
Sunday 15 March 15
Maximizing Impact To maximize the impact of our work, we created a Facebook page and
hashtag for people to follow. When sharing our information on our historic
streets, many people’s interests were peaked when a Facebook presence was mentioned.
We shared stacks of our cards with the focus shops, so that others could pick up the cards at their own interest, to continue to learn about different sweets at different cultural shops in the historic streets of Cork.
We explained to the shop owners in great detail the meaning of our creative intervention, so that they understood our intentions and could support us in our support of them.
Sunday 15 March 15
Reflection on the Project
In all, we were generally pleasantly surprised by the reactions we received from the public. We found that in being outgoing and positive towards the public, our attitudes were genuinely reflected by the public. We were met with sincere interest and respect from most people.
We realized that presenting positive information to the public, rather than serious or hard-to-understand information, was the key approach to peaking interest in the public.
Also, sharing and discussing our positive, creative work with the public stood out in general, as we weren’t marketing or promoting commercialized things that people are used to being bombarded with.
We observed that people had different points of interests when we began talking about different cultural sweets in Cork. People responded differently to our varying language as we attempted to entice them with our sincere project. For example, some people responded well to health facts; or, anti-industry facts.
Of course, we learned that people love sweets, and that they didn’t mind taking candy from strangers, after all. Sunday 15 March 15
How to Bring the Project Forward In the future, we want to continue to develop the Facebook and hashtag
presence in terms of making the theme and intention of the project to be more meaningful. We wish, in time, to more directly communicate the
connections to the 5 Ways to Well-being initiative, and the well-being focused quality of our creative project.
We would hope to share more information of the food options around Cork,
and emphasize the specialness of the proximity of such diverse cultures in the city center.
We would hope to work more closely with the shops involved in terms of
promoting the health, social, economical, and cultural benefits of shopping at these local, ethnic shops.
Sunday 15 March 15
Online Presence https://www.facebook.com/3streetsworldsweets EVENT PAGE: https://www.facebook.com/events/1021587484535906/
Sunday 15 March 15
Sunday 15 March 15
Three Streets, World Sweets
#3streetsworldsweets
Sunday 15 March 15