A Step-By-Step Guide

Outreach

14 days prior

1. After preliminary research, identify an issue or condition that requires community input.

Agenda Prep

7 days prior

1. Discuss the agenda

2. Frame your guiding question

3. Select a strategic public space with foot traffic to engage with passers-by

2. Partner with a local community organization affected or interested in such issue or condition.

3. Recruit volunteers and select strategically the dates

Choose Medium

3 days prior

1. Meet with your team to choose an eye-catching medium to engage people's attention

2. Design the medium in a way that allow you to collect people's voices

3. Prepare the material you will need

Public Faculty

1. Arrive 30 min early for preparations

2. Debrief volunteers

3. 4 hours for community engagement

4. Wrap up and prepare for the next day

Analysis

1. Digitize public faculty results

2. Reflect on insights

3. Share your findings

THE SOCIOGRAM WORKSHOP PROVIDED THE social infrastructure needed to start engaging with the broader public surrounding the future of the interim Public Library. Volunteers from the organizations present in the previous workshop were invited, including two members of Visión Futuro and four volunteers from Voces Ciudadanas.

There was a team meeting two days leading up to the first session where the guiding question was determined. The question was, “How do you imagine a community space that unites and empowers the community?” as it constrained people’s answers to a particular location (the library) while providing enough freedom for a variety of answers.

Inspired by quilts, the Public Faculty was organized around the weaving of a large tapestry, where individual answers would be woven together to reveal the elements that bring the community of Sunset Park together. The pieces of cloth were hung and woven together on site, creating a colorful and eyecatching tapestry that illustrates the diverse patchwork of imagination(s) for community spaces in Sunset Park.

The Public Faculty took place over two days, at two locations in Sunset Park: the corner of 5th Ave. and 44th St. on Saturday, February 18th and at 4th Ave. and the corner of 59th St. on Sunday, February 19th. The organizers believed both of these locations would be busy with pedestrian traffic with diverse backgrounds and affiliations. The 5th Avenue location is on the corner of Sunset Park itself and is next to a bus stop and grocery store. The 4th Avenue location is near a prominent subway stop.

How do you imagine a community space that unites and empowers the community?