July, 2020
With the many uncertainties that continue to surround us at this moment in time, we’re compelled to look to the philosophies that strengthen how well we’re able to respond. We look to the tools that may help shape our roadmap for recovery in a way that supports the essential function of community.
LFDTLAB’s ‘Mapping Now: Vital Little Plans’ is a map inspired by New York City’s grid systems on the Lower East Side. The map’s annotations are statements inspired by the writings of Jane Jacobs and are gentle suggestions or prompts that can be taken into action through reflection, in movement, or on the streets.
Jane Jacobs was an urban planner, activist and social theorist. Her work centered around philosophies of inclusion, resistance and community-building. The toolkit that she created during her life’s work came from a broad dissection of social and built environments. Jacobs centered her work around resistance to commercialization, criminalization and segregation, and her theories on urban planning and social organizing were meant for application at the individual level, as tools for building civic capacity–teachings that rest on the foundational principle that: any given public space is defined by the degree to which we participate with it.
Whether we consider the spaces within our own bodies, down to the space between our cells–or when thinking of space as the arena of possibility that makes up our city streets or our homes, it’s time to open it all up. Let’s act as both the designer/architect, and the user/inhabitant of these spaces.
This project was initiated in March, 2020 as a contribution to New York City’s celebration of Lower East Side history month. It has seen many iterations since then. Moving from a live performance in its first stages, then evolving as an interactive digital work under the rapidly changing contexts of a global pandemic, followed only and encircled by the largest civil rights movement in history. We now see that this project is and always will be a work-in-process. It is like all things that sprout up in moments of adversity and challenge–shaped by changing circumstances. Today we present the work in yet another format. As a map and an offering that might enrich your journey and help mark your path on the road to radical change.
