NOTE Play is no longer just for kids, engaging youth and adults together bonds generations in light hearted experiences. Giving support to children and building their confidence as part of a community. At Free City Flint my interactive installation piece was conceived of a study of mathematical geometric design, ultimately the structure was built out of 100 hula-hoops. Extra hula-hoops were set on the ground around the sculpture and adults and children were invited to hula-hoop around the sculpture and try to climb through the larger geometric assemblage of hula-hoops. IMAGE The result was that children and adults were taking on the challenge and laughing and enjoying themselves as they played together in the Chevy Commons lot. This builds bonds from the interaction of different generations in public space together. At the Porous Borders festival, an installation titled She Saw See-saws by the Sallan Shore built by Eitan Sussman was set up on the boarder encouraging citizens from both sides to come and play together. It explored the physical and social relationships that divided the communities along the …show more content…
By creating a growing understanding of site and its unique identity, citizens can build and understanding of ownership, historical connection, and a sense of stewardship toward the spaces that they reside. This is a fundamental part of communities, Placemaking, and social fabric. For example a 2013 installation by NAO (Normal Architecture Office, an architecture firm lead by Srdjan Javanovic Weiss) and in collaboration with Shelby Elizabeth Doyle and Jason Harre, The Space Between the Rail and Fence, draws from the contextual postindustrial remains on the site an connects the remaining rail line on the ground spatially to a fence on the site with ropes creating a new relationship between these two bodies. This offers a new way for visitors to see and view these derelict urban elements as something to be prideful and identify with them. IMAGE In recent years the festival has expanded to include other sites, at night in varying locations in the local neighborhood provide facades of houses and abandoned silos as surfaces for projection mapping by multiple artists. IMAGE these works directly correlate with the built environment as a historical element and urban relationship. This provides a sort reference to the past becoming new and inspiring citizens to have more appreciation for these architectural elements of their city. At Porous Borders festival I built an installation consisting of 15