Installation
Tell Me More is a place for people to reflect on the 2018 fires that ravaged California & what the impacts have meant for them. The project marries sequences of story-listening with story-collection in an interactive installation.
As visitors walk inside the space, they’re invited to sit on a series of stools. Each stool is embedded with touch activated audio that shares previously recorded reflections from other city residents. As visitors listen, they’re enveloped in information we rarely share with each other -- our fundamental concerns, hopes & visions for our increasingly fire-prone region.Standing next to the each stool is an audio recording totem, where visitors are invited to reflect on what they’ve heard via other speakers & add their own perspectives to the conversation.
While this iteration focuses on the impacts of the recent Camp Fire, Tell Me More is a prototype for a new kind of civic engagement. Installed in public spaces, it creates a context for strangers to reflect & converse with each other about issues of change & vulnerability in our built environments, creating broader community-based conversations about the challenges & opportunities of modern urban life. From impacts of climate change to economic inequality to gentrification, Tell Me More is a collective space for processing our concerns about the ways our communities & cities are changing.
It’s also a valuable data collection tool. Gathering people’s reflections provides valuable insight on the words & phrases people use to talk about change, about their fears, hopes & dreams. Their answers, comments & questions are critical for cultivating more approachable dialogues about our collective urban futures.