One of these posters I made will be in the exhibit Poster4Tomorrow, a global event highlighting the censorship that still muffles citizens around the world. I got a first-hand schooling from TED Fellow Esra’a Al Shafei who can’t have her picture taken/posted for fear of being identified by various Middle Eastern governments. Her organization MideastYouth.com is an unfiltered platform that facilitates freedom of expression and constructive discussion amongst youth in the Middle East (with provocative video mashups to boot), but they have to constantly get their nerd on and rewire their internets in order to keep their lines open to the rest of the world. At least not as bad as in China, she said, where the internet police are even more sophisticated in their nerdy ways. Spread that. The exhibit of 100 posters from designers around the world launches December 10th in 20+ cities including Beirut, Belgrade, and Buenos Aires. Latest news here. If you want to print them out you can download big versions here and here.

The tenant flash cards can now be purchased online for $10! The boxed set makes a handsome and righteous gift for anyone living in New York state, and all profits go to the good work of non-profit Tenants & Neighbors. It was great fun creating them and now you can enjoy good times learning the law on security deposits, privacy, repairs, eviction and more. Learn more about the project and buy them in Tenants & Neighbors’ online store!

Last year I got a generous grant from Sappi Ideas That Matter to create flash cards on tenants’ rights with the NY grassroots organization Tenants & Neighbors. After working together for months and sending them out to the printers, the cards have arrived! The boxed set of thirty cards translates NY state’s official Tenants Rights Guide document into good fun and layman’s terms on topics from security deposits and subletting to privacy and discrimination. It’s pretty awesome to see what was once a one-off turn into truckloads, and they’ll be given to members and made available in their online store soon - will keep you posted…

About to leave Oxford and an amazing experience at the TED Global conference that will take some time to simmer on after a day or two of hibernation. In the meantime, just wanted to spread the word that CUP is looking for designers and visual artists to pair up with advocates for a new round of Making Policy Public. I had a spectacular time working with them and The Street Vendor Project to translate the scary legalese into an accessible guide to street vending that clarifies the most commonly violated rules and then some.

I’m so happy and honored to be a 2009 TEDGlobal Fellow! Yay! The inspiring conference features some of the world’s biggest thinkers and doers and I’ve spent many mind-churning hours glued to my laptop watching videos that include Bonnie Basler on how bacteria talk, Malcolm Gladwell on choices, Jimmy Wales on the birth of Wikipedia, Kwabena Boahen on a computer that works like the brain, and Nicholas Negroponte on touch-screen interfaces (in 1984).

TED recently launched a fellows program to help others join the community and gain some mentorship. After applying, twenty-five people were selected and we’ll attend the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford, UK in July, exchange ideas, form a greater social network, and share our ongoing experiences on the TED blog throughout the year. I don’t know how I was able to slip into this impressive crowd that includes a leading female Kenyan software developer, a Jamaican robotics expert, and a next-generation Burmese human rights activist, but I’m excited to meet them and the lesson learned is - throw yourself out there! I look forward to good times ahead and check out some more of my favorite TED talks here. View more info and the press release for the 2009 TEDGlobal Fellows.  And if you’re interested in becoming a TEDIndia fellow in November, you can still apply until June 15!

Two of my projects, Million Dollar Blocks New Orleans and the Guide to Street Vending in New York City, are currently featured in the NYC exhibition The Global Polis: Interactive Infrastructures. Curated by Nader Vossoughian and organized by the Center for Architecture, the exhibit awesomely highlights communication tools as just as important of an infrastructure system as roads, housing, and sewer systems. Check it out if you can! Here’s an excerpt from the exhibit description:

What is infrastructure? For much of the twentieth century, the answer to this question was guided by the ideology of functionalist urbanism, a school of thought that said that all healthy cities served four major needs – work, housing, recreation, and transportation. Today, we no longer take this view for granted, for it is a perspective that makes no provisions for community, identity, or history.

Global Polis: Interactive Infrastructures documents a series of contemporary experiments in planning, architecture, and design that treat cities and their environments in holistic terms, as a complex social, political, and ecological matrix. Infrastructure cannot be divorced from the structure of democracy, from the environment at large, and the contributions to this exhibition highlight the important role that community, communication, participation, and the sharing of knowledge play in understanding the urban fabric.

Center for Architecture
536 LaGuardia Place
New York, NY 10012
Open 9am – 8pm Monday – Friday and 11 – 5pm on Saturdays
Admission is free

NYC’s Urban Omnibus generously gave me the floor to write about the process of working with the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) and The Street Vendor Project to create a fold-out poster demystifying the regulations of street vending in New York City. None of it could have happened without CUP’s Making Policy Public program, which pairs designers and advocates to collaborate and make information on public policy truly public: accessible, meaningful, and shared.

I spent five months collaborating with these guys, better understanding the rough-and-tumble challenges vendors face, and speaking with vendors like Munnu (above) who sells hot dogs and pretzels at the corner of Lafayette and Reade. He moved to NYC from Bangladesh and has been a street vendor for 17 years, but it hasn’t been easy. Simple violations like parking your cart more than 18 inches from the curb or not “conspicuously” wearing your vending license can lead to steep fines. “One time I got a ticket because my jacket covered my license, and then I have to pay $1000 fine,” he said, “Do you have $1000 in your pocket? You don’t have it! I don’t have it! This hand makes money and the other hand finishes it very fast. How do they think I can give so much?” Check it out here!

Article all about the street vendor guide!

And check out my project page for more photos of the guide and the distribution to vendors!

It’s hot off the presses! As part of Making Policy Public, I collaborated with street vendors, the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP), and The Street Vendor Project to research, compile and design this guide to street vending in NYC. It clarifies the rules so NYC’s 10,000 vendors can understand their rights, avoid fines, and earn an honest living. The thick document of city regulations that vendors have been using is full of intimidating jargon and unformatted lists that would make even the most patient person cry. As a result, vendors are getting fined $1000 for simple things like parking their cart too far away from the curb - a rule that can only be followed if you know it exists. 

We’ve translated the most commonly-violated rules into diagrams and minimal text in English, Bengali, Arabic, Chinese, and Spanish. It also includes a big-ass poster full of fun facts on the history and challenges of NYC street vending, vendor types, personal vendor stories, and policy recommendations.

We’re passing them out to street vendors for free. Unfortunately I’m all the way up in Finland now, but if you’re in NYC and feeling frisky this weekend, please help us out!

CUP Call for Volunteers!

What: Helping with the one-day, citywide distribution extravaganza for Vendor Power! – a new illustrated guide to city vending regulation for New York’s 10,000 street vendors.
When: Saturday, March 28, 11:30 am - 2 pm
Where: We’ll meet at the Street Vendor Project, 123 William St., 16th Floor, in Lower Manhattan. Following a brief press event, volunteers will take the guides and fan out to vendor-dense neighborhoods across the city.

If you can’t make it to Lower Manhattan on Saturday, you can also pick up guides ahead of time at CUP and then distribute them in your neighborhood on March 28.

Etherea record store, NYC

When played enough times, songs will become forever bonded to a particular place and time in your life. Bel Biv Devoe’s Poison reminds me of my parents’ home (it was the radio, not them ha). Giorgio Moroder’s The Chase reminds me of my first NYC apartment. Nico’s These Days takes me back to Johannesburg. And now I think I’ve solidified a song for my first month in Helsinki - California Dreamin’ by The Mamas and The Papas. It’s my emotional artillery to stave off the cold…

If you’re in luckier weather in Los Angeles, the New Media Caucus is hosting an exhibit called “@” at Sci-Arc this week that includes a participatory L.A. version of my Post-it Notes for Neighbors project. It coincides with the College Art Association Annual Conference, which looks like a neat gathering about the visual arts and includes a screening of The Cool School, a PBS documentary about how a few renegade artists built the L.A. art scene from scratch.

New Media Caucus Reception for the Exhibition “@”
With live cinema by Be Johnny and Potter-Belmar Labs
Thursday February 26 9:30 pm
SCI-Arc: 960 East 3rd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013

Big thanks to xtine for helping arrange the gallery show!