A Living Library – Archive Site

Jun '11

Roosevelt Island Day, June 11: Our New Roosevelt Island Living Library & Think Park Gardens Are Planted !

This is the Tenth Anniversary of A Living Library's participation in Roosevelt Island Day !

Very Auspicious !

I remember vividly meeting, the then-Principal of the Roosevelt Island School, PS/IS 217, Sherry Gregory on 9/12/01. We were determined to create a positive, creative, and life-affirming situation and experience for the children, youth, and adults of Roosevelt Island, after the brutality and trauma of 9/11. The Roosevelt Island Living Library & Think Park was born !

Fast Forward ! June 11, 2011 !

We are planting our Third Living Library & Think Park Garden on RI. Because the School is now under construction, our Orchard and Concentric Circle Gardens on the riverside of the School and our Original Living Library & Think Park Garden in the schoolyard are off-limits.

So, thanks to RIOC and Steve Chironis, and Urban America and Doryne Isley, we are starting anew, adjacent to the building at 504 Main Street, which may become the new RI Branch Library.

Many children, youth, and adults came to plant with us; we even had a group from the United Nations Rotaract join us ! Everyone had a great time, and much was accomplished !

Another note: The top picture shows Reynault Williams watering the newly planted RI Living Library Gardens. He has been participating in A Living Library since we began on Roosevelt Island when he was a PreK child at PS/IS 217. For years, since then, he is the one who always waters the new Living Library Garden on Roosevelt Island Day ! He is now in 8th grade !

See for yourself, all that we accomplished !!!

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Please also view Martha Kerr's beautiful photo album from this event at link below: Photos of RI Living Library on RI Day by Martha Kerr: June 11, 2011

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Roosevelt Island Living Library & Think Park

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Jun '11

Creating our new NYC Roosevelt Island Living Library & Think Park Gardens !

We had another fantastic Volunteer Team from NYC Salesforce, led by Dan Purvis, work with us to develop our new Roosevelt Island Living Library & Think Park Gardens near 504 Main Street on Roosevelt Island on Wednesday, June 8. I designed the Gardens, and RIOC and Urban America gave incredible help to manifest them. We especially thank Steve Chironis and Doryne Isley, our brilliant supporters and co-creators ! And, of course the crew from RIOC who helped to dig it ! And, our own Living Library Instructor, Ms. Veronika and her cousin Alex accomplished great things in spite of the heat ! Also special thanks to friend and RI neighbor, Lydia Tang, for helping to bring all elements together ! There was a heat advisory in NYC, but we perservered, and we were able to carve out beautiful new Living Library Gardens ! Have a look at a few pics:

Posted by bonnieora in
Roosevelt Island Living Library & Think Park

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Jun '11

Getting Ready for Roosevelt Island Day in NYC and our new RI Living Library & Think Park Gardens !

We are excited to be developing our new Roosevelt Island Living Library & Think Park Gardens next to the RI Youth Center, Blackwell Park, and 504 Main Street ! Stay tuned for updates and transformational pics as students, A.L.L. instructors, neighbors, Barnard interns, and Volunteers from Salesforce and Rotaract make big changes this week ! Our work culminates on Roosevelt Island Day, this Saturday with more neighbors and children planting vegetables and flowers. Enjoy a few pics from last year's Roosevelt Island Living Library & Think Park's plantings of Orchard and Garden on riverside of PS/IS 217 !

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Roosevelt Island Living Library & Think Park

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May '11

FUNCSHUIONAL ART: East Marries West – North and South – A New Planetary Genre

FUNCSHUIONAL ART: East Marries West - North and South

A New Planetary Genre

Funcshuional Art is a term that I coined, relatively recently (2003), to describe a new genre of art that I have been developing for several decades. It combines the Functionalism of the West with the sensitivity toward ecological alignment, natural systems, and spirituality of the East, known as Feng Shui. It also embraces the diversity of cultures from the North and South as well as East and West.

Funcshuional Art is a new transformative planetary art form that incorporates and acknowledges culture as part of nature and includes all of us – including diverse species.

We rejoice in similarities and diversities. We are the same, but different.

Funcshuional Art is also practical and helps us to make needed ecological, physical change in communities and schools so our environments and lives are more vibrant, healthy, expressive, authentic, and beautiful.

It is art, but also functions as community and economic development, and provides multiple educational opportunities for all ages, while helping to solve local environmental and social problems.

Funcshuional Art is Systemic Ecological Design. It embodies creating Whole Experiences: An Environment(s) integrated with Activity(s) within a Place:Performance Art has evolved to become Community Programs, or Interdisciplinary, Hands-On, Standards-Based Curricula.

It is art that promotes learning, becoming more whole, and helping us to evolve, fulfilling our potential as humans.

We can also call it Funshuional as in FUN, or Funcshuionual, as in SENSUAL, with all puns intended !

The Life Frame and A Living Library offer good examples.

Crossroads Community (the farm), a pioneering urban agriculture, arts, and environmental education center that transformed acres of derelict land adjacent to, and incorporating a freeway interchange, that also became a new San Francisco park (Potrero del Sol), was an early Life Frame. I was the Founding Director/President from 1974-80 and made the original drawings for the park.

The Life Frame, another term that I coined, is an inclusive framework for diversity: biological, cultural, technological.The Life Frame literally frames life so we can see it and experience it more profoundly.

A Living Library is also a Life Frame, and embodies this spirit and actuality.A.L.L. for short, provides a powerful framework, and easily incorporates systems, phenonmena, and cultures, demonstrating interconnectedness between biological, cultural, and technological systems.

Funcshuional Art is Cultivating the Human and Ecological Garden.

It is participatory and relevant, helping us to reconnect with each other and understand where we live and who we are.

Please read the piece below that I wrote, published in a United Nations Centerpoint Now NGO/DPI Journal for two Conferences on Human Rights and Disarmament: (2008, UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, France - 2009, Mexico City, Mexico), that further describes these ideas.

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Art, Landscape Architecture, & Systemic Design

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May '11

OMI/Excelsior Living Library & Think Park Volunteer Event Connects Students & Caring Adults To Improve Their Environment !!!!

Yesterday I posted a few pictures from our fantastic Volunteer Event on May 20 at the OMI / Excelsior Branch Living Library & Think Park, but I forgot to mention that the Salesforce and A.L.L. Teams worked with over 50 middle school students and another 20 + PreK children in working together to improve their Living Library Learning Landscapes ! Everyone benefitted and learned from each other - and the gardens were made even more beautiful and healthy !!! A few more pics below !