presented at International Placemaking Week 2024 | Brush mural fest 2024
In this workshop, participants will explore the JoyBox and learn how joy can be a tool in collective resilience. As a pop-up installation, the JoyBox is designed to challenge the built environment and spark a culture of reciprocity amongst neighbors in a way that feels good. Connections are made through real-time collisions between neighbors who are drawn to the JoyBox, as well as through the slow and quiet magic of seeing the JoyBox transform as neighbors contribute asynchronously over time. As our social fabric is woven, tethered by the powerful gravity of joy, we are able to lay the foundation for a sense of place and ultimately, build collective capacity.
While my work is rooted in joy, this concept can take many different shapes (trading rocks or books or pantry items or recipes or art) depending on the needs and gifts of the community. This session is designed for those seeking tools to activate their neighborhood starting with a small-scale, creative project. Participants will create their very own {!}Box tailor-made for their community. For local travelers, we’ll have supplies for them to customize their boxes to install in their neighborhood. For long-distance travelers, they will be invited to build with a new local friend and leave with blueprints to bring their own ideas to life at home.
We are often expected to ‘build community’ in a built world that centers 1) capitalist & purpose-driven spaces, 2) linear transit that fuels isolation, and 3) anti-dialogue commons. The JoyBox is a neighbor-built response that centers 1) purposeless delight, 2) invites neighbors to enter playful restful orbit with one another, and 3) offers a co-creative and ever-changing communal space. This session brings a warm reminder of the power of joy in placemaking and offers tangible insights in how joy can be materialized in the physical world. The JoyBox is a deliberately accessible tool for neighbors to contribute to shifting the landscape of their neighborhood, under the radar of common bureaucratic deterrents. The goal of this session is to reframe co-creative placemaking as a radical act that has the power to catalyze collective capacity building within communities.
Our collective joy forms portals; join this workshop to build a portal that leads to connection and collective resilience in your very own neighborhood.