[partsandcrafts] bread and cheese and announcements and thoughts
William Macfarlane
Happy premature springtime! I have a few announcements and thoughts
to share with the wider world.
First of all, we have an event coming up in our very own kitchen this
weekend. Yeast and mold, bread and cheese. More information is at
the bottom of the message, or just go to
http://www.eventbrite.com/event/559606799/
Fermentation, of all kinds, is a concept very near and dear to my
heart -- it's the perfect combination of DIY, crunchy, slow-foodness
and awesome playful scientific experimentation.
And romantic history -- during the gold rush, in Alaska, it was a
relatively common occurence for people to get into fights over their
sourdough starter. There are documented murders. And cheese? The
ash in the middle of Morbier was orignally part of an elaborate tax
evasion scheme. Every recipe has a story...
And friends of ours are also running another event on saturday.
"HelloRobot: NYC is an event, held in March of 2010, comprised of
interactive games and workshops which foster an appreciation for
technology. Participants in HelloRobot: NYC will get the opportunity
to explore the digital realm, creating a new relationship with the
technology found in their daily lives" -- if that sounds exciting you
should check hellorobotnyc.com . They're also still looking for a few
more folks to run workshops or show installations, so if you're doing
interesting work involving tech and art you maybe should give them a
shout.
I, of course, think that you should come make some cheese first.
Also, we're going to be trying to do a week or two of summer "camp" in
Brooklyn this summer. We have a few ideas for potential spaces to
host us, but I would love to hear more, especially if anyone has a
personal connection to a potentially interested institution. I know
that space is a scarcer resource here then it was in Brooklyn, but if
your school or synagogue or church or gallery or collectively owned
studio space would be interested in hosting a small group of creative
kids for a week or two in the summer, I'd love to meet them.
What do I mean when I say "camp"? I thought a little bit about how to
describe what we want to do to folks in Brooklyn who haven't seen our
Boston summer programs. I've also been thinking (and writing, and
talking!) a lot, lately, about the things that define Parts and Crafts
and separate our attitudes from most other educational institutions
that we've had contact with. These things seem like almost the same
question to me. A friend of mine nailed it the other day with a
clarity that I can only assume has something to do with him having
just returned from 2 weeks of meditation:
"The core of my thinking while I was away centered around the idea of
looking at children -- at putting together a community of children as
a resource. What would it look like for camp to be a place where
adults were working with children out of an active interest in
designing tools for and learning more about how children learn? For
there to be a mutuality in the relationship -- not adults serving
kids, but a set of mutually compatible goals at work -- adults
learning more about learning and designing and disseminating projects
for children, and children becoming empowered and learning about
powerful ideas?"
Earlier this week I was talking to people who are working on a
combination filed guide and data reporting application for mobile
phones -- http://www.thewildlab.com/ -- they run an educational
program in the nyc schools which looks to be pretty great. I was
talking to them about the work that I'd been doing with Parts and
Crafts and summer camp, and of all of the things that I said, the
thing that they seemed to respond most strongly to was the sentence "a
healthy environment for kids has to be a healthy environment for the
adults involved with them".
It's a clumsy sentence, but it's related to the earlier principle.
We're working to make spaces that reward inquiry and creativity --
this doesn't work for anyone unless it works for everyone.
Enjoy the weather!
-Will (and the parts and crafts collective)
----
yeast and mold! (making mozzerella and bread)
when: Saturday, March 13, 1-4
where: the Doorway, 210 23rd Street, #1, Brooklyn, NY
who: all ages
cost: $25,suggested, sliding scale
Yeast and mold! Gluten and fermentation! During this workshop we’ll
make bread, stretch cheese, and learn a bit about culture and bacteria
(why does bread rise? what makes sourdough sour? what happens if you
let the milk in the fridge curdle for too long?) And when we’re done,
we’ll eat the experiment!
Open to kids of all ages – this workshop is clearly not vegan, but you
should probably let us know ahead of time if you have weird food
allergies.
For more information, or to register, visit
http://www.eventbrite.com/event/559606799/