What is NOT possible? The possibilities are infinite when we reconnect with the land!
community-informed planning and design
The National Conference on Citizenship has issued a “Civic Data Challenge,” a contest to see what local groups and individuals can do with raw statistical data related to civic health, and NCOC and the David Mathews Center for Civic Life recently published the Alabama Civic Health Index. Mobile Studio artist Dan Neil, AU landscape architecture professor Jocelyn Zanzot, and some of their AU students are assisting with the art, design, and submission process.
What is NOT possible? The possibilities are infinite when we reconnect with the land!
In the spring of 2012, a number of Macon County students participated in a mentoring program with the College of Liberal Arts at Auburn University, funded in part by the Appalachian Regional Commission. As a response to the National Conference on Citizenship’s Civic Data Challenge and the David Mathews Center for Civic Life’s Alabama Civic Health Index, students worked with Mobile Studio artist, Dan Neil, and AU landscape architect, Jocelyn Zanzot, to create posters with messages related to statistics that held special meaning to them. These original posters are printed on paper made by students during a day-long workshop at Notasulga High School, and a framed set of posters is on permanent, public display at the Macon County Courthouse.
The students won an Honorable Mention for their submission to the first-ever National Civic Data Challenge of the National Conference on Citizenship. Attendees at the conference in Philadelphia, PA had a chance to view their work. The chairman of NCOC would like to have a complete set of posters and congratulates the students.
Dr. Mark Wilson, Director of Civic Learning Initiatives in the College of Liberal Arts, accepts the award on behalf of landscape architecture professor Jocelyn Zanzot, artist Daniel Neil, and most importantly, the civic-minded high school students of Macon County, Alabama.
For more information on the project visit http://auclastudentengagement.wordpress.com/design/. A framed set of four original posters hangs in the Macon County Courthouse.
Video produced by collaborators Jocelyn Zanzot and Dan Neil
The Mobile Studio is an intermedia collective that studies, re-presents, and re-imagines contemporary Alabama landscapes through co-creative art making and events in the field. The studio provides spaces and processes of interdisciplinary exchange and collaboration between Auburn University students, faculty, and citizens throughout the state. Between the disciplines of art, landscape architecture, public history, watershed ecology, and community planning, the Mobile Studio is committed to extending educational opportunities that result in the transformation of the built environment by fostering and extending local capacities.