“Communities of” is a symposium and exhibition at The New School exploring the meaning of community through strategic design and models of sustainable development. We will be asking

1. How does (or can) design facilitate or enable participatory community development?
2. What are current models and ethics of working with ‘other’ communities in ’emerging economies’?
3. What are the politics of considering community as ‘other’? (Should we only work in/with communities to which we belong?)
4. How and why should universities partner with communities?
5. How can we develop curricula that successfully support long-term community partnerships?
6. What are the financial models that can sustainably support these partnerships?

Why the blank space?
The intentional blank space of the title is intended to make conscious the very notion of community. Through it, we invite each person to bring their interests and notions of communities to the gallery. We want to politicize what it means to work with and to build a community, and believe that the absence of definition will precisely prompt visitors and participants to fill in the blank.

So, tune in, attend, participate online, and help us fill in that blank!