risd | public engagement

Last Friday was our first wintersession Soup Seminar with guest Susan Sakash of What Cheer Brigade and the development director of Southside Community Land Trust.  She spoke about her role in the growth of the Land Trust and the new and exciting programs that they are gearing up for in the coming season and for the 30th anniversary next year. If you are interested in planting, social justice around nutrition and education or just want to learn more about urban gardening or composting then Susan is a great person to talk to.

With such a great turn out we hope that the money we are raising for a mini-grant will be a substantial amount for a student to make an impact with a socially minded project. We will post more information about what kinds of projects can apply for the grant as the semester progresses. And if you are interested in reviewing the applicants then start coming to the seminars- if you attend three you can help choose the recipient in the spring!

Next seminar this Friday is Claire Andrade Watkins, Director of the Fox Point Cape Verdean Project and Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America — 15 January. Don’t miss it!

Sara

Film & Announcement of Design Competition

Cartoneros follows the paper recycling process in Buenos Aires from the trash pickers who collect paper informally through middlemen in warehouses, to executives in large corporate mills. The process exploded into a multimillion-dollar industry after Argentina’s latest economic collapse. The documentary is both a record of an economic and social crisis and an invitation to audiences to rethink the value of trash.

“In 2003, a year after the collapse of the Argentine economy between 30,000 and 40,000 people made their living on the streets of Buenos Aires by collecting trash. Three years later, well established cartonero (trash picking) collectives had successfully lobbied the government to legalize their trash collection, enforce curbside source separation to aid recycling, and provide childcare for the collectives. But income for the cartoneros was still dependent on the commodity value of recyclables. At the request of a number of collectives in 2006, a team of engineers from Queens University Ontario began experimenting with plastic bags to create a more reliable source of income for the cartoneros. In 2007 they helped build two “Kingston Presses” in Buenos Aires that bond plastics and fiberous materials to create new composite sheet materials. The presses are currently being tested by the Center for Experimental Production at the University of Buenos Aires.”

During the 2009-2010 academic year RISD joins the Waste for Life effort through a number of on-campus initiatives. These include:

• an industrial design studio that will build a Kingston Press at RISD
• the screening of a cartonero documentary as part of The Year of Providence
• a school-wide design competition sponsored by the student group Respond|Design and the Office of Public Engagement
• an integration of the project into Industrial Design and Furniture courses in the Spring.

This year’s efforts will be shown in the upcoming RISD Initiative for Sustainable Education exhibition. Final designs will be shared with the Waste for Life network during the summer of 2010.

The film will be screened on October 22nd at 6:00pm in the Tap Room at RISD. The competition will be announced after the screening.

Scientific American reports that the a four-day work week can have positive economic benefits and help reduce carbon.