David Koren

Today is my birthday...

Today (July 8) is my birthday... and also the 10th anniversary of the very first FIGMENT event on Governors Island. Since that day in 2007, we have so far held 57 FIGMENT events in 18 cities in 5 countries on 4 continents… with #58 (in Chicago) and #59 (in Boston) coming up this month, and more from there.

 

So, what do I want for my birthday? Well, the community living startup I have been leading for the past year is now on hold, due to challenges financing the real estate deal for our pilot project. And I’m trying to figure out what to do next.  Ideas welcome. Ideally, it’s working in a leadership capacity to bring something new into the world… a new idea, a new business, a new practice, a new direction for a firm or an institution.

 

I love new ideas, and collaborating on new projects. What I’d really love for my birthday is hear about your big new idea, whether it’s an art project or a new business or organization or an invention or just a dream. Tell me about it! Let me know how I can help! 

The Day After: Understanding and Empathy

Well, that was a surprise. Voters who felt marginalized by a changing world came out to strongly support their candidate, whose election, in turn, makes others feel marginalized and scared, even threatened. The common link is that people on all sides feel injustice, like they haven't been treated fairly by the system as it exists today.

 

As Hillary Clinton said this morning, “America is more deeply divided than we thought.” So, how do we begin the process of repairing those deep divides? How do we build understanding and empathy between the different people and groups that comprise our fractured nation?

 

At a time when people are more isolated than ever, spending more time staring at screens (about 11 hours a day, says Nielsen), desperate for connection (checking Facebook 14x a day), more likely to live alone, and stuck in a social media “filter bubble,” how do we possibly come together in a spirit of mutual understanding and empathy to build a better world?

 

Because, in order to build community, we have to come together, in real space. One of the greatest tools we have for creating community, while also building understanding, empathy, and collaboration between people is art, specifically participatory art, art that provides a forum for people of different beliefs and backgrounds to create and share and express themselves together.

 

Art enables us to imagine alternate possibilities for ourselves and our society, and to create and test them. When we invite everyone to come together to co-create, we start the process of imagining a future that serves everyone, that meets everyone’s needs. Creativity is a universal asset, with many benefits. We need to empower everyone to create in order to build mutual understanding and imagine a better future.

 

And this is where FIGMENT comes in. Please join us in continuing to fight for a world that empowers everyone to create and share in a spirit of equality and mutual understanding. There is room enough for all of us here, and every one of us has something to say and share and create that is worth experiencing.

 

As BBC Travel wrote, “If FIGMENT were a country, it would be the happiest in the world – and I would apply for citizenship immediately.” Let’s fight to bring that joy, that spirit of inclusion and understanding, to everyone.

 

Much love to everyone on a difficult day.

 

David Koren

Founder and Executive Producer

FIGMENT

Announcing the FIGMENT Book!

FIGMENT is ten years old! So I wrote a book!

The book is 268 pages long (or so) and packed with awesome photos from FIGMENT events from cities around the world. And, what's the book say? Well, here's what it says on the back of the book:

"If such a thing as the FIGMENT book existed (but there is no such thing) this might be it (but it isn’t). This is not the FIGMENT book; it is a FIGMENT book. This is a case for creativity, for sharing, for collaboration, for learning, for joy, for gratitude, and for love. It is a case against metrics and measurability. This is not a history of FIGMENT (although FIGMENT is celebrating 10 years of history in 2016). This is an invitation to imagine a place where everyone is invited to create and share and contribute and grow and build community—and then to create the world we imagine, and to live in it. This is a FIGMENT book."

Softcover ($49.95) and Hardcover ($69.95) editions are available on Blurb.com.
Softcover ($49.95) and ebook ($9.99) editions are available on Amazon.com.

If you'd like a signed copy, email me. I have some copies on hand and will send you one if you make a donation to FIGMENT!

Your name is probably in this book! (And if it isn't, it should be!)

Art and Populism on Governors Island

In Friday’s Weekend section of The New York Times, Edward Rothstein wrote a fairly evenhanded story about Governors Island as “A Playground for the Arts." As a follow-up, Ken Johnson contributed a dismissive and offensive post on the Times blog, the thrust of which is that good art requires money, the and if we want serious art people to take the art on Governors Island seriously, the best way for that to happen is to raise a few million dollars and throw an international art exhibition. Because, he writes, “Art just isn’t the kind of thing that lends itself to no-budget, laissez-faire populism.” He goes on to dismiss the work of No Longer Empty, FIGMENT, the Sculptor’s Guild, and even 4Heads, before their exhibition has even opened.

In his critique, Johnson manages to miss the point entirely. The art on Governors Island isn’t for him. And it’s not for the elite tastemakers who have decided who lives and dies in the art world for centuries. No, this is art for the rest of us. For everybody… for families, for communities, for every-day citizens who yearn for inspiration, for artists trying new things, and for connecting all of these pieces to each other in an accessible, fun, and interactive environment that encourages experimentation instead of censure.

Because Governors Island, unlike New York’s museums and galleries, is our place. It belongs to all of us. So the art that succeeds there is, by definition, populist (as you can see in videos of FIGMENT's projects). And, in the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, when foundations, individuals, and governments are stretched to their limits, that means low budget... reflecting the hardship in the lives of the people creating and enjoying that art.

And if this means that, to the elite sensibility, the FIGMENT minigolf course and interactive sculpture garden—enjoyed by tens of thousands of children and adults through summer at no cost (unlike MoMA, the Met, etc.)—is “an ugly mess.” Well, so be it. Better to be loved to death by the people of New York City than admired by an elite echelon of the art establishment.

We believe that public art is art created by and for the public. And Governors Island, as a place for all of us to share equally, is the ideal place for public art. And yes, this is a populist idea, and the point that Johnson misses entirely.

And, after all, as jaded as Johnson is about art that doesn't "thrill" him, what if something really important and innovative were actually going on here? How could Johnson tell? He is clearly so disinterested in populist forms that, if he had been writing at the time, he would have dismissed impressionism, dadaism, naturalism, abstract expressionism, pop art, performance art, and every other arts movement that came from the people, as opposed to those innovations, such as they are, that come from the establishment.

We believe in participation, the idea that we can all collaborate to create great art together that none of us could have created in isolation. FIGMENT has grown rapidly over the last four years on this simple idea, creating better and better participatory and interactive art each year. It's true that we're not in competition with the Venice Biennale, but that isn't really the goal. The fact that we're having this conversation in the blog of The New York Times is evidence that we're making tremendous progress in our goal to develop the island into an international arts destination focused on participation.

Mr. Johnson, we invite you to reconsider your position on what makes art important to society, and to learn more about FIGMENT and the other arts groups working on the island. We would love for you to join us and to be a participant in what we're building.

David Koren
Executive Producer
FIGMENT

 

 

The FIGMENT Update

When our group got together to start FIGMENT in 2007, we never had any idea that it could ever grow this much, this fast. In 2010, our three-day NYC event had nearly 25,000 participants, and our Boston event, just in its first year, had something like 10,000 participants. It's really amazing to see how quickly the community around FIGMENT has grown, and it's exciting to see where it can go next.

Welcome to FIGMENT! (Image (c) 2010 NY_Man)

FIGMENT began in New York in 2007 as a way to bring three important resources together: first, Governors Island, a former Army and then Coast Guard base in New York Harbor that had just been turned over to New York City; second, the creative energy of artists in New York, often creating work without ample resources, often desperately in need of space; and third, the ethos that many of the founders of FIGMENT had learned from Burning Man, expressed in the ten principles—basically, teaching us how to work collaboratively together to make great things happen in a way that is participatory, generous, and free from commoditization.

The idea took off immediately, and, while we expected 500 people or so at our first one-day event, we had over 2,600 people, with thousands more turned away at the ferries. We haven't stopped since. The New York event has grown exponentially each year, increasing how much art we cram onto the island's 172 acres, growing in participation as art projects become more ambitious, growing in duration as we add increasingly successful summer-long projects every year, and growing in stability as we build a team that believes in this event and can keep it going.

The Temple of Wonder by Jen Upchurch, Bryan Cates, and Douglas Hart, on Governors Island until October 3, 2010 (Image (c) 2010 Limelike)

So what is FIGMENT, anyway? FIGMENT is a free, large-scale, public participatory art explosion, in which absolutely everyone is encouraged to participate in any way they see fit. We select projects for FIGMENT via open calls for art, and apply a very basic criteria to submitted projects: Is the project participatory or interactive in some way? Is the project appropriate for the general public? Can it be cleaned up easily?

There are a lot of things that have surprised us along the way as FIGMENT has grown… One is the kids. We really didn't expect FIGMENT to become such an amazing event for children and young families. When we began to plan the first FIGMENT, none of the organizers had kids (now I have a two-year old daughter). But we quickly found, in our first year, just how much kids love what FIGMENT has to offer: art that you can play with, 200 ways to get messy, hula hoops, rave music, rose petal and glitter pools, minigolf! At FIGMENT, you often see kids leading their parents around, and kids and their parents playing together, in a way that is fun for everybody.

Another thing we really didn't expect was that a daytime-only, alcohol-free event could feel like such a fantastic party. Since Governors Island is only open during the day, FIGMENT was forced to begin as a daytime-only event, despite the hopes of some of the organizers that FIGMENT could grow to include a nighttime element, or even become a 24-hour event at some point. But, surprisingly, the focus on daytime, and on maintaining a public face that is appropriate for everyone, has meant that the event is actually completely inclusive. Also surprising is that big parties have not really become part of FIGMENT—there aren't huge afterparties or related nighttime events. People go to FIGMENT, and then go home to sleep so they can get up early and do it again!

One of 11 minigolf holes for 2010 in the FIGMENT Minigolf Course: Just Dreaming Is Not Enough by WUKAG (Wichita State University Kinetic Art Group) – Jeswin Joseph Chankaramangalam, Wai Seong Choy, John Harrison, MohamdAli Ishaque Kazi, Christian Kindel, Ivy Lanning, Alan Whitaker (Image (c) 2010 Jason Eppink)

Given the fact that Governors Island is an uninhabited island that is open to the public for about 18 weekends in the summer, the idea occurred to us very quickly to try to create art that could be up for a longer period of time. In 2008, FIGMENT expanded to include two longer-term exhibitions, both of which were funded in part by Black Rock Arts Foundation: Emergence, an interactive installation in a 100-year old officer's residence created by 30 artists or collectives, and the FIGMENT Minigolf Course, which was actually originally suggested by Leslie Koch, the President of Governors Island. The FIGMENT Minigolf Course has become a staple of summer in New York City, spurring a new trend in artist-designed minigolf courses in the New York area. Now in its third year, the FIGMENT Minigolf Course remains completely free and funded by donations, enabling children and adults of all backgrounds to engage in a participatory art experience, providing a summer-long cultural experience for many people who do not go to museums, or galleries, or professional theatres. In 2009, we also added a summer-long sculpture garden, which has grown again in 2010. In 2010, we created our first architectural design competition to create a pavilion as a performance and gathering space on the island. The winning design, the Living Pavilion, opened on June 11 at FIGMENT, and has received rave reviews for its innovative use of milk crates and plantings that have been turned upside down.

Another way in which FIGMENT is growing is geographically. In my first post on the Burning Man Blog, I talked about what it was like not to go to Burning Man in 2009 for the first time in a number of years. A first-time burner from Boston, Jason Turgeon, saw that post after he got back from the playa, noticed my reference to FIGMENT, and contacted me, inspired to figure out how to recreate the spirit he experienced at Burning Man in his local community. We met, and started talking. Jason started to build a core group that could make FIGMENT happen in Boston, including Peter Durand, one of the Burning Man Regional Contacts for Boston. In cooperation with the Cambridge Arts Council, FIGMENT Boston took place on June 5, on a closed stretch of Memorial Drive along the Charles River in Cambridge. Since the event was located right next to the Cambridge River Festival, a more conventional arts festival involving food vending, artists selling their work, and paid performers, visitors kept wandering across the road into FIGMENT, and asking, "So what is this? And why is everyone smiling over here?" While I was initially a little nervous about having FIGMENT be right next to a conventional arts festival, ultimately the juxtaposition served to highlight how FIGMENT is different, and what makes it special. This feeling was helping along by the fact that Cler, a wonderful Boston volunteer, created beautiful hand-painted signs that explained the Ten Principles.

The Self-Reliance principle, illustrated beautifully for the general public by Cler (Image (c) 2010 Yacht Boy)

So what's next for FIGMENT? Well, it's certainly possible that we could see more geographic expansion, with other events popping up in other cities following the FIGMENT model. One thing that we're really interested in exploring is the idea of learning as a formal part of FIGMENT. I've realized that one of the things that is appealing to me about FIGMENT is just how much I learn every year by working to make this event happen… I've learned so much about leadership, management, planning, community, creativity, collaboration… And, as I look around, I realize everyone else is learning too… The team members, the artists, the kids who are in glitter up to their waists… How do we take that process of informal learning through creativity and make it some more established part of what we do, without crushing it completely into an "educational curriculum" or something like that? I'd love to hear your ideas… Feel free to email me.

Me and FIGMENT in Gothamist!

Hey, I'm featured in Gothamist today! Woo hoo!

See you at FIGMENT this weekend!

FIGMENT 2008 Call for Participation

 FIGMENT is an annual participatory arts event on Governors Island in New York Harbor. The FIGMENT 2008 Call for Participation has just been released!

Also, there's a special program to design and build a mini golf course on Governors Island!