If you’re in NYC this weekend The Festival of Ideas for the New City is taking place, a brand new collaboration between downtown organizations, universities, art institutions and community groups aimed at affecting positive change in the city. The Festival includes three components: a StreetFest, a conference and a variety of independent projects. The festival will serve as a meeting point for the creative community to imagine ways to bring about change and innovation and to create a dialogue with the public to make this happen.
The StreetFest is a outdoor event that will take place along the Bowery made up of local businesses and organizations. There are so many different things going on, the only challenge will be trying to see everything you’re interested in! Hot Bread Kitchen will be there teaching how to make and serve flatbreads, while Travelgoat’s Time Traveler’s Guide to the Bowery will be exploring the concept of tourism. Lit Crawl NYC will be hosting readings from across their repertoire of writers and lit mags. Family and PlayLab’s ‘The Worms’ (pictured) will be on display, the winning submission of a contest to rethink temporary outdoor structures for the street and in a similar vein, you’ll be able to see Bus Roots, living gardens on the roofs of city buses! The events are organized on the website by Architecture & Urban Planning, Art & Design, Economics, Food, Storytelling and Local History and Sustainability, so it will be snap to make yourself a tightly timed schedule to cram everything in that you want to see.
One workshop to check out is the Upcycle Art Workshop on Saturday where you can learn how to turn plastic bottles into beautiful objects. Taught by artists Barbara Lubliner and Bernard Klevickas, the event is 1-3 pm at the Education Alliance (197 East Broadway). The event is $10 per person or free if you bring 10 clean plastic bottles and 10 plastic bags. Pre-register by calling 646-395-4235.
[Festival of Ideas for the New City]
