New Yorkers for Parks

Today I had a great conversation with Cheryll Huber, Director of Research and Planning for New Yorkers for Parks. Cheryll and I discussed my interest in beach safety and education and she was very interested in my creating resources that could raise the overall awareness and understanding by New Yorkers of these issues.

Initially we talked about Rockaway Beach and how one issue that is quite apparent is that there are different levels of coverage and resources for beaches depending on the region, which is particularly odd considering that they are all maintained by the Parks Department.

She mentioned many great resources for me to look into, some which I knew of and others that I didn't. These included:

Rockaway Waterfront Alliance, Gene Dupont
The Parks Department swim to safety and learn to swim program
The NYC health dept tracks info on beaches swimmable
-safety inspections of beaches
The parks dept goes out and hires lifeguards
The Parks inspection program- regular inspections of beaches
The Surfrider foundation -Doug Parent chair of nyc chapter
DOITT
Mayor's Office

We talked about the need for a website that links all of the resources into one user-friendly cohesive site. We also discussed how NYC doesn't have the same kind of beach culture that other coastal cities have, and therefore there is a lack of self awareness and education that a general beach goer should have when they walk onto the beach.

Cheryll said that I can continue to be in touch with her about my research and work.

Perspective

“Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

In respect to the water crisis, I find this quote apropos. Everything that the bottled water companies and governments are doing throughout the world is legal, and because of that millions of people are suffering from starvation, illness and torture.

Wave by Suzy Lee

This weekend I "read" the wordless picture book Wave by Suzy Lee. I was recommended this book by my colleague at Sesame Street, Margot, who had thought I would be interested in it stylistically. Not only was I interested in the aesthetic beauty of the piece, I was struck by the amazingly universal sensory experience of interacting with water at the beach. The entire book was painted in a light blue and accentuated with the whimsical charcoal lines of the character.

In terms of my project, I am very interested in creating a piece that can work on several levels. I feel that Wave achieved this by being both engaging to young readers and nostalgic for older ones. Additionally, this sensory experience is something that I feel is very important to pay attention to when you are speaking of environmental awareness issues. If people can feel connected to an issue, then that is the first step towards activism.

Fiji Bottled Water in Mother Jones

Article on Fiji bottled water which essentially reinforces everything that I am reading about in Blue Gold.

Amazing photography: Zena Holloway

gorgeous

Inspiration: Mark Mawson

jaw dropped.

see more

Beautiful Aquarium

This video is pretty amazing. It is of the world's largest aquarium. I love watching the movement of the various fish and sharks in the water. Some are like- birds of the sea. That might be a Jessica Simpson reference..oh wait, no she questioned if tuna fish was chicken because the label said chicken of the sea.

Kuroshio Sea - 2nd largest aquarium tank in the world - (song is Please don't go by Barcelona) from Jon Rawlinson on Vimeo.

Research

I had a really productive day today. I took a visit to the library and have picked myself up some great reads for the next week. I started reading Blue Gold and am already really inspired and into it. Reading all of these statistics about water, I am completely amazed that this topic is not discussed more frequently in terms of environmental action and politics. For starters, the fact that less than 1% of all the water in the world is actually consumable is not at all what I expected to find. I know that I am really naive about this subject matter, but I when you look at a map and see all of the blue covering the world, and then think to yourself that this is not potable water that people in poor countries who are starving and DYING from their need of water canaccess, you begin to feel a little hopeless. But I don't think that this subject matter is hopeless. I am going to continue reading about this as well as the privatization of water which also is a much more complex and widespread concern than I ever realized. I feel like after today I am seeing the world around me with new eyes.

I also see that there is a Blue Gold movie available on amazon. I am going to try to purchase that this weekend as well. I am excited.

Shifting... and returning

As I mentioned earlier, I am taking steps to completely reconsider my domains of interest. After doing some soul searching and real zoolander like questioning, I have focused my research on water. Why water? Well for starters, it is something that I am passionate about, growing up in a surfing community, water is something that I came in touch with in a very real way. Water is something that has heightened my relationships with my neighbors and distanced me from others. However, water is something that plays a role in everyone's life. It is a necessity. Water is also one of the most deeply problematic environmental and political issues of our time.

In The Post American World, Fareed Zakaria wrote about this issue. He said,

"... our ability to manage and conserve water is not growing nearly as fast as our consumption of it. World population tripled in the twentieth century, but water consumption increased sixfold. Americans use more than four hundred liters of water a day to drink, cook, and clean themselves. People in poorer countries today are lucky to get forty, but as they get richer, their rising demands will cause greater stress. Violent clashes over water have already broken out in Africa and the Middle East. Historically, populations have moved to find water; if water sources dry up in the future, tens of millions of people will be forced to start moving." Zakaria, Fareed. The Post American World, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, 2008),30.

And so I am pushing forward. I am returning in essence to a lot of the core issues of my initial game concept, however with the intent of creating more of a heartfelt narrative- like my later prototypes.