2014Call for Entries

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About the Institute

Imagine the Next Institute:

Imagine The Next Institute™ will serve as a catalyst for creative, solutionist thinking. Because the world needs creative solutionists more than ever, Imagine the Next Institute will integrate the vision and methods that Janine James has developed over the past 20 years. With her fellow collaborators, she will continue to cultivate and evolve this thinking into methodologies that can be taught, shared, and adapted. We will bring together multi-disciplinary teams and use these methodologies to educate and inspire people to solve problems holistically. Our goal is to train a whole new generation of solutionists to elevate people, protect our planet, and expand our consciousness.

Janine will continue her collaborative work at The Moderns in New York City. Her plan is to make her vision and methodologies available and accessible through print, social media, and online, as well as at the Imagine The Next Institute and Retreat Center. Over the next two years, we’ll conduct rapid prototyping workshops at the Institute, before fully establishing a program for diverse and visionary solutionists to participate in our curriculum.

WhereNew York City will serve as the urban location for working studies, solutions and projects, while North Carolina will serve as a solutionist think-tank and learning center. Located approximately 40 minutes north of Asheville, North Carolina, in Hot Springs, Imagine The Next Institute is nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains. This rural getaway will be a Learning Lab for permaculture principles,crop harvesting, natural architecture, and biomimicry based systems integration. In practical terms, it is an extremely peaceful place to retreat.

Asheville has long been known for thought leadership in the New Economy, and is home to Mycelium School, Black Mountain SOLE, Earthhaven Ecovillage, and MudStrawLove. Hot Springs is served by one of the nation’s oldest electric co-ops, Mountain Electric,and Asheville has a number of the nation’s most eco-friendly campuses—Warren Wilson College, UNC Asheville, and the Black Mountain College Project.

imaginethenext.tumblr.com

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About the Agency

The Moderns:

The Moderns is a solutions based creative studio that uses strategy and design methodologies based in social equity and environmental innovation. We were early pioneers in collaborations with clients from start-ups to corporations establishing brands that support people, planet and commerce for healthier profitability with long term brand loyalty. We continue to create brand communities that are focused on the integration of innovative brand solutions that care forpeople while focusing on growing market share.

Our interdisciplinary practice incorporates a coterie of specialists from designers, brand strategists, curators, and sociologists who work together to activate our ecologically conscious and solution-based strategies. We are a creative agency that thrives at the intersections of digital and offline human experience.

Under a socially conscious philosophy our thought leadership has been a resource for more than 22 years.

We are people centered.

We Imagine the Next.

themoderns.com @modernsnyc

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About the nonprofit

More Art:

MissionMore Art is a federal 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to producing meaningful and engaging works of public art in New York City. More Art garners the power of public art to encourage social change and bridge the gaps existing between underserved communities and the general public in New York City. We make art accessible to all by fostering artistic collaborations between contemporary artists and local communities and locating all our projects in freely accessible public spaces. We support artists in their creative endeavors and provide a public platform of expression for artists and community members to express themselves through art.

HistorySince its inception in 2004, More Art has produced a wide range of projects reflecting the concerns and challenges of various New York City communities. Our work started in Chelsea, which, like many areas in the city, underwent a dramatic period of gentrification, which transformed a working class neighborhood into the epicenter of the contemporary art world but in turn marginalized many long-time, low-income residents. More Art focused on building understanding between the two communities by creating opportuni-ties for a creative collaboration on public art project. In 2008, for instance, the month-long Chelsea Art Project featured three public art installations by artists Tony Oursler, Anthony Goicolea, and Nicola Verlato that were directly inspired by Chelsea’s complex architectural history and socio-economic fabric. Over the years, we have built a number of longstanding partnerships with several organizations, including Hudson Guild, the Chelsea Cultural Partnership and the Highline, where artists such as Pablo Helguera (2011) have staged their work. More Art has also worked with public schools including the LAB School for Collaborative Studies, the Liberty High School and the Clinton Middle School for Artists and Writers. Education has always been – and remains – central to our mission. We regularly invite professional artists to work with public middle school students to introduce them to the many possibilities of contemporary art practice

and encourage them to investigate their own communities, as exemplified in the projects by Anna Gaskell (2005), Jenny Marketou (2011) and Ofri Cnaani (2013).

In recent years, More Art has reached beyond Chelsea in order to address a broader range of issues and engage a growing audience; Michael Joo‘s work (2007-08) was presented in both Chelsea and Miami while Joan Jonas‘ was exhibited (2011-12) in Soho and Philadelphia. Expanding on our original mission, we have worked with communities chronically underrepresented in the public space, such as senior citizens and war veterans – as evidenced by Kimsooja‘s (2010) and Krzysztof Wodiczko‘s projects (2012). We aim to give a voice to the unheard and a face to the unseen through art. Consequently, our projects have gone increasingly ambitious, transcending the traditional boundaries of public art and expanding into workshops, lectures and panel discussions. This comprehensive and holistic approach to public art not only enables us to stress community involvement but also to approach sensitive topics in a powerful and respectful way. In the future, More Art will continue to push the possibilities of art by presenting ambitious projects at the forefront of socially engaged art practice.

moreart.org @moreart

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About the Project

Project Title:

Soil to Soul™

Gentrification, and access to affordable, healthy food.

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About the Project

What is the problem you would like to solve?

Imagine the Next® Institute has chosen to collaborate with The Moderns, MoreArt, and Chelsea teenagers will collaborate on Soil to Soul™—a solutionist approach to a two-pronged problem: gentrification and access to affordable healthy food. Led by an influx of high-end art galleries, the High Line, upscale boutiques, and skyrocketing rents, Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood has experienced rapid gentrification that has hurt diversity and negatively impacted middle-to-lower income residents. And as the rising cost of real estate has made life increasingly difficult for longtime residents, it has also made it harder for those families to put affordable, healthy, nutritious food on their tables.

When under-served communities like Chelsea lose access to valuable cultural programming that sustains their souls and to nutritious food that nurtures their health, every city resident suffers.

Soil to Soul will demonstrate the harmony of mind, body, and soul by artfully illustrating the lifecycle of healthy food, and explaining how each and every one of us is connected to the planet—and to each other—by the food we eat.

Our goal is to combine art with education to inspire community members to become involved in the lifecycle of their food. Using art as a powerful experiential tool, Soil to Soul will educate and inspire community members to take action for healthier food. By coming together to create and experience art—and to study the scientific connections between the earth, the food we eat, and the communities we live in—urban dwellers of all backgrounds can build healthier, happier, more vibrant cities.

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About the Project

How do you propose to solve this problem?

A. Education

We propose a seven-week workshop for students aged 12 to 18, meeting on Saturdays and culminating in the Soil to Soul Festival—inviting the community at large to explore what they’ve learned and to view an experiential art installation. During the workshop, students will learn the connections between compostable packaging, composting, soil remediation, heritage seeds, nutrient-rich foods, healthy individuals, and healthy communities. By showing students the connection between their neighbor’s Starbucks cup and their own personal health, we’ll begin to educate the community about the importance of restoring the planet’s health.

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Continued: How do you propose to solve this problem?

A. Education

1 | The program will begin with food packaging and food waste.

A handful of national chains (most notably Starbucks), have begun to recognize the importance of reducing waste through compostable packaging and food waste. That’s why they’re rolling out compostable cups—effectively turning every Starbucks store into a soil remediation facility.

2 | From compostable packaging and food waste, we’ll move into compost itself:

The magic begins when a customer finishes her morning latte and composts her cup. The cup and food are broken down into compost—the fuel that heals our soil and nourishes heirloom seeds.

3 | Next, we’ll make the crucial connection between compost and healthy soil.

Our soil is in crisis today—just as our rivers were in the 1960s—but compost can heal it. Without healthy soil, heirloom seeds cannot thrive. But in nutrient-dense, compost-enriched soil they can sprout, and in turn draw lifeforce from the earth that surrounds them.

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Continued: How do you propose to solve this problem?

A. Education

4 | Once harvested, heirloom vegetables pass those life-sustaining nutrients on to the people who eat them.

We’ll now explore the many benefits of heirloom crops. Because many program participants will be New Yorkers, we’ll discuss the many surprising links between urban and rural communities. While we can’t create large-scale, sustainable farms in Manhattan, we can be mindful of the roles that food packaging and food waste from big cities play in composting and soil remediation out in the country where our food is grown (known as our “foodshed”—the area within a 100-mile radius of a city that produces much of its food).

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Continued: How do you propose to solve this problem?

A. Education

5 | As students begin to see the connections between the planet as a whole and the lunch on their compostable trays, we’ll move on to examine the ways that healthy foods nourish our bodies, our minds, and in turn our souls.

6 | Finally, we’ll discuss how small changes can have big impacts. When a Starbucks coffee cup or food waste becomes compost, and that compost nourishes soil on a farm, a farmer can grow a crop of heirloom vegetables. And when one family’s health begins to improve after months of eating those vegetables, the family in the apartment next door may notice and begin to change their diet, too. Gradually, the entire city will become healthier and more productive, and more people will have a few extra bucks to spend on coffee (in compostable cups), and the cycle can begin anew.

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Continued: How do you propose to solve this problem?

B. InspirationOur choice is to collaborate with MoreArt (moreart.org), who has a 10 year history of deep commitment to using art as a catalyst for social change in Chelsea. Working with them, we’ll develop a curriculum and select a world- renowned artist to collaborate with the students throughout the workshop. Through his or her work with students, this artist will educate and inspire the entire Chelsea community—bringing art and culture out of exclusive galleries and into the community at large, and sharing the story of the healthy food lifecycle with everyone.

By educating the next generation of composters, Soil to Soul will inspire other community members to begin to take action themselves—because compost doesn’t just nurture the soil, it nurtures the healthy foods that sustain our souls. The experiential art installation will illustrate each step of the healthy food lifecycle—creating a living representation of the connections between soil and soul. Through this interdisciplinary collaboration with artists, curators, educators, environmentalists, and others, Soil to Soul will help an underserved community bring art and culture into their lives.

Working in collaboration with scientists, doctors, farmers, entrepreneurs, a world-renowned artist, a neighborhood food activist such as Alice Waters or Tom Colicchio, Imagine the Next, MoreArt, and students from six different Chelsea schools will explore the connections between coffee cups, compost, and communities. The end result will be an educated, inspired group of local schoolkids poised to share their learning with the community around them —and a world-class, experiential art installation for everyone.

At the end of the workshop, the community will be invited to take part in the experiential art installation and a neighborhood Soil to Soul saturday street fair —sowing the seeds of learning and inspiration in the fertile soil of the neighborhood that sustains us.

C. CommunicationFrom the integrated print and digital campaigns that promote the workshop to the seed package, t-shirt and the digital initiatives distributed at the Soil to Soul Saturday and Sunday Festival that culminates it, we’ll engage the community as a whole and spark dialogs about the vital connections between composting, microbusiness, health, and sustainability.

D. DocumentationIn addition to the printed piece that will detail the evolution of the Soil to Soul art project, we’ll create a documentary video to be shared via social media of the entire journey.

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How do your printed pieces work together to support your idea and solve this problem?

• Promotion First, we’ll attract participants. We’ll create posters, seed packs, and postcards promoting Soil to Soul. Posters will be displayed on community bulletin boards (such as those found in coffee shops, supermarkets, churches, and community centers) inviting kids to participate. Postcards with similar messaging will be prominently displayed in area businesses such as Starbucks, Chipotle, and Whole Foods—all companies that actively participate in composting food packaging.

• Workbooks Students enrolled in the program will receive workbooks for use throughout the course. They’ll be well-designed and graphics-driven (and printed, naturally, on Sappi paper), with interactive exercises for students to complete. We’ll also include a robust selection of resource materials.

• Course materials We will design a spectacular pamphlet series that will inspire and motivate students. These pamphlets, designed to ignite activism the same way Tom Paine did in the 18th century, will be distributed at each phase of the workshop.

Eachpamphletwillfitintoaslipcaseandareasfollows: Pamphlet 1: An overview of the curriculum Pamphlet 2: An introduction to compostable food packaging Pamphlet 3: An in-depth look at the science of compost Pamphlet 4: The importance of soil remediation Pamphlet 5: How heirloom seeds produce healthier food Pamphlet 6: The impact that healthy individuals can have in building healthy communities.

• Documentation A beautifully designed coffee table brochure and documentary video, will chronicle the learning process and the development of the art installation.

• Collateral materials Posters and brochures at the Soil to Soul Festival will educate viewers on the lifecycle of food, and the deep connections between healthy food, healthy bodies, healthy minds, healthy souls, and healthy communities. In addition, everyone who attends the Soil to Soul Festival will go home with a packet of heirloom seeds, printed with a brief environmental message. • Digital media program participants will receive Soil to Soul T-shirts, and digital tie-ins will include social media campaigns, a mobile app, a tumblr blog, a wordpress site, and a video documenting the entire project.

About the Project

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Continued: How do your printed pieces work together to support your idea and solve this problem?

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Continued: How do your printed pieces work together to support your idea and solve this problem?

Digital Media Program

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What is the goal of your project, and how will it motivate its target audience to take action?

We want to connect people to each other and to the soil that grows the food they eat. By highlighting the importance of the healthy food lifecycle in sustaining our minds, our bodies, our souls, and our planet, we’ll begin to build a healthier community. And Soil to Soul will empower underserved Chelsea residents to use art as an experiential tool for engaging with neighbors and inspiring community activism.

Using art as a catalyst, program participants will learn the science behind compostable packaging, compost, soil remediation, heirloom vegetables, and healthy eating. From there, they may be inspired to create microbusinesses—driving connections between community residents and local entrepreneurs to collect food packaging and food waste, then turn it into compost that sustains the soul of the local foodshed. This high-visibility art installation and accompanying community street fair will inspire people to get involved in their own health, the health of their communities, and the health of the earth— because healthy food doesn’t just belong to the yuppies who shop at Whole Foods. It belongs to all of us.

About the Project

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How do you plan to implement and distribute each component so that they work together toward your goal?

We will work with Chelsea schools through More Art’s existing connections to help sponsor, recruit, and house the workshops with neighborhood students.

Workbooks will be distributed to program participants in classrooms, and handed out to public-school teachers throughout the city and eventually the nation. The first Soil to Soul workshop will establish a scalable, teachable framework that can help communities everywhere understand the value of composting in the healthy food lifecycle, and empower them to mandate composting of food packaging and food waste in their own communities—becoming catalysts for soil remediation.

In addition, posters will be placed on community bulletin boards in supermar-kets, coffee shops, schools, churches, and community centers—encouraging students to enroll, and inviting community members to attend the opening of the art installation and community street fair that culminates the program and to participate in the Soil to Soul Festival. And postcards and branded seed pack-ages will be used to promote and guerilla market the workshop and the final art project will be prominently placed in community centers and local businesses such as restaurants, coffee shops, supermarkets, and more.

We also plan to seek funding and promotional help for the documentary and digital media from national businesses renowned for their commitment to healing the environment through composting food packaging, such as Starbucks, Chipotle, and Whole Foods—and to engage with neighborhood restaurants on a grassroots level.

About the Project

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What will be the lasting value of your project, and why does its intended impact make it an important and timely idea?As communities across the country begin to mandate composting at least 35 percent of all food packaging and food waste, (such as Seattle, San Francisco, Portland, NYC, etc) Soil to Soul will begin at a timely moment, and put Chelsea at the cutting edge of mandatory composting and soil remediation. By re-engag-ing the underserved community in Chelsea and empowering them to take action for their own health and that of the neighborhood around them through com-posting and soil remediation, we hope to build powerful connections—and to inspire and ignite the community through the experiential art installation created in collaboration with a world-renowned artist.

By educating community members on the healthy food lifecycle, the importance of composting to healthy soil, and the ways that healthy soil sustains every single one of us—mind, body, and soul—Soil to Soul will inspire one Manhattan neighborhood to begin to change the world.

When people begin to see the connections between soil, food, health, soul, community, and the earth, they’ll begin to take sustainability personally. Through a provocative, inspiring, and experiential art installation, the community’s soul will be uplifted, and people will reconnect with their birthright: healthy soil, healthy food, healthy soul.

We believe that Soil to Soul can begin to create grassroots change for composting and soil remediation and thereby healthy souls. Beginning in one New York City neighborhood, Soil to Soul Saturdays and Sundays could eventually take root in cities across the nation, growing into a powerful tool for building healthy communities. Just as River Keeper organizations have spread and grown nationally for the protection of our rivers, so can Soil to Soul for the awareness and protection of our soil.

From our apartments and local coffee shops to our foodshed and our fellow humans, we’re all connected—and if one of us becomes a catalyst for composting, eventually we’ll all be healthier.

About the Project

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Potential Thought-Leaders, Solutionists and Mentors to be invited for participation:

Penny KellyFrom The Soil to The Stomach

David R. MontgomeryDirt: The Erosion of Civilization

Wenonah HauterFoodopoly

Will AllenGrowing Power

Alice WatersThe Edible Schoolyard

Derek DenckiaSlow Money NYC

Lower East Side Ecology CenterNew York, NY

Maple Grove Composting Center Seattle, WA

John Cronin and Robert Kennedy Jr. The Riverkeepers

Dr. Patrick FratelloneFratellone Medical Center for Integrated Medicine, New York, NY Tom Colicchio

School of Visual ArtsDepartment of Social and Activist Art

John JeavonsHow To Grow More Vegetables

Danny MyersUnion Square Hospitality Group

Stephanie Owens Cornell University, School of Art and Architecture Matthew AbramsMycelium School

Don GibsonLéman Manhattan Preparatory School

Brian Halweil and Stephen MunshinEdible Manhattan Magazine

Abbe FuttermanFounder of Earth School (aka P.S.M364), New York, NY

Mark SattelmeierPresident of Heritage Seed Company

Diane Ott WhealyCo-Founder of Seed Savers Exchange

About the Project

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General Notes:

• This project is still in development phase for deliverables, so some details may change. Additionally, some items may need to be canceled depending on funding. • We are in the process of fundraising for this project. The Sappi Grant will of course play a huge role in funding it, but we are raising money from other sources as well.

• We will be seeking donated materials, in kind printing and work, volunteers. • We plan to design this to be a replicable and scalable pilot.

• Photography, documentary video, illustrations, digital/apps/social media: to be funded by others.

About the Project

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25Sample Visuals for the project

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COMPOS TABLE FOOD P ACKAGIN G

COMPOS T

HEAL THY SOIL

HERI TAGESEED S

NUTRITIONRICH FOOD

HEAL TH YCOMMUNITIES

1

4

2

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6

Visual StorytellingLifecycle of Healthy Food

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Project and Festival Identity

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Promotional Poster

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WEEK 4HERITAGEHEIRLOOMSEEDS

WEEK 2COMPOSTING

WEEK 1COMPOSTABLE FOOD & FOOD PACKAGING

Pamphlet Series

WEEK 3HEALTHY SOIL

WEEK 5NUTRITION RICHFOOD

WEEK 6HEALTHY PEOPLEHEALTHY COMMUNITIES

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Pamphlet Series

WEEK 1COMPOSTABLE FOOD & FOOD PACKAGING

YOUR BRANDHERE.

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Pamphlet Series

WEEK 2COMPOSTING

ALL THE WAYS WE COMPOST

WORMS

ALL THE WAYS WE COMPOST

WORMS

WORMS:Build your own worm compost

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Pamphlet Series

WEEK 4HERITAGEHEIRLOOMSEEDS

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HOW DO YOU COMPOST?

W RMS HERE ARE ALL THE OTHER WAYS YOU CAN COMPOST. HERE ARE ALL THE OTHER WAYS YOU CAN COMPOST. HERE ARE ALL THE OTHER WAYS YOU CAN COMPOST. HERE ARE ALL THE OTHER WAYS YOU CAN COMPOST. HERE ARE ALL THE OTHER WAYS YOU CAN COMPOST. HERE ARE ALL THE OTHER WAYS YOU CAN COMPOST. HERE ARE ALL THE OTHER WAYS YOU CAN COMPOST. HERE ARE ALL THE OTHER WAYS YOU CAN COMPOST.

34HOW DO YOU HEAL THE

S IL? HERE ARE ALL THE WAYS YOU CAN HEAL THE SOIL. HERE ARE ALL THE WAYS YOU CAN HEAL THE SOIL. HERE ARE ALL THE WAYS YOU CAN HEAL THE SOIL. HERE ARE ALL THE WAYS YOU CAN HEAL THE SOIL. HERE ARE ALL THE WAYS YOU CAN HEAL THE SOIL.

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36Thank you.