Three ways how creatives give Baltimore a voice

There is a good chance you never heard of the Global Theater Project, The Good News Baltimore news channel or an animation series called "Hear Charm City" which will have a season two coming out later this year.

Jamar Jones presenting Good News Baltimore

To give more people a chance to learn about how Baltimore creatives  give the city a voice, Lori Rubeling of Baltimore's D-Center (D for Design) curated an event dubbed "Designing Citizenship" at the Windup Space last night as part of the successful series of "Design Conversations". This was #72!

Bari Hochwald and Kristin McWharter
are both out of town artists that have a fresh look at Baltimore while Jamar Jones is a Baltimore native and studied at Morgan State University and has training in journalism.

Jamar Jones is on a mission, he wants to counter the non informative sensationalist local TV news with "good news" that provide real information and stress the positive things going on in his city. From a real studio and with two well schooled anchor women he produces slick GNB news that could very well find their way to a broader audience, clearly his goal.

Bari described her quest via the Global Theater project which oscillated between Los Angeles and Florence Italy with her new base in Baltimore as an ongoing quest on the question Who am I in the world and how can I become an active ingredient? She strives for active global citizenship. "Just keep asking the questions" she demands. (video here). On her webpage she explains her decision to locate here in Baltimore this way:

Global Theatre Project now based in Baltimore

Baltimore also was the second largest point of entry for immigration, which means that the population spans ethnic backgrounds offering The Global Theatre Project an opportunity to explore global issues on a local level.  There is also a small but strong Italian population in the city and this will allow us to create connections to our international home, Florence.

Kristin McWharter wants to give regular pedestrians a voice. She adds considerable value to those filmed interviews by painstakingly animating the video frame by by frame. In her webpage she describes her purpose as giving

A frame from Kristin McWharther's interview series
"what would you say to Baltimore in 30 seconds?"

the growing art community’s potential to provide the Baltimore public with an accessible platform for sharing opinions, needs, and desires.

Kristin also writes on the online news blog What Weekly, another much recognized voice of the "other" Baltimore, getting Out From Under "The Wire" as the Huffington Post called What Weekly's efforts.


Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

I am a founding member of D Center since 2007.
If you are interested in hosting a Design Conversation, please contact me at info@archplan.com

http://theglobaltheatreproject.org/
http://hearcharmcity.com/
http://goodnewsbaltimore.org/