Water Table: A Long Table Event (CityStudio #6)

At the heart of the Rain Stops concept was the goal to connect everyday people to information regarding the Greenest City Goals. The information, supplemented by palpable demonstration projects, would be portrayed in a fashion to empower action. Therefore, it assumed: Information + Demonstration = Action.

Missing from this empowerment equation however, is one key ingredient: community. Phrases like "sea change" and "tipping point" and "paradigm shift" all come to mind when considering behavior change. And while an idea might originate in one person's mind, the spreading of that idea cannot take place without community. Community spreads, strengthens, and supports ideas. Where places such as bus stops exemplified insularity, places such as long gathering tables evoke the opposite. They inspire meeting, talking and learning. For this reason, I have agreed to join forces with another group at CityStudio working towards the installation of a Long Table in various public outdoor locations throughout Mt. Pleasant.

With our powers combined, WATER TABLE: Long Table Event No. 1 has been created. It aims to primarily do two things: 1. Connect people to people and 2. Connect people to ideas. This project takes its first step as an event to introduce a social artifact–the Long Table–to the neighborhood of Mt. Pleasant to test its feasibility as both a temporary metaphorical artifact and one with potential physicality and permanence.

One of the challenges of Vancouver becoming the greenest city is its ability to connect its residents to action. The goals are high level and often do not offer sufficient methods to connect Vancouverites to meaningful actions they can perform in their daily lives to contribute to achieving the goals' targets. Therefore, the programming of this table will be structured around each of the ten Greenest City Goals and its several targets.

WATER TABLE: Long Table Event No. 1 will focus upon the Clean Water goal as well establish visible connections to other goals, as was proposed by Rain Stops v.1.1. The event will have two visually inviting components to it to facilitate connecting people to people and people to ideas. The table event will bring people together, whereas the various water demonstrations will bring implementable ideas of water conservation to the people. Visualize a map of the sewers, a map of Vancouver's lost waterways, a demonstration raingarden, glass jars housing water specimens from various waterways of the city, an umbrella art installation, demonstration rainbarrels, a portable public drinking water fountain…it is due time programming of this event begins.