Statuevision: A participatory, collaborative, cross-generational, urban intervention with public monuments as primary content

Statuevision: A participatory, collaborative, cross-generational, urban intervention with public monuments as primary content

(Long paper)

Keywords: Art, Technology, Education, Modeling, Projection, Intervention, Public Space, Montessori.

This paper presents the project Statuevision, an interactive public performance based on historical statues in Washington DC in October 2014. The project also served as a study of strategies for engaging communities in shared cross-generational learning experiences in both a playful and meaningful way. Statuevision explored community engagement and empowerment with an urban projection intervention into Dupont Circle in Washington DC. Several seven and eight-year-old local students led the audience in a guerilla world history learning campaign, augmented with 3D video projections on the trees and ground. The public performance deployed a fleet of customized projection carts into Dupont circle at night; each cart projected animated renderings of local statues and provided a stage for the evening’s young MC’s. The students from Capitol Hill Montessori spoke with passersby about the history and importance of the monuments with the assistance of customized teaching material that was created for the primary school students prior to the event. Statuevision aimed to engage a community by decontextualizing familiar statues and monuments and reexamining the history behind each figure through the eyes of children. Passersby became audience members as they rallied behind the young student’s learning efforts, and eagerly contributed to the narrative of each figure.