A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon Parks explores the power of images in advancing racial, economic, and social equality as seen through the lens of Gordon Parks, one of America’s most trailblazing artists, and the generation of young photographers, filmmakers, and activists he inspired.
Directed by John Maggio; Produced by Monica Berra, Richard Lowe, George Kunhardt, Teddy Kunhardt, Matthew Henderson; Executive Produced by Alicia Keys, Kasseem “Swizz Beatz” Dean, Nancy Abraham, Lisa Heller, Jelani Cobb, Jacqueline Glover, Peter Kunhardt, Sr., Peter Kunhardt, Jr.
A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon Parks explores the enduring legacy of photographer, writer, composer, activist, and filmmaker Gordon Parks, and spotlights his visionary work and its impact on artists working today. Gordon’s legacy comes to life through three contemporary photographers: Devin Allen, whose photograph Baltimore Uprising of the 2015 Freddie Gray protests was featured on the cover of Time magazine; LaToya Ruby Frazier who for five years documented the Flint, Michigan water crisis and in 2020 photographed Breonna Taylor’s family for Vanity Fair; and Jamel Shabazz, whose New York City photographs of individuals and groups form a visual history of cultural shifts and struggles across the city. The film celebrates the power of images in advancing racial, economic, and social equality as seen through the lens of Gordon Parks, one of America’s most trailblazing artists, and the generation of young photographers, filmmakers, and activists he inspired.
“There’s another horizon out there, one more horizon that you have to make for yourself and let other people discover it, and someone else will take it further on, you know.” — Gordon Parks
The Kunhardt Film Foundation has created free Educator Resources to accompany the film, including lesson plans and interview archives and photo archive to accompany the film. A discussion guide and six lessons supports creative and dynamic conversation about Gordon Parks and the ways his trailblazing work continues to inspire photographers and filmmakers today. Adult learners, high school and college classrooms, museum programs, and youth art organizations will find dynamic and robust resources.
The Gordon Parks Foundation permanently preserves the work of Gordon Parks, makes it available to the public through exhibitions, books, and electronic media and supports artistic and educational activities that advance what Gordon described as “the common search for a better life and a better world.”
From Juneteenth to the 4th of July, we invite you to participate in the second annual #CivicSeason through self-guided public art visits in San Francisco, as well as in-person and online events that invite civic engagement through the arts. We’re teaming up with hundreds of history museums and sites across the country through @HistoryMadeByUs, in partnership with the next generation shaping our democracy to launch a new tradition that makes room for all of our stories – and write the next chapter together.
Mendell Morgan, the public library director, thought about closing on Wednesday, out of respect for those who’d lost their children. Ultimately he decided to keep the library open. He wanted to show his community what, in his view, a library really is.
Every Wednesday at El Progreso Memorial Library in Uvalde, the children’s librarian, Mrs. Martha Carreon usually does story time for young children, but she didn’t know if she could do it that day. “I felt like it was going to be too much to look at those little faces. I didn’t think I would be able to bear it.”
About 24 hours later, Carreon stood in front of a group of 10 smiling faces, struggling not to cry as the children giggled and sang along with her.
600 Books of Hope for The Children of Uvalde
Carreon’s wish to create a safe space for children and community after the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School, inspired @pinatadirector, children’s book author e.E. Charlton-Trujillo, founder of the nonprofit Never Counted Out, to organize a book drive called 600 Books of Hope.
“600 Books of Hope is an opportunity for us as a community of artists and writers, along with the companies that publish us, to embrace the children of Robb Elementary School. My goal is to collect a minimum of 600 books of hope which would ensure that every child there would receive one book. One tangible thing they can take with them that might shine a ray of promise in their unbearable darkness. My ideal goal is to collect an additional 1,300 books to gift to the town’s remaining K-6 schools: Anton Elementary, Benson Elementary, Dalton Elementary, and Sacred Heart, knowing they too suffer the consequences. This would allow for every grade school kid in Uvalde to have at least one book, one token of hope to grab onto.”
We sent a note to e.E. to find out how to best participate and received this email in response.
Thank you for reaching out. I am so grateful to our community of librarians, authors, illustrators, and publishers who are showing up for the kids of Uvalde. People across America, Canada, and elsewhere have messaged, making this goal achievable. It’s truly a beautiful thing…
… In a time where we can feel powerless and overwhelmed, we as a community are shining the light of what we do into the hearts of those we create for. By doing that, we are giving these children a safe place to be held. To feel seen. To feel hope. I am so grateful to you for that.
The Asian-Pacific Islander Cultural Center (APICC) proudly presents GENERATIONS OF POWER, a multi-disciplinary showcase featuring The Last Hoisan Poets & Del Sol Quartet (spoken word with live instrumentation), Autonomous Region (jazz fusion), First Voice (story theater), Asian American Dance Performances (contemporary dance), Leela Youth Dance Company (classical North Indian dance), and tashi tamate weiss (movement/ritual).
This FREE, ALL-AGES, OUTDOOR event is part of the 25th annual United States of Asian America Festival (USAAF): Generations of Power. We are proud to host this event at the historic Japantown Peace Plaza as a visual symbol of community resilience and resistance during this period of increased Anti-Asian sentiment.
Juneteenth is the African American celebration of liberation 2 years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. Soon after the end of the Civil War, black communities throughout the nation celebrated independence every June 19th with gatherings, delicious food, and of course good music. Healdsburg Jazz is proud to present a diverse range of music, art, culture and education in honor of this holiday, free to the public, in the Healdsburg Plaza.
Juneteenth Celebration in the Healdsburg Plaza with Willie Jones III Quintet, MJ’s Brass Boppers, the Curtis Family C-notes, poets Enid Pickett and Kamau Daáood, KCSM’s Greg Bridges, educational areas, vendors and more.
Presented in partnership with Healdsburg Community Services Department
Make a flag in the arts and crafts area in the plaza.
The Juneteenth Flag, a symbolic representation of the end of slavery in the United States — was created in 1997 by Ben Haith, the founder of the National Juneteenth Celebration Foundation (NJCF). In 2000, artist Lisa Jeanne Graf modified the flag to its present, modern-day design.
Flag Day is celebrated on June 14th.
While flags are everywhere and a part of daily life; most people don’t pause to unlock the rich history and ideas they represent. With North American Vexillological Association (NAVA) and the community of knowledge it builds, members say “open, sesame” to reveal the wealth of symbols and stories behind flags.
Flags first developed in China, with the advent of silk, and spread across Asia to the Middle East, where crusaders brought them to Europe. Beginning as markers on the battlefield, their use expanded to identification at sea, denoting who owned, taxed, and protected vessels. Eventually they became the ultimate icon representing nations, peoples, sub-national and civic entities, organizations, military units, companies, and individuals. Flag design began with heraldry, then spread its independent wings. Even before flags, “vexilloids” served as earlier symbols of group affiliation—tribes, armies, clans—and the Romans’ battle standard, the vexillum, gave its name to “vexillology”, the study of flags.
Good Flag, Bad Flag – This 16-page booklet, compiled from the expert input of over 20 different vexillologists world-wide, has become a classic resource for flag design.
“American Gothic, Washington, D.C.” Credit: Photograph by Gordon Parks.
FREE On Demand Online Film Screening
A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon Parks
A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon Parks explores the power of images in advancing racial, economic, and social equality as seen through the lens of Gordon Parks, one of America’s most trailblazing artists, and the generation of young photographers, filmmakers, and activists he inspired.
A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon Parks is a co-production of Kunhardt Films and HBO. Film for this screening provided by Kunhardt Film Foundation.
This film screening is presented by ArtsEd4All, in conjunction with this year’s #CivicSeason (from Juneteenth to July 4th). Please RSVP to receive a link and password enabling FREE unlimited access to the film via the virtual screening room from Monday, June 12, 2022 at 12:01 AM PST to Tuesday, July 4, 2022, 11:59 PM PST.
Juneteenth is a time to gather as a family, reflect on the past and look to the future. Discover ways to celebrate this African American cultural tradition of music, food and freedom.
‘What To The Slave Is The Fourth Of July?’: Descendants Read Frederick Douglass’ Speech | NPR
In the summer of 2020, the U.S. commemorated Independence Day amid nationwide protests for racial justice and systemic reforms in the wake of George Floyd’s death. That June, we asked five young descendants of Frederick Douglass to read and respond to excerpts of his famous speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”. It’s a powerful, historical text that reminds us of the ongoing work of liberation.
FEATURING (alphabetically) Douglass Washington Morris II, 20 (he/him) Isidore Dharma Douglass Skinner, 15 (they/their) Zoë Douglass Skinner, 12 (she/her) Alexa Anne Watson, 19 (she/her) Haley Rose Watson, 17 (she/her)
A text version of the full speech is available here.
Emmy Award winning composer Mark Izu presents an evening of American jazz infused with traditional Japanese Gagaku music and poetry about San Francisco’s Japantown.
For one performance only, Songs for J-Town will feature music from the history of San Francisco’s Japantown. The evening will begin with the story of the Sun Goddess by Brenda Wong Aoki and a blessing by Konko Priest Mas Kawahatsu, followed by an instrumental jazz performance infused with Gagaku, a 1500-year-old ceremonial Japanese music that Izu studied for 26 years under his mentor Togi Suenobu.
Saturday, April 23, 7:30pm, Presidio Theatre, San Francisco
Compositions by Emmy Award Winning Mark Izu (Contrabass and Sho) with Mas Koga (Shakuhachi, Flute, Saxophones), Jimi Nakagawa (Taiko & Traps), Jim Norton (Woodwinds), Caroline Cabading (Vocals), devorah major (Spoken Word), Sara Sithi-Amnuai (Trumpet & Sheng), and Brenda Wong Aoki (Storyteller). Blessing by Rev. Mas Kawahatsu, Digital Collage by Andi Wong, Film by Tonilyn Sideco.
Pre-show Sacred Tree & Post-Show Reception
A classic yorishiro: a giant tree from Kyoto, Japan Photo by Chris Gladis (MShades) is marked with CC BY 2.0.
Sacred trees, called shinboku, are a deeply ingrained part of a Japanese culture that has historically viewed itself as being united with nature, rather than separate from nature; thus, recognizing the sacredness of trees, stones, mountains, forests, and the elements has been a relatively constant theme in Japanese culture for thousands of years.
“BLESSINGS” are the wondrous gifts all people receive each day that allows us to live: sun, air, rain, food, shelter, our heartbeat.
The evening’s program will begin with a purification blessing by Reverend Masato Kawahatsu, Minister at Konko Church of San Francisco. After the performance, enjoy tea and sweets in the courtyard.
Support Provided By
This work was commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission with support from Grants for the Arts, the Hewlett Foundation, and the Office of Economic Workforce Development, City and County of San Francisco. In partnership with the JapanTown Task Force, Center for Asian American Media, and co-presented by the Presidio Theatre. Produced by First Voice.
Each year on Martin Luther King Day of Service, ArtsEd4All officially launches the Blake Mini Library Book Drive. Founded in December 2013 by then six-year old Blake Ansari in New York City, Blake Mini Library supports the reading, writing and science literacy of children ages birth to 21 living in homes for runaways, homeless shelters and foster care. Here on the West Coast in San Francisco, we’ve shared our love of books and reading with the children and families at the Hamilton Families shelter in the Tenderloin since 2016.
In 2022, we are pleased to kick off the 7th Annual Blake Mini Library Book Drive with a special online film screening of OBAMA: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union. This three-part documentary chronicling the personal and political journey of President Barack Obama is available to registered viewers via View on Demand. Please RSVP on Eventbriteto receive a link and password enabling FREE unlimited access to our virtual screening room from Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service through Presidents’ Day — Monday, January 17, 2022 at 12 noon PST to Tuesday, February 22, 2022, 12 noon PST.
The New 3Rs
It is especially exciting to present this film in partnership with The New 3Rs, an educational program that uses stories of social justice to dismantle racism. The New 3Rs educates and empowers through the art of social justice storytelling, building relationships, and fostering a sense of responsibility. By offering programs and resources, the organization educates and empowers children, parents, educators, and workplace leaders through a lens of racial justice and racial awareness.
“The New 3RS is a diverse group. We listen to each other’s stories. We talk about the great things Black people gave the world and racial topics that usually are not taught in school. The New 3Rs gives me hope and strength. And for that, I am grateful!”
Students of The New 3Rs, including Blake Mini Library founder Blake Ansari, plan to participate by viewing the film. The students will select a racial inequity issue from The New 3Rs curriculum and envision how they or their nation can become a more perfect union in areas such as education, health, environment, and other topics of concern? The New 3Rs will create A More Perfect Union Anthology that will share student essays and art which they will send to Congressional Black Caucus and President Biden in late spring.
Download The New 3Rs 2019-2020 Student AnthologyHERE.
Take Action: My School Votes!
When We All Vote is a leading national, nonpartisan initiative on a mission to change the culture around voting and to increase participation in each and every election by helping to close the race and age gap. Created by Michelle Obama, When We All Vote brings together individuals, institutions, brands, and organizations to register new voters across the country and advance civic education for the entire family and voters of every age to build an informed and engaged electorate for today and generations to come. https://whenweallvote.org/
My School Votes is an action-oriented civics program where students learn by doing, to build student leadership, advocate for local issues, create exceptional voter registration campaigns, and together, launch young people into cycles of life-long civic engagement.
Geared towards children in Kindergarten through 5th, Parent Read Alouds feature Michelle Obama, WWAV co-chairs, and parents from around the country reading civics themed children’s literature paired with tangible learning opportunities for parents to engage in with their children.
“Change only happens when ordinary people get involved” – @BarackObama.
ArtsEd4All invites young artists to design a one-word poster reminding grown ups of the importance of voting. The poster criteria: The one word, VOTE, should be big, clear and visible. The rest, images & media, size is up to you. Parents can share photos of poster art (no faces, hands only please) and credit the artists with first name & last initial, age & city of residence.
Fill Yourself with Hope
President Obama and daughter Malia and Sasha watch Michelle Obama deliver her speech to the Democratic National Convention from the White House Treaty Room, September 4, 2012 (Courtesy Barack Obama Presidential Library)
Each year, former President Barack Obama releases a list of favoritebooks, music and films, and we enjoy doing the same! We hope that you will enjoy our recommended reading list compiled for this year’s 2022 Blake Mini Library book drive.
“The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.”
On Sunday, December 12th, we were invited by Dr. Wallace J. Nichols to share how we put #bluemind into action with The 11th Annual Blue Mind [Deconstructed] Summit.
Blue Mind. Forever.
Our Blue Marble travels started here eleven years ago in 2010, and I never get tired of the spectacular view from McCovey Cove. However, it was a little strange to see the empty space where the statue of Willie McCovey should be. Stretch has stepped out of the batter’s box, waiting for construction to cease. As we lined up in the rain, a sail boat named City Lights swooped by. Raindrops dripped on our heads, but we eventually made our way inside for our holiday treat – hot cocoa and cookies with Lou Seal. In our ballpark by the water, in an atmospheric river, on an ordinary Sunday. In 2021.
The article that follows was replicated with a single click, thanks to a nifty tool created by our friends at COMPOST, a magazine about the digital commons. COMPOST is published to the web and DWeb using the Distributed Press API.
Margaret Warren and I greatly enjoyed our time working together to tell our story of “A Confluence of Waters” with The Blue Marbles Project for Issue 02 of COMPOST magazine, which you can find HERE, along with a specially curated Spotify playlist. (Begin with Blue Mind, and follow the Del Sol Quartet to Fast Blue Village 2). Happy Reading!
A Confluence of Waters
Exploring Connections with The Blue Marbles Project
Andi Wong and Margaret Warren
In the Summer of 2019, we—Andi Wong and Margaret Warren—met for the first time at one of the Friday lunches at the Internet Archive headquarters on Funston Street in San Francisco. We met while planning art activities for the Decentralized Web Camp, and it was there that Andi first shared a blue marble with Margaret. But that is not where this story begins, and it’s certainly not where it will end.
This story is non-linear and organically expanding. Like mushrooms in a Fairy Circle. Like when websites used to have web rings. Like BuckyBalls: nano particles of carbon atoms in a spherical structure. Like the new vision of the web: decentralized and linked through nodes and edges. A synchronistic murmuration of inspirations and enchantment.
The ancient Greeks first declared the sphere the most perfect form and proclaimed it was the shape of the Earth and all the planets. Then on December 7, 1972, the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft made this vision evident when it produced this image of the earth, nicknamed “The Blue Marble,” on December 7, 1972.
Apollo 17: Blue Marble (Dec 7, 1972)
Creator: NASA
Copyright notice: 1972 NASA
Copyright terms: Public Domain Content
Apollo 17: Blue Marble (Dec 7, 1972)
Creator: Andi Wong
Copyright notice: 2018 Andi Wong
Copyright terms: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons
Blue Marbles Project: Synergy defined by Buckminster Fuller (2014)
Creator: Andi Wong
Copyright notice: 2014 Andi Wong
Copyright terms: Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons
Now jump to 2009, when a marine biologist, Dr. Wallace J. Nichols, known simply as “J” had an ambitious idea to hand his friend LeBaron Myers a blue marble. That simple act became an idea, which then became a movement. A low-tech-slow-motion global art project with a seemingly staggering goal of passing a blue marble through the hands of every (yes, every) person on OUR blue marble Earth, and along with each passing—a simple message of gratitude and reminder that everything we do on our water planet matters.
Dr. Nichols holding a blue marble
Creator: Neil Ever Osborne
Dr. Nichols is an innovative and entrepreneurial scientist. In 1996, J placed a satellite-tag on an adult female loggerhead sea turtle that was released into the wild after being rescued in Baja, Mexico. Adelita, named after a local fisherman’s daughter, was the first animal tracked across the Pacific Ocean, traveling over 9,000 miles from Baja, Mexico to her place of birth in Sendai, Japan. Thanks to the internet, Adelita’s journey was followed by children everywhere.
Where is your water?
J often asks people the question: ‘Where is your water?’ to kick off a conversation. What is the special place where you find you go to the water’s edge? For some, it might be the neighborhood swimming pool. Others might answer that they go kayaking or sailing, or they think of a tropical island paradise where they go on vacation. Garden hoses, public fountains, an opened fire hydrant, or ocean surf… Really, there is no wrong answer.
Scientists and teachers spend a lot of time crafting thoughtful, open-ended questions when they want more than a simple “yes” or “no” answer.
In 2010, Andi went to hear J talk about sea turtles, after an introductory email exchange about water. She wrote to ask J about his view of the changing waters of the Gulf of Mexico, after seeing his CNN video report about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill online. [1] When J asked Andi this question, she really had to think before answering.
Andi’s Water
My water begins in a small town in the California Delta called Locke, a historic rural Chinese-American community in the United States. The town of Locke was built in 1915 by Chinese residents, after the Chinatown in nearby Walnut Grove was destroyed by fire. I enjoyed lazy childhood summers in Locke, staying with my grandparents in their home on Main Street. My cousins and I had the run of the wooden plank walkways and the back alleys of this tiny four-block town. Locke was a place where we could roam and play until sundown, and we children grew up with very little knowledge of the extreme challenges faced by our families: The Page Act of 1875, The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, The Geary Act of 1892, The Alien Law of 1913 which prohibited the Chinese from owning land. There, in this isolated town, my mother’s family made it through the Great Depression and World War II.
In the 1940’s and 50’s, most young people—including my mother—left Locke, searching for greater opportunity and better living conditions. Today, in 2021, few residents of Chinese ancestry remain, and Locke has one of 300 failing systems in California that routinely supply roughly 1 million people with contaminated drinking water.
The Blue Marbles Project: Locke Chinese School (2015)
Creator: Andi Wong
Copyright notice: 2015 Andi Wong
Copyright terms: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons
The Blue Marbles Project: Connie King’s Toilet Garden, Locke, CA (2015)
Creator: Andi Wong
Copyright notice: 2015 Andi Wong
Copyright terms: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons
The river flows past my hometown of Sacramento, where I went to school, worked and got married, before moving to San Francisco. There the Bay waters swirl around Angel Island, where my grandmother, five months pregnant, landed on September 13, 1929, accompanied by my grandfather after a 31-day ocean crossing on the Tenyo Maru. Ye Ye, my grandfather, was free to depart, having taken up residency in California in 1911, as the son of a merchant, but Yin Yin, my grandmother, was held on the island for processing. The Angel Island Immigration Station transcripts document hours of intense interrogation. These records also revealed that Ye Ye was manager at United Meat Market for 36 firm members, and perhaps the cooperative’s pooling of investments explains how he was able to post the $1000 bail for Yin Yin’s temporary release eight days later. As ordered by the court, my grandmother returned to Angel Island carrying proof of childbirth: her 3-month old son Edmund—my father—and she was officially admitted to the United States as the wife of a domiciled Chinese merchant on March 17, 1930.
The Blue Marbles Project: Angel Island (2012)
Creator: Andi Wong
Copyright notice: 2012 Andi Wong
Copyright terms: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons
Angel Island Suitcase: Clay Marbles (2011)
Creator: Andi Wong
Copyright notice: 2011 Andi Wong
Copyright terms: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons
My water continues beyond Angel Island, flowing past the Golden Gate Bridge to San Francisco, where my two now-grown children built sandcastles on Ocean Beach and learned “you never turn your back on the Ocean.” It is a long oceanic journey from the farmlands of the Pearl River Delta of Southern Guangdong Province to reach “Gum Saan,” meaning “Gold Mountain,” what the Chinese called San Francisco, California. Much like Adelita the sea turtle, my immigrant ancestors needed both fortitude and good fortune to cross the Pacific Ocean.
For the past twenty years, I’ve worked in San Francisco public schools, as a teaching artist—a phrase coined to describe “an active artist who chooses to also develop the skills of teaching in order to activate a variety of learning experiences that are catalyzed by artistic engagement.” When the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered both schools and theaters, I focused on supporting two groups that struggled to adapt to the pandemic, often with limited access and experiences with technology: artists and elders.
Now I’m serving as project manager, researcher/archivist, and community liaison for a project called “Angel Island Insight,” with the Del Sol String Quartet and The Last Hoisan Poets. My work with poets Genny Lim, Flo Oy Wong, and Nellie Wong, also descendents of Angel Island immigrants, has filled me with a richer understanding and gratitude for the survival instinct and wisdom exhibited by the Chinese American diaspora. These vibrant elders taught me “haw meong suey,” an expression that literally means “Good Life’s Water” in Hoisan-wa, the dialect spoken by early Chinese immigrants. [2] By writing new poems in Hoisan-wa, they are keeping the history and language of our ancestors alive and vibrant, in a time when intercultural understanding and cooperation are needed more than ever. Del Sol, unable to perform for audiences in concert venues, struggled with latency issues while streaming on Zoom. They pivoted to playing free outdoor pop-up concerts and commissioning composers to write new short musical works to inspire joy.
The history of the Chinese on Angel Island, America’s own immigration history, remains unknown to many. But when audiences board the ferry to Angel Island for performances by Del Sol in October, this artistic exploration of the history of immigration and exclusion will be presented with “haw meong suey,” a healing dose of ocean. For me, this was yet another surprising chapter in an epic voyage that began with the gift of a blue marble from Dr. Wallace J. Nichols at Gray Area Foundation for the Arts on July 29, 2010.
At that event, four large water coolers were lined up on a table, each filled with a colorful flotsam of plastic demonstrating the increasing levels of plastic pollution accumulating in our oceans from 1910, 1960, 2010, to 2030—an ominous depiction of the future, if no interventions were taken. Neat rows of stacked glass tumblers issued a silent dare to drink. Plastic Century was an experiential art installation created for World Oceans Day and the 100th anniversary of Jacques Cousteau’s birth. J and his project’s co-creators wished to convey the “feeling of strangeness, discovery, disgust, and delight… what we want to remain with people as they walk out into the great big plastic world.”
The Blue Marbles Project: Wallace J. Nichols (2010)
Creator: Andi Wong
Copyright notice: 2010 Andi Wong
Copyright terms: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons
Open House: Plastic Century (2010)
Creator: Andi Wong
Copyright notice: 2010 Andi Wong
Copyright terms: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons
J was there to speak about his first-hand impressions of the Deep Water Horizon disaster, the largest marine oil spill in history. He had just returned from New Orleans after filming apocalyptic scenes of the ocean on fire from a helicopter. In Louisiana, he had walked on beaches littered with tar balls; filming and describing the details to his daughters. When I came across his report on CNN, I was sickened by his images of waters roiling in an oily sheen of sickly hues of yellows, reds, and white. “The Gulf,” he said, had become “the world’s largest petri dish.” with the unprecedented use of the chemical dispersant, COREXIT.
Noting that scientists are not often known for speaking about love, J spoke openly of his love for the ocean and his commitment to care for a world that his two daughters would grow to inherit. He discussed the value of using new tools and technologies to reach hearts and minds. Then, at the end of the evening, J gave each person in the room one blue marble. He explained the simple rules of the “blue game,” a ritual that has since become an integral part of my story, connecting me to thousands of others since that Summer in 2010.
Around the World with the Blue Marbles
I had just taken a new position at school: working in the computer lab. Excited to find ways that the arts might be integrated with technology, I soon discovered that all the kids really wanted to do in the lab was play a computer game called Marble Blast, where players roll a small marble through a variety of obstacles courses, without falling “Out of Bounds.” If you made it to the end, you were rewarded with a big burst of fireworks.
Image via Andi Wong
When I asked the kids why they liked playing the game, I learned that they knew that if they kept playing the game, they would improve. And one boy told me that he liked this game because he knew he could never die in it.
It was then that I decided what I would do with my class. We would play Marble Blast, away from the keyboard, in real-life.
When very young children draw their blue marbles close to their eyes while looking into the light, they will tell you that they see a whole menagerie of creatures, both real and imaginary — dolphins and whales, sea turtles and fish, merpeople and pirate ships. The children are eager to share what they see, and their eyes shine bright with wonder.
The Blue Marbles Project: The Glass Menagerie (2013)
Creator: Andi Wong
Copyright notice: 2013 Andi Wong
Copyright terms: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons
When I asked the children if it might be possible to pass a blue marble through the hands of everyone on Earth, they answered enthusiastically, “Yes!” The follow up question, “Can you do it by yourself?” made it clear that we would need to ask others for help.
At first, we only had one blue marble to play with. I asked the class, if they could send the Blue Marble anywhere on Earth, where would they like to see the marble go? After much discussion, the children decided that they wanted to see the Blue Marble at The World Series. We had to figure out a way. Incredibly, within minutes, we discovered Mr. Rogers, a fourth grade teacher, would help.
The Blue Marbles Project: Mapping (2011)
Creator: Andi Wong
Copyright notice: 2011 Andi Wong
Copyright terms: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons
The next stop was Cuba, a place that was near impossible for most children to visit. The children’s imaginations caught fire. We bought a case of marbles and the game was on. Together, we traveled with Blue Marble to see the world beyond the United States. The Colosseum in Rome. The Berlin Wall. The Eiffel Tower. The Taj Mahal. The Great Wall of China! Family and friends helped the children to see the world by sharing their adventures through photographs and correspondence on Facebook.
It took three years, but the children finally achieved their goal to visit every continent on Earth, when a Blue Marble made it to Antarctica. Blue Marble followed the water, traveled across the Sahara Desert by camel, crossed the Alaskan frontier on the Iditarod, via gondola, rickshaw, airplane, and submarine.
Gif via Andi Wong
As the children learned about the Ocean and her importance to all life on Earth, they grew eager to apply their knowledge. They learned how to reduce, reuse, recycle, and ultimately refuse the plastic that soils their beaches by sewing their own cloth lunch bags. We sponsored a nest in the Yucatan Peninsula and celebrated the birth of sea turtle hatchlings. The third graders premiered Chelonia’s Story, an original opera about a young sea turtle and an ocean scientist who gently sings that captive turtles should be returned to the sea. On International Biodiversity Day 2016, the children used a new technology called Zoom, which was still relatively unknown then, to broadcast their sustainability fair celebration to a classmate in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
The Blue Marbles Project: Vivazul Sea Turtles (2012)
Creator: Enriqueta Ramirez
Three newly hatched sea turtles swim in glistening water in an orange tub.
Creator: Andi Wong
Copyright notice: 2012 Andi Wong
Copyright terms: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons
The project provided an opportunity for adults and children to learn together through play. When we made new connections between people and places, our planet felt a little smaller and nicer. There was a marble for everyone, so there was no worry about being left out. If a child lost a marble, we would ask what they might do differently and give them another to practice with. We all need to practice taking better care of our one Blue Marble. We are all in this together.
The Blue Marbles Project: One Cubic Foot (2012)
Creator: Andi Wong
Copyright notice: 2012 Andi Wong
Copyright terms: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons
The Ocean Mural (2018)
Creator: Andi Wong
Copyright notice: 2018 Andi Wong
Copyright terms: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons
As time passed, the photo album of Blue Marble images grew, but with each school year, we also became more and more aware of the accelerating speed of environmental change. Would our photos eventually become a record of places transformed beyond recognition? Would the stories and information attached to the images be useful in the future? Social media platforms were being used to manipulate public opinion and spread disinformation, and I was looking for another way to work with my images. That’s when I met Margaret.
As if we were guided by two rivers headed towards a confluence, we met in 2019 when I was invited to support artistic projects at the first DWeb Camp at the Mushroom Farm.
This is when I first learned of Margaret and her project: ImageSnippets. It was then that I asked her the question: “Where is YOUR water?”
The Blue Marbles Project: Andi Wong (2014)
Creator: Young Wong
Copyright notice: 2014 Young Wong
Copyright terms: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons
Margaret in Indiatlantic
Creator: Margaret Warren
Copyright notice: Margaret Warren
Copyright terms: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons
Margaret’s Water
When I was a very little girl, my father would play marbles with me, but not in the traditional way with shooters and circles. Instead, we would take a big thick quilt, spread it out in a haphazard way and give it hills and valleys. Then we would take the marbles and move them around the quilted landscape. Maybe to my dad they were like little ‘troops,’ but I wanted to organize and study them. I grouped them by colors and types; categorized and counted. Later on, when our family would go flea market shopping, I so loved the marbles, it gave me my own little thing to seek out and collect while my parents collected cameras or other gadgets they were passionate about.
Blue Marbles on a Quilt
Creator: Margaret Warren
Copyright notice: Margaret Warren
Copyright terms: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons
Marbles
Creator: Margaret Warren
Copyright notice: Margaret Warren (2020)
Copyright terms: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons
Over the years, I have created many projects and professions, but most often I say I am an artist, a creator, a researcher, and a technologist—even though I feel like these labels keep overlapping and meandering. Looking back, I can now see I’ve spent most of my life responding to an inner curiosity for things like making art and photographs, describing images, discovering synchronicities, and building networks of people and machinery. Rolling and tumbling from one eddy to another, my life itself has felt both fluid and yet also deliberately and persistently guided by a much deeper current.
My water begins in the very far western tip of Kentucky, where I was born within ten miles of the Mississippi River. I was born in the county seat in a little town called Clinton, not far from an even smaller town called Columbus, which sits on a bluff overlooking the river. In the 1800’s, Columbus was much larger; a busy port for trains, barges, steamboats and all kind of river traffic on North-South trade routes. From Chicago, Illinois to Mobile, Alabama to New Orleans, Louisiana, ferries moved travelers across the nearly mile-wide Mississippi as they journeyed westward seeking fame, fortune, and new opportunities.
Some of my ancestors started out to be some of those westward seekers, but they just didn’t make it past the river. In fact, one story told in my family is that they decided to settle in Kentucky because one of my great-great-great grandmothers had taken one look at the river and said, “I’m not crossing that! [3]
…and yet it moves..
Creator: Margaret Warren
Copyright notice: Margaret Warren (2017)
Copyright terms: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons
As a young child, my story continued south to the Gulf of Mexico when my parents moved to Northwest Florida, to an area called the Big Bend.
The waters of this part of Florida are quite special. This area is home to both the largest diveable underwater cave formation in the world (Wakulla Springs) and also to one of the oldest National wildlife refuges in the United States. Established in 1931, the coastal area of St. Mark’s was founded as a protection for migratory birds. The wetlands and estuaries of this area are also referred to as the ‘Forgotten Coast’ or ‘the Other Florida,’ because this area is so different from the white sandy beaches, palm trees, and condos that most people think of when they think of the state. The refuge protects longleaf pine savannas and coastal marshes as far as the eye can see. Made up of salt waters from the gulf and freshwater from nearby springs and rivers, this ecoregion is known as the southern coastal plain and is home to an amazing array of flora and fauna.
St. Marks
Creator: Margaret Warren
Copyright notice: Margaret Warren (2014-2021)
Copyright terms: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons
Unlike the fishermen and other inhabitants of these coastal towns, my parents were young artists interested in astronomy, nature, and wildlife. We regularly went canoeing and hiking in the area. Through my father’s work as a photojournalist, we circulated around the coast learning about the people and the environment. My father would often pull me out of school to bring me along on his feature photography days to take photos of places like St. Mark’s for the Tallahassee Democrat, the local newspaper.
As a teenager, my waters moved me in a new way, into a tour of duty in the US Coast Guard.
When I was part of the Coast Guard, I always felt so proud to be part of a mission for search and rescue, tending to buoys, and coordinating environmental cleanup in all of the waters of the US. Though I served only one term in the Coast Guard as a Cryptographic Electronics Technician, I did travel to the Great Lakes, the New York City Harbor, the SF Bay Area in California, Kodiak, Alaska, and then back again to the Mississippi River in New Orleans.
Electronics study in the Coast Guard led to computer science in college, and then various jobs that circulated around photography, technology, music and the arts and from the Gulf Coast to California and back again multiple times. Following my curiosity over the years, I was inspired to explore a unique problem: how to describe images with more formalized, machine-readable techniques.
Being raised by artists, naturalists and photographers had undoubtedly inspired me; but I had also been the seven year old making encyclopedias of bird pictures matched to their scientific names. I made all of my school writing projects about images. When I would print my own photographs in the darkroom with my father, I always made sure I had written all of the ‘metadata’ (the who, what, why, where, how, when) on the back of the print:
Creator: Margaret Warren
Copyright notice: Margaret Warren (2020)
Copyright terms: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons
A Pair
Creator: Margaret Warren
Copyright notice: Margaret Warren (2020)
Copyright terms: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons
As my technology career evolved with the web, I strived to find the best ways to publish my images online with their metadata. But to my dismay, the web was actually evolving in such a way as to de-value publishing and curation methods that would have handled image metadata more appropriately.
In fact, to this day, many content producers continue to exercise poor metadata habits with images, and these habits—whether learned or ignored—have actually led to much more severe problems as a result. The serious problems associated with misinformation and disinformation on the web are now widely recognized and widespread. In particular, images stripped of their original metadata have been re-contextualized to manipulate emotion and used to polarize viewpoints.
Yet it can be challenging to write metadata. Many people just don’t want to write it, as they often don’t want to take the time to add context and intention to images, and don’t think about what will happen to the metadata once an image gets on the web. The technology behind centralized social media photo sharing has deliberately made it difficult to keep metadata attached to images, while at the same time retaining your image collections to keep you further tied to a platform.
We are still a very long way from mastering what it would mean to be able to formally record the context around the making of an image, as well as the intention with which that image is being shared. Though computer vision can produce some interesting demonstrations of image classification, language is very ambiguous and subjective, and artificial intelligence is a long way off from capturing the subtleties of image metadata.
In general, it can be said that sharing images properly on the web requires a human-centered thoughtfulness—a theory not embraced by advertising revenues.
ImageSnippets
Thus I started building ImageSnippets. ImageSnippets is a web based system that has now been in development for over 11 years with ideas stretching back almost 20.
I call ImageSnippets a metadata management system, but it’s designed to be so much more. It can be used to curate image collections, and be an interface for images to be linked in interoperable ways to other data on the web using linked data. It’s also being used as part of research projects for modeling formalized image descriptions, with descriptions by subject matter experts. All of this can be done in such a way that the descriptions can be machine-readable, and thus assembled into image-based knowledge graphs—also known as image graphs—in the process. In this way, ImageSnippets is also a research tool for knowledge representation.
Instead of requiring images to be held in centralized data stores, the tool is designed to sit as a layer over the images. That means the data can be held anywhere on any server, and the data is openly available and queryable using the SPARQL query language.
At the 2019 DWeb Camp, I worked as a volunteer to build out the local mesh network, as well as to design a collaborative art project. When I met Andi through this work and showed ImageSnippets to her, she immediately embraced the vision of ImageSnippets. Extending the idea of network nodes to the blue marbles, we both excitedly saw how it could be used to connect the stories of the photographs collected between all those people she and her students gifted with blue marbles.
The Blue Marble Game goes to ImageSnippets
Creator: Margaret Warren
Copyright notice: Margaret Warren (2019)
Copyright terms: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons
Publishing these images here on COMPOST with Distributed Press, we are fortunate to see this experiment come alive. But we are just at the beginning of this next phase of our story. This article represents a next step in taking image and metadata publishing techniques to decentralized protocols.
Computer scientist Admiral Grace Hopper said, “If you do something once, people will call it an accident. If you do it twice, they call it a coincidence. But do it a third time and you’ve just proven a natural law!” When a blue marble is passed it is a gift of gratitude for the good work that you do. When we share our gratitude in this way, we are building understanding, empathy, and love in our interconnected world. The blue marble opens up pathways through which we can learn and understand one another through a shared connection with our waters.
Image via Andi Wong and Margaret Warren
The images in this piece flip to reveal their metadata and the images themselves also contain the embedded metadata. This functionality is provided by ImageSnippets, a project by Margaret Warren. Image metadata allows others to understand the context and provenance of images when they are shared and published.
The authors wish to thank COMPOST for helping us to find confluence through our parallel exploration of the wild, domestic, and virtual waters that have shaped us as individuals. Andi & Margaret will continue to reveal, preserve, and share digital stories with The Blue Marbles Project, joining The Blue Mind Network’s global efforts to put #bluemind science into action to create common knowledge and practice.
If you would like to join their project, please visit bluemarble.pics to float a note to Andi at ArtsEd4All and dive into metadata with Margaret at ImageSnippets.
ANGEL ISLAND IN SIGHT 2021is a visual storytelling project focused on Angel Island — a collective portrait of Angel Island drawn from a multitude of views — near and far, past and present. Del Sol Performing Arts Organization’s ANGEL ISLAND INSIGHTexplores the history of the Angel Island Immigration Station by offering a suite of virtual and in-person programs that examines the musicality of the disappearing Hoisan-wa dialect by The Last Hoisan Poets and The Del Sol Quartet. public engagement with Del Sol Quartet & Huang Ruo’s Angel Island – Oratorio for Voices and Strings.
MEGAN and CHRIS WONG’s grandfathers were held in the Angel Island Immigration Station barracks. In 1929, Edmund Fong (Gung Gung) arrived in the belly of his mother Wun Shee Fong, who was five months pregnant. Gew Thet Wong (Ye Ye) arrived on Angel Island in 1931.
In 2021, the siblings offer their behind-the-scenes portrait of Beloved Community for Angel Island Insight.
Angel Island Insight. Directed and Edited by Chris Wong. 2021.
This project was made possible with support from California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Visit http://www.calhum.org
Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this website do not necessarily represent those of California Humanities or the National Endowment for the Humanities.
ANGEL ISLAND: IN SIGHT 2021 at the Angel Island Immigration Station is made possible with support from North East Medical Services (NEMS). https://www.nems.org/
ANGEL ISLAND IN SIGHT 2021is a visual storytelling project focused on Angel Island — a collective portrait of Angel Island drawn from a multitude of views — near and far, past and present. Del Sol Performing Arts Organization’s ANGEL ISLAND INSIGHTexplores the history of the Angel Island Immigration Station by offering a suite of virtual and in-person programs that examines the musicality of the disappearing Hoisan-wa dialect by The Last Hoisan Poets and The Del Sol Quartet. public engagement with Del Sol Quartet & Huang Ruo’s Angel Island – Oratorio for Voices and Strings.
What a beautiful day in the bay. Took the ferry to Angel Island and hiked to the top. Back to work Monday. Sounds like there’s plenty to write about. 😉 #TotalSF
HEATHER KNIGHT 5:41 PM · Apr 2, 2021·Twitter for iPhone
Heather Knight is a columnist working out of City Hall and covering everything from politics to homelessness to family flight and the quirks of living in one of the most fascinating cities in the world. She believes in holding politicians accountable for their decisions or, often, lack thereof – and telling the stories of real people and their struggles.
She co-hosts the Chronicle’s TotalSF podcast and co-founded its #TotalSF program to celebrate the wonder and whimsy of San Francisco.
Two decades ago, Heather visited Angel Island and following a group of students visiting the Immigration Barracks on a field trip.
“About 47,000 Bay Area students — ranging from fourth grade to college — take the Angel Island tour every year, said Ellen Loring, volunteer coordinator for the Angel Island Association. Weekday field trips are booked solid through June.
Cap Wilhelm-Safian, who teaches English and history at River Glen, a Spanish immersion school for students in kindergarten through eighth grade, said he’s taken students to Angel Island for six years.
“I find with students that to actually experience something and be in the place, it brings it home,” he said. “It’s important for them to understand that everybody in this country is an immigrant. It expands their sense of community beyond the school.”
Today, in 2021, ferry service from San Francisco to Angel Island is in question. Facing declining ridership, increased operating costs and plummeting revenues even before the pandemic, Blue & Gold Fleet submitted a request to the California Public Utilities Commission to discontinue passenger trips from The City to both Angel Island and Tiburon. “We just strongly believe there has to be direct service from San Francisco to Angel Island. “Not having that is similar to not having direct service from Manhattan to the Statue of Liberty,” says Ed Tepporn, Executive Director of the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation.
The CPUC values your input. Submit your public comment HERE.
This project was made possible with support from California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Visit http://www.calhum.org
Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this website do not necessarily represent those of California Humanities or the National Endowment for the Humanities.
ANGEL ISLAND: IN SIGHT 2021 at the Angel Island Immigration Station is made possible with support from North East Medical Services (NEMS). https://www.nems.org/
ANGEL ISLAND IN SIGHT 2021is a visual storytelling project focused on Angel Island — a collective portrait of Angel Island drawn from a multitude of views — near and far, past and present. Del Sol Performing Arts Organization’s ANGEL ISLAND INSIGHTexplores the history of the Angel Island Immigration Station by offering a suite of virtual and in-person programs that examines the musicality of the disappearing Hoisan-wa dialect by The Last Hoisan Poets and The Del Sol Quartet. public engagement with Del Sol Quartet & Huang Ruo’s Angel Island – Oratorio for Voices and Strings.
Although photography had always been a casual interest of mine, it wasn’t until 2008, when capturing the energy and joyful expressions of the dancers at the Berkeley Obon, did I realize my passion for this activity. It is through this continued pursuit of photography that I have connected to many local ethnic communities, deepened an interest in my Japanese American heritage, and engaged many culturally active artists, activists, and historians. While my photographic style continues to evolve, I’m most inspired by images that portray the vibrancy and soul of our collective communities, whether through the sharing of various art forms, celebrations, or remembrances.
MARK SHIGENAGA, Community Photographer
Photo: Mark Shigenaga. Filming day on Angel Island with Claudia Katanayagi for A Bitter Legacy, 2012.
Mark Shigenaga
In 2014, I helped photo document the 1st Nikkei Angel Island Pilgrimage, an event sponsored by the Nichi Bei Foundation, with AIISF, the National Japanese American Historical Society, California Genealogical Society, and the California Park Services as partners. It was during this pilgrimage that I met Grant Din. A chance discussion subsequently led to an exploration of my grandfather Kakuro and great uncle Shigeo’s history on this island, who were shipped from Hawaii to California and destined to become interned at various Department of Justice camps a few months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Grant’s access to the National Archives and Records Administration led to a wealth of new insights to the journeys of the Shigenaga brothers, and are, today, cherished by our family.
Mark Shigenaga. Mah Jong Set. Filming day on Angel Island with Claudia Katanayagi for A Bitter Legacy, 2012.
Mark Shigenaga. Taiko Drummers. 2nd Nikkei Angel Island Pilgrimage. October 13, 2015.
Mark Shigenaga. 4th Nikkei Angel island Pilgrimage. November 5, 2018.
Mark Shigenaga. 4th Nikkei Angel island Pilgrimage. November 5, 2018.
Mark Shigenaga. 4th Nikkei Angel island Pilgrimage. November 5, 2018.
Mark Shigenaga. 2nd Nikkei Angel Island Pilgrimage. October 13, 2015.
This project was made possible with support from California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Visit http://www.calhum.org
Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this website do not necessarily represent those of California Humanities or the National Endowment for the Humanities.
ANGEL ISLAND: IN SIGHT 2021 at the Angel Island Immigration Station is made possible with support from North East Medical Services (NEMS). https://www.nems.org/