The Human connection company
On the face of it, Shared Studios can look a lot like a tech company. Our work relies upon the internet and the connections we create depend upon screens. When we bring people together, we use computers to do it.
When you enter a Shared Studios portal, you are connected to someone in another part of the world, live and full-body, as if you are in the same room. We place these shared spaces in parks, universities, refugee sites, and public squares across the globe.
In this world of software and hardware, it’s easy to forget that all of what we do happens first and foremost in the physical world, in communities big and small. When our guests step inside, they must physically enter a new kind of space that their community has put aside for the purpose of fostering human connection.
Before the technology is even plugged in, the arrival of the portal changes the public space around it. It signals a commitment on behalf of the local community, city government, or Business Improvement District towards dialogue and discussion. The raw physicality of the structure begins the process of placemaking.
Placemaking occurs when groups are intentional in shaping the character of a neighborhood, town, city, or region. In the communities we visit around the world, dedicated practitioners and local leaders are all trying to answer the same question — how do we activate public spaces, build communities, and improve the quality of life for ourselves and for our neighbors?
These questions are complex and most answers are relatively new. But the industry is at an interesting inflection point, and, across the United States, patterns are emerging.
Already, those who steward public spaces are able to reliably program entertaining experiences for residents and visitors, providing experiences that make creative use of local plazas, parks, and the streets themselves. Examples range from large Jenga blocks to yoga classes to public sculptures.
Placemaking 2.0 — Participation is Key
After decades of decaying civic engagement, these stewards are playing a crucial role in encouraging citizens back into our collective spaces. But a full rehabilitation of the public arena requires more. Many of the activities provided by place-makers today are passive by design. They provide an object to observe (as in the case of public art) or a proscribed activity to follow (as in the case of public yoga).
These practices are giving residents reason to return. But they reflect only the beginnings of what is possible. To turn our communal environments into vibrant, democratic spaces, we need to emphasize social, participatory activities that build trust, germinate shared interests, and foster regular, repeated interactions. When we do, we may find ourselves building a modern agora: a space for public discussions; book readings; town halls; expressions of grief and joy; art; music; friendship. These would be spaces where people come together in-person to engage, challenge, and support one another; discover or strengthen the causes that inspire them, and invigorate their sense of shared humanity.
None of this requires reinventing the wheel. Already today there are facilitation and community-organizing practices that survive, nascently and naturally, in communities across the country. But for these practices to flourish and last, they require an intentionality that is yet to emerge in placemaking today.
At the core of this movement must be a recognition of the promise of the local community, the insistence that local groups have their own unique richness to share. When Shared Studios installs portals in refugee camps and schools and public parks around the world, we do it because we recognize that each community has something to give and something to receive.
This project has a global mission: it encourages us all to appreciate the diversity of human experience. But there is a local element as well. Every node in this network is a physical location set aside for the purpose of fostering human interaction, helping local communities create spaces of genuine civic participation.
