Creativity and Innovation in Action
YOUTOPIA, San Diego’s regional Burning Man event kicks off today! Back for the first time since 2019 due to Covid. A (very) few tickets are left, but that’s not what this post is about.
There’s a lot of talk about innovation, design, creativity and community in San Diego (and elsewhere). In the five years I’ve lived here I haven’t worked with a culture and community of people better demonstrating how to do and live those things. They make stuff and they stuff happen. With limited financial resources and a lot of ingenuity. No one else even comes close.
I began working in the maker space, CoLab, during Covid and took over as Director of Printmaking and silkscreen instructor last year. CoLab—originally created to support the Burning Man community is open to the public, ridiculously inexpensive classes, for the most part free to use—is funded by Youtopia through the non-profit, SDCAP (San Diego Collaborative Arts Project). Everyone involved in each of these organizations works as a volunteer, though I’m not sure that’s the right word to describe it.
There is in fact an unbelievable army of community volunteers. In the past, so many people have showed up to CoLab work and cleanup days that it was difficult to find things for all of them to do. Last year, we lost the lease at our warehouse and had about one month to figure out what to do. Someone in the group found us a smaller interim space but there was a massive amount of equipment to move and get into storage facilities. Not to mention to overwhelming amount of stuff to clear out, give away, discard, and properly dispose of. The size of the crowd that turned out and got everything done in three, hot, long, July days was mind blowing. I’ve rarely witnessed anything so impressive and moving. Maybe I just haven’t spent enough time with makers and burners and their adjacent peoples.
Making Youtopia happen this year was no small feat.
Congratulations to the team, producers, volunteers and community that hade it happen.
There’s a lot to be learned by what might be thought of as a sub-culture: the concept of radical inclusion, a spirit of giving, innovation as a community process, scrappy “we’ll figure it out” ingenuity, how to have fun, how to be cool/nice.
(Youtopia will be my first Burning Man event. I’m sure I’ll have more to share in the following weeks.)
Youtopia: https://sdyoutopia.com/
SDCoLab: https://sdcolab.org/
SDCAP: https://sdcap.org/
#sandiego #youtopia #art #sdcap #sdcolab #design #burningman#makerculture #creativity #wdc24