Where does Community Commune?

As the dregs of Christmas lights come down and the New Year starts to set into our collective consciousness, I think back on the holiday happenings. About a month ago, our think tank group gathered at a local mall to collect our thoughts and witness first hand our community in action at its yearly height of consumer participation.

It was very strange. There we were, ThinkTank!, at Fashion Island in Newport Beach, Ca. We congregated there in order to focus our attentions and intentions on the community, which we then transferred our thoughts to Blogspot. We started our meeting that Saturday morning on comfy chairs below the mall’s HUGE Christmas tree while holiday shoppers sprung into action. Discussion abounded, thoughts transformed, and tangible evidence from our existing memories of past holiday traditions (or lack thereof) became the topic for further investigation.

It seemed to me (and it still does) that this is where people have their community center, malls. Towns used to have a center, or if your town still does, is it comfortable? Are there places to sit, congregate without spending money? What does community MEAN in the modern sense anyway? We have created a Consume-ocracy, a society dependent on spending money in order to connect with each other. Communication becomes important only in the case of advertising, which can take countless forms nowadays. Holiday traditions in this environment have the unnerving ability to become shallow and frenzied as we become capable of inadvertently rushing through the maze of holiday “Cheer”. In some cases our loved ones become a gift-giving quota to satisfy.

"What Box" original artwork by ©Katlin Evans

Now, when it comes to a creating particular kind of space, I draw a blank. There are a million kinds of spaces one could create a sense of community, yet I have a hard time visualizing it. I guess the place to begin adjusting our ways begins in the space of the mind. A change of perspective, how we function and think about spending our time and money is becoming more and more crucial.
It’s difficult to think of another container besides the box. That structured armature of our current existence is dissolving before our unconscious. Yet to fathom a new container when the old one (the box) hasn’t fully dissolved and still clings to every fiber of our being, change becomes increasingly difficult. In the strong current that surrounds our daily habits of functioning, just getting by is hard enough! Now we have to adjust our way of thinking as well? This is all too much. But it seems that this (change) will happen with or without us!

So, needless to say, I have started a small quest to see what kinds of community spaces are out there. What are people doing differently from the usual mall, bar, coffee shop kinds of places? We all know in order to perfect something so innovative as “change” there must be many attempts before one or many ideas take off and become ingrained in our most basic perspective and culture.
For example when texting first became a reality for communication we could not see how it would change our lives on a daily basis. To “Text” is now an action, a verb. So instead of calling someone, we “Text” them and calling is saved for the exceptional few and rare situations; close friends, an emergency, a scheduled conference call are all good examples. But I regress. Lets get back to envisioning alternative community spaces.

In my small amount of research, I have found, expressive arts organizations, art bars, and small business type art groups all trying to change the world! It’s all very exciting. But these experimental attempts to change our community vision and function are kind of exclusive in my opinion. Lets say you don’t like art, have no propensity towards it and all around don’t understand it. Then were do you go in this ever changing community vision, seminars? Hmm, doesn’t sound like tons of fun? But then again, fun and community don’t always go hand in hand, do they? All I am saying is that it’s a good idea to start this conversation and spring some thoughts into action. So cheers to a Happy New Year, thanks to 2011, and Hello 2012!!!!

Katlin