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Building Bridges:
A Community Mosaic

 

Mosaics courtesy of Bisazza

 

An "Evolving" Proposal for
Community Healing and Dialogue in Miami-Dade
(Last updated on May 13, 2000 --to provide input please email artist at xavier@cortada.com)

By Xavier Cortada

Our community needs to heal. It needs to bridge its divide. This is done by listening, by communicating, by understanding each other's point of view. In essence, we need to build a bridge. But a special kind of bridge. One that is created piece by piece, mosaic by mosaic, by members of our community. One that serves as a metaphor for a broader process of working together towards a common goal.

 

Convene Community Meetings

I propose convening a diverse group of community leaders/healers to help lead us in building this bridge. They would convene community forums and non-traditional/informal activities for people to come together to discuss what it is that brings us together and address what tears us apart.

Existing community-based organizations, as well as religious, civic, business, professional and educational institutions can also engage in similar processes with their membership.

These sessions would yield constructive dialogue and action steps that would help us better understand one another and is so doing help build bridges across our fractured community.


Have Community Participants use Mosaics to create Grids

As a segment of these community building sessions, participants would be asked to take a few minutes to use actual mosaics to construct one of the hundreds of grids or panels that will cover the facade of a bridge to be built for the community. This  could take place as a side exercise or even an icebreaker.   The group would be asked to create a one foot by one foot grid from loose mosaics.

Miami-Dade County Public Schools (one of our most integrated of institutions, and one nurturing Miami's "future") would be natural venues for similar group discussions that would yield mosaic grids for the bridge. Every single school in the county would be invited to select a representative sample of students to engage in dialogue sessions to create a 1' x 1' mosaic grid.

The group could arrange their mosaics randomly or they could arrange them in a structured format to capture an image (symbol, sign, flag, word, shape, etc.). Each group would decide what meaning, if any, to attach to its grid; that is, whether it would express its message within the grid (multi-colored tiles or symbols), or if it rather make a macro-mosaic (i.e.: a single panel made up of yellow tiles) that would have meaning when places in the context of the other grids on the facade.

 

Use Grids to cover the facade of the Community Bridge

These grids would be collected and stored until scheduled days when they would be installed on the facade of a concrete bridge being built. (These would be permanent 20 mm glass mosaic, like the ones I used for the Bisazza-sponsored glass mosaic in the facade of the Juvenile Courthouse.) There is no issue with peeling, fading or breaking, this is a strong and permanent medium.

 

The community bridge could be circular in nature.

It is impossible to look at this bridge as going from point A to point B. Our community is much more complex than that. There are relationships and barriers to those relationships at every letter. The divide spans more than race and ethnic origin, but goes to subgroupings and cross-groupings. The differences are not only economic but include ideology, religion, and connectedness. Gender, sexual orientation and age also play a role, as do immigration status and length of residency in the community. Each of these, and the infinite combinations therewith, reflect different life experiences each of us bring to this community. These are the bridges that need to be built.

I propose that the bridge not be a straight line, but that it be in the shape of a circle. That is, a continuous bridge, encompassing the infinite possibilities of bridges within it (like spokes of a wheel). Sure it can have various on-ramps and off-ramps, but the concept is that it is a continuous process that leads us to community building and community bonding.

 

Dimensions (and the connection with the Miami Circle)

I propose that the diameter of the circle be 38 feet long (the diameter of the Miami Circle). In essence that circle can serve as a conduit for unity, because it helps put our tumultuous history of the last several decades in the context of Miami's greater history. It gives us an opportunity for further reflection. The height should be about twelve to fifteen feet, and the pillars/columns and arches holding it up should be architecturally different to symbolize that it is our diverse community holds us together, and that each of us although different is essential.  If it is a flat concrete surface, the floor of the bridge can also be created from these glass mosaics, yielding yet a greater surface area for this grid.

 

The Siting

This Miami Mosaic Bridge will be a monument with tremendous power. It will represent the collective resolve of thousands and thousands of our citizens who one mosaic at a time worked through problems and opportunities to make Miami a stronger community. The community partners who will present this project should think of the most relevant place for its permanent siting.

I think the place needs to be one which serves as a destination venue for the whole community (i.e.: a public place or park in downtown Miami) or a space/place the can symbolize that.  Site selection will be one of the hardest choices and one that should be arrived at collectively as part of the actual "building bridges" process.

 

Next Steps

On June 12th, 2000, I will be facilitating the creation of a community mural at the Caleb Center in Liberty City as part of the Human Services Coalition (HSC) annual meeting. Over 400 participants representing a myriad of human services organizations will contribute their messages and drawings onsite, and I will be helping collage them to the canvas panels.

I will paint a community bridge (like the one conceptualized in the draft proposal) as the central image on the mural. In essence, this can serve as a preliminary (but definitely not final) maquette for the actual bridge. Also, HSC will print posters of the completed mural.  As more information develops on the HSC mural, I will post it at http://www.cortada.com/projects/2000/hsc.htm

 

Other ideas:  Videos and the Internet

We can also explore videodocumentation of the process itself, community session by community session.  Or we can have people hand write messages and letters that will be assembled into a community scrapbook.  The truth is that this is process is about collective story telling.  The stuff that you'd do over the dinner table, except this one has mosaics instead of dinner plates, and the family is a little more "extended."  Capturing these stories (words) on tape or paper would be powerful.

Likewise, new technologies, including the Internet, can facilitate the process of this community interaction.  A website can photodocument the process, step by step--and include testimony from the participants. Webcams can webcast the process as it happens in sites across the community. 

Virtual mosaic grids and bridges can also be created on-line.  We'd have to write the computer program for it,  but people would just click on the virtual mosaics (as they appear at the top of this page) and arrange them to make their grid.  These would then be arranged to assemble a "virtual bridge."  Likewise, discussion forum and chatrooms can serve as venues to engage in on-line constructive dialogue.

 

 

 

 

*************

TO PROVIDE INPUT INTO THIS COLLABORATIVE PROCESS OR TO OBTAIN MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT THE ARTIST AT:

Xavier Cortada

3621 SW Third Avenue

Miami, FL 33145

United States of America

tel: 305-858-1323

email: xavier@cortada.com

website: www.cortada.com


Copyright © 19

Mosaics courtesy of Bisazza

r Cortada. All rights reserved.
Revised: 14 Mar 2004 17:30 -0500
.