Invoking the Pause Grant Partners Gary Nabhan of Taco Diplomacy and Stephen Antupit, Chris Saleeba and Critter Thompson of CityLab7 reach across interstate borders to unite the Northwest and Southwest at Tucson’s Meet Yourself festival. Both teams reminisce separately about their cross-collaborative work and the birth of the Taco Diplomacy Food Wagon.

Gary Nabhan/Taco Diplomacy/Sabores Sin Fronteras:

City 7 Lab meets Sabores Sin Fronteras and Celebrates

When Stephen, Critter and Chris of City7Lab parachuted into Tucson for the Tucson Meet Yourself mega-festival in mid-October, the Taco Diplomacy Food Wagon had just had only come out of the womb at Dust Design studio of Jesus Robles and Cade Hayes a few hours before. It was still learning how to walk on it own four tires, let alone talk to the 100,000 people already arriving for the Southwest’s largest homegrown food-and-music fest. Stephen, Critter and Chris quickly became the nannies and voice coaches for Taco Diplomacy’s newest baby, helping the Sabores Sin Fronteras Foodways Alliance imagine how to nourish its identity and broaden its impact.

CityLab7 further expanded its repertoire of participatory engagement techniques with their recent Cross-Pollination collaboration with the Taco Diplomacy Truck at Tucson’s Meet Yourself Festival in October. Visit CityLab7′s multimedia blog to get a “taste” of what dozens of Taco Diplomats had to say. Coming up next in the collaboration will be the Tucson team’s border-to-border participation in the Seattle-based Fertile Grounds Urban Food Utility Pop-Up.

Thanks from Chris, Critter and Stephen to Maggie Kaplan and her generous support through ITP’s Blossoming Possibilities Fund for making this collaboration possible.

From the initial migration of the Council of Pronghorn to the Big Apple, to the experience of meeting over a thousand visitors on opening day of the Value of Water exhibit, Felicia Resor and Ben Roth describe the joy of bringing their brainchild to Manhattan.

We at ITP celebrate the successful collaboration of the Pronghorn project created by Terry Tempest Williams, Felicia Resor and Ben Roth and the Value of Water Exhibit at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. The Council of Pronghorn was designed to bear witness to the environmental harm of the Natural Gas Fracking operation in Wyoming.

While no one– including the artists themselves– anticipated the project’s migration to New York, these collaborations and the project’s proliferation is aligned with the mission of Invoking the Pause. And so far it has been a huge success: opening day saw 1,500 visitors to the Value of Water Exhibit, and an expected 1 million visitors are expected before the exhibit’s close on March 25th.

These are the summaries and excerpts from our interview with Ben and Felicia after the opening exhibit.

Photo Courtesy of Helen Kubicka

Libby Modern recently reflected on the past year and her involvement in developing the Super Power Magic Motion Machine (SPM3) and what the future holds in store for the project.

From idea to innovation, SPM3 is a bike, an art exhibit, a power plant all in one — a mobile art installation that closely resembles a bicycle and trailer. However this is no ordinary bike. It’a custom-made piece of art that transforms into a pedal-powered generator, allowing three other bikes to hook to its mobile trailer and create power. Traveling through greater Lancaster, PA, the SPM3 will cast the conversation about energy consumption in a whole new light.

Stephen Antupit and I got a chance to talk with Nicole Heller, Ph.D., SPM3 Invoking the Pause Grant Partner, about her experience during and after the 2010 ITP Convening and her still-unfolding Google Fellowship invitation. These are just some of the excerpts of the discussion, which was inspiring and invigorating!

You, the grant partners, keep contributing to the ITP community and carry the dividends back to your own communities. These are just some of your inspiring tales.

Stephen Antupit and Chris Saleeba, of CityLab7 and the Fertile Grounds project, were brimming with enthusiasm and creativity after their recent trip to the 2011 BALLE Conference in Bellingham, WA.

“What’s in it for WE vs. what’s in it for ME?,” “Locavesting,” “The age of Pro-creativity,” and gaining new skills to navigate the Donor – NonProfit relationship were the key themes of the conference.

Libby Modern is one of the three musketeers leading project Super Power Magic Motion Machine (SPM3), and we caught up with her in a candid interview to hear more about their inspiring project.

We were most struck by her vivid account of life in the vibrant town of Lancaster, PA and how the project has cross-pollinated within their community.

The Super Power Magic Motion Machine (SPM3) is a pedal-powered mobile art installation and performance piece in Lancaster, PA to raise awareness about energy consumption and human innovation: a custom-made bicycle with a trailer attachment to carry components to convert human power into electricity, initiating a public discourse about energy generation, consumption, and community empowerment.

Click here to see the PDF article about SPM3