BMA Visioning Home Mapping Workshop

Visioning Home was a day-long workshop at the Baltimore Museum of Art that invited participants to challenge the entrenched narratives about Baltimore neighborhoods and envision possible futures. As part of the Imagining Home exhibit series, forty residents from across the city gathered for this meaningful day to learn about civically engaged art, find inspiration in the museum’s collection, and take part in a series of facilitated conversations and artmaking activities designed to spark creative thinking about changes and opportunities in Baltimore. El Paso artist and city councilperson Peter Svarzbein presented on how his fictitious advertising campaign to revive a defunct trolley raised $97 million in funding to re-establish strong cultural and economic bonds between El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico communities. Group discussions were captured throughout the day by visualizations drawn onto the studio’s walls by graphic recorder Lucinda Levine. The day of engagement culminated in an interactive mapping installation and activity created and led by public artist Graham Coreil-Allen. Participants used laser cut cardboard signs to write and illustrate their neighborhood assets, challenges, and new ideas. They placed these signs on corresponding locations within an immersive, 22’ x 24’ floor map made of brightly colored tape. Residents highlighted and sensitively discussed a range of issues such as the school-to-prison pipeline, food deserts, and industrial pollution; and proposed new ideas such as job-creating urban farms, universal tuition, and completing Baltimore’s mass transit rail network.