Place It! Workshop with James Rojas

Rojas is an artist, urban planner, and community activist. He has developed an innovative public engagement and community-visioning workshop called Place It! that uses art-making as its medium. Rojas brings along a 3D model or gathers found objects and asks the workshop participants to invent a vision for their communities. Designing by manipulating objects allows neighbors to model their experiences in a place. Participants will begin with dinner. Shortly after, the workshop will begin by tapping into participant’s emotions through their personal memories to understand their attachment to place. Residents use visual, spatial, and emotional language of the city through storytelling, objects, art-making and “play” to investigate the urban environment. This is part of McColl Center’s ArtPlace project that seeks to elevate the voices of neighbors experiencing homelessness in the North Tryon planning and visioning process. **Parking for the event is on-street and in the adjacent lots.