Max 30, All Ages

Place It! is a holistic, hands-on engagement tool that creates a safe mental space for participants to heal their communities and envision their utopia. By using their hands and objects, participants will learn how to blur the lines between logic and emotion in order to create places of wellbeing. Participants will tell their urban story by using their hands, capturing the rich sensory experience of place and their relationship with it and others.  Transforming individuals and communities, this activity builds empathy and encourages self determination. By changing the tools of engagement we can achieve healthy outcomes.

Instructor Bio:

James Rojas is an urban planner, and artist. He is one of the few nationally recognized urban planners to examine U.S. Latino cultural influences on urban design.  He holds a Master of City Planning and a Master of Science of Architecture Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His influential thesis on the Latino built environment has been widely cited. Mr. Rojas founded the Latino Urban Forum (LUF), a volunteer advocacy group, dedicated to understanding and improving the built environment of Los Angeles’ Latino communities. Mr. Rojas developed a new method of community engagement that uses art as way to facilitate urban planning meetings that targets youth, immigrants, and women. He has facilitated over 1000 interactive workshops and created over 150 interactive urban diorama across the country. He has collaborated with municipalities, non-profits, heath and educational institutions, museums and galleries to educate the public on urban planning.