Museumnext Talks

Deborah Cullinan, CEO, Yerba Buena Centre for the Arts, San Fransisco, USA Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ “prototyping places for people” initiative addresses the growing issues of disconnection and lack of empathy among the diverse people of San Francisco. In the midst of rapid change, the city’s local media headlines are dominated by battles over public and private space, and questions of whom the city, or any given neighborhood, really belongs to. Traditional urban planning processes have had limited, if any, community input. But YBCA believes that citizens deserve a voice in the transformation unfolding in their streets. Through an unprecedented partnership with the San Francisco Planning Department, YBCA has launched an open source model that puts the people of the city at the center of, and profoundly influencing, how things grow and shift. They began on Market Street; a major thoroughfare that spans several neighborhoods in the midst of dramatic change. The Market Street Prototyping Festival asked