Dreaming “America,” Enacting Community Joy

Kate Duffy (Reed College)

This Collaboratory project will be a community of practice rooted in envisioning new futures

through speculative and creative engagement with Reed students, staff and faculty, as well as Portland community members. The Collaboratory will lead a series of guided conversations about the contentious idea of “America,” leading to the creation of large-scale objects (puppets) representing aspects of these conversations, and a final, public procession at Reed and in the Everything Under the Sun Parade. Our goal is to encourage the community of Reed College, prompted by Imaging America’s guiding values, to struggle with the idea of America, to envision new possible futures for themselves (at Reed, in their communities, their city, and their nation), to feel these envisioned futures in their bodies, and to then create a visual representation of these visions to be shared publicly, with the college and then with the city.