Move_ Make_ Create_

Within Thailand and China, I have found that urban slum communities and rural communities lack both art education and tech education. Meanwhile, United Nations research shows that the lack of tech-literacy in these communities are the cause of cycles of poverty and lack of social mobility. Thus, Move_ Make_ Create_ serves to inspire and teach the next generation of young learners about the possibilities of new media. While I have been able to start doing actions and classes and sessions in China and Thailand, to make more impact I realize I need a set of classroom computers that I can take into the charity schools I am engaging with. I see now there are already charity schools doing great work, but they all lack art and tech courses, so as of now I have my own setup of projectors and cameras, and computers and have been conducting interactive media-making sessions. But with more funding I will be able to make a better kit to teach more skills in coding, VR, AR etc. 

I am a queer American who has been based in Asia for ten years. I have worked in the fast and furious startup world of Shenznehn for several years for money. Meanwhile, having settled down in Bangkok, I want to continue my tradition of doing public art. I was a founding member of Minneapolis Art on Wheels that created mobile media machines to reclaim public space and create social/community art projects.

I have become very bored with the art world and what artists are doing in simply adding to a capitalist system that is destroying our planet. Thus, I started to Move_ Make_ Create_ to open up my new media practice to people in places that have no access to media learning. After seeing the huge gap in education and lack of resources, I saw how my art project could in fact have measurable and impactful results in communities instead of being something that is only about me and expressing myself. 

I think this shift is vital for the art world and all people to move beyond beauty and nice-looking things, and think about how beauty and nice-looking things can create betterment.  

The problem is huge! As stated earlier, many urban poor populations and rural communities do not have any access to art or tech education in Thailand and China. (Millions of kids sadly...)

When I asked the first charity school I went to in Bangkok about their art teacher, they responded, "She died years ago and we have no one else to teach since then and no budget." 

Within Thailand and China, I have worked and connected with the various education charities that exist, but they are lacking art and tech programming. Thus, Move_ Make_ Create_ strives to work to fill in the cracks and gaps in the education systems that are lacking vital education. 

The long-term goal of this program is to establish a curriculum plan and tech kit details, to then be able to have multiple teams operating doing ongoing classes and workshops in the communities that are lacking education resources. 

I am striving to build upon services and things that are already working within a community and make them better by offering more well-rounded educational experiences for the poorest members of society. By working within the organizations, I see how I must be adaptable and moveable, and thus I have created the pop-up activities that allow me to enter any charity school and run classes. As all the charity schools I enter lack technology, I can offer access to that equipment and guidance about how to create with it. 

According to UN research, the poorest communities in China and Thailnd lack upward mobility due to the lack of tech-literacy. Striving to make tech-education universal is a vital challenge humans must fight for as with the unequal education that currently exists, we will continue to have unequal societies.