The Festival, conceived by the New Museum, is a first for New York and will harness the power of the creative community to imagine the future city and explore the ideas destined to shape it. It will take place in locations around Downtown Manhattan in an area spanning East to West and will serve as a platform for artists, writers, architects, engineers, designers, urban farmers, planners, and thought leaders to exchange ideas, propose solutions, and invite the public to participate.
Downtown Manhattan to Become a Dynamic Laboratory for Creative Thinking
and Action Bringing Together Scores of Participants and Public Events
New Initiative Will Focus On Culture, Community, Education, and Participation
New York, NY...The Festival of Ideas for the New City is a major new collaborative initiative
involving scores of Downtown organizations, from large universities to arts institutions and
community groups, working together to affect change. The Festival is a first for New York and
will harness the power of the creative community to imagine the future city and explore the ideas
destined to shape it. It will take place from May 4-8, 2011, in locations around Downtown Manhattan
in an area spanning East to West including the Lower East Side, the East Village, Soho, Nolita, and
Chinatown—and will serve as a platform for artists, writers, architects, engineers, designers, urban
farmers, planners, and thought leaders to exchange ideas, propose solutions, and invite the public to
participate.
The Festival of Ideas for the New City was initially conceived by the New Museum three years
ago as a natural outgrowth of its ongoing commitment to public education and civic outreach. The
concept quickly attracted a core group of Downtown ‘Organizing Partners’ who have met regularly
over the past two years. The eleven Organizing Partners are: The Architectural League; Bowery
Poetry Club; C-Lab/ Columbia University; Center for Architecture; The Cooper Union; The
Drawing Center; New Museum (Founding Partner); New York University Wagner; PARC
Foundation; Storefront for Art and Architecture; and Swiss Institute. Together, the Organizing
Partners reached out to hundreds of other groups and organizations to participate in the Festival.
The Festival of Ideas for the New City is organized around three central programs:
• A three-day conference of symposia, lectures, and workshops with visionaries and
leaders— including exemplary mayors, forecasters, architects, artists, economists, and
technology experts—who will address the four broad Festival themes: The Heterogeneous
City; The Networked City; The Reconfigured City; and The Sustainable City. These events
will take place at The Cooper Union, New York University, and the New Museum from
Wednesday to Saturday, May 4-7.
• An innovative, minimal-waste, outdoor StreetFest will take place along the Bowery. More
than seventy-five local grassroots organizations, small businesses, and non-profits will present
model products and practices in a unique outdoor environment. The Festival will premiere a new
environmentally inspired tent module commissioned for the Festival, as well as outdoor living
rooms and inflatable structures. Visitors can expect cooking demonstrations with urban farmers,
rooftop gardening classes, oral history projects, bike tours and valets, and a variety of affordable
and healthy, locally grown, sustainable food options. The StreetFest will take place on Saturday,
May 7, 11 a.m to 7 p.m.
• Over a hundred independent projects, exhibitions, and performances, which expand on the
Festival’s themes, will open at multiple festival partner venues Downtown, activating a broad
geographic area. Projects include a solar powered mobile art studio; artist-commissioned roll-
down, metal storefront gates; projections of poems in endangered languages on Lower East
Side buildings; a prototype of an urban campground; a marathon event where architects will
present their ideas about reconfiguring public space in a rapid fire format; an exhibit exploring
the political, economic and social relevance of preservation and its role in architectural thinking;
and a wide range of other activities exploring ideas for the future. These events will open
Saturday evening, May 7, and Sunday, May 8.
Among the questions to be addressed through Festival programs are: What makes the city worth
living in? How can we encourage and preserve the positive qualities of the city? How can technology
be used to improve city life? Are there places or elements of the city that can be repurposed and
re-imagined to serve new needs and populations? When we talk about sustainability, what do we
mean? And, what can each of us do to contribute to a healthy, diverse, equitable, tolerant, innovative
and fun place to live? Above all, how are the creative arts crucial to the above and how can they
move conversation forward?
The Organizing Partners of the Festival are unified in their belief in the power of collaboration to
make a difference and influence public awareness; together they advocate the central importance of
creative capital to the quality of life in New York and any future city.
For a full list of Project Partners and a schedule of events visit www.festivalofideasnyc.com.
For additional information, please contact: press@festivalofideasnyc.com
The Festival of Ideas for the New City is made possible by a generous grant from Goldman Sachs
Gives at the recommendation of David and Hermine Heller. Lead Sponsor: Audi Urban Future
Initiative. Lead Supporter: The Rockefeller Foundation. Producing Sponsors: American Express,
Brookfield, and Lonti Ebers. Supporting Sponsors: Virginia D. Lebermann and John S. Wotowicz,
and Toby Devan Lewis. Special thanks to our Media Partner New York magazine. In kind donors:
The Bowery Hotel and Droga5.
Press contacts:
Gabriel Einsohn press@festivalofideasnyc.com
Andrea Schwan, Andrea Schwan Inc. info@andreaschwan.com
May 4-8, 2011
Downtown Manhattan
Lower East Side, the East Village, Soho, Nolita, and Chinatown