How can you re-create your feeling of a liveable city, if you cannot walk the streets anymore? During the lockdown in Wuhan, CITYMAKERS-peers developed the “Memory Walk Map-Toolkit”.
Dear CITYMAKERS-community!
How are you all out there? In early February we had the kick-off of the 2020 CITYMAKERS Accelerator program in our C*SPACE in Berlin, which one of our CITYMAKERS-peers, Yang Fan from Wuhan- founder of China Endangered Culture Protectors – was not able to join due to the shutdown of the city. While the original ambition was to extend the CECP’s WUHAN ALLEY WALK program, that intends to connect people with each other and with their city’s culture through the means of walks, the lockdown-situation changed our calling question: How can you still experience a city as liveable when you cannot walk the streets anymore?
Out of a strong feeling of solidarity we started the initiative “Keep Wuhan Walking” with the ‘MEMORY WALK MAP’– tool kit as part of it. At that time we couldn’t (or did not want to?!) imagine that just 6 weeks later ‘WE ARE ALL WUHAN’. There is no longer ‘China over there’ and ‘Europe over here’ – through globalisation we are all interconnected. We are one eco-system. That is beautiful and it is powerful and any sense. While we now have to slow down our pace and literally stop walking for a while, let us still keep walking in further doing the important 2 things: First, keep RELATING and CONNECTING! That will strengthen our resilience. Within the CITYMAKERS-program one of our credos always was that “building relations to cities and to each other is equally important for building livable cities than building infrastructure.”
As global citizens and change makers, let us use the POSITIVE POWER of our interconnectedness! Second, let us continue to use and apply our PHANTASY, our IMAGINATION: Even though spaces for creation might appear to have narrowed on the first sight, as city maker entrepreneurs let us spot the new windows of opportunity that this crisis holds for us! The WUHAN MEMORY WALK MAP-Tool is just a first activity to use the power of imagining spaces that can translate into reality in the future! Be bold: What phantasy can you come-up with to imagine a future after the crisis? To strengthen community spirit and connection among CITYMAKERS we will be inviting peers in the next few days to record their thoughts with video messages and we will share them here to the larger community. From the letters in the word CORONA one can almost create the word CORAZON which means ‘HEART’ in Spanish. Sending heartful greetings from the CITYMAKERS-Core Team in Berlin! Stay healthy, stay connected, stay creative!
From Dialogue to Action: Since 2016, CITYMAKERS China – Germany facilitated and supported the realization of a number of selected project ideas in the context of liveable city making. Read here about the CITYMAKERS’ culture and identity incubator team ‘Wuhan Narrative’.