Movable Parts, Dr. Lucius Von Joo
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Dr. Lucius Von Joo presents “Movable Parts” and will explore what happens when the lobbies, hallways, sidewalks, factory floors and empty lots we pass through are set up to invite rather than control.
What happens when the lobbies, hallways, sidewalks, factory floors and empty lots we pass through are set up to invite rather than control? This session explores how altering the conditions and aesthetics of space can shift agency, turning ordinary places into sites of play, collaboration, and meaning-making.
The interactive talk will move through examples of community-based media projects, which people had the opportunity to author, build, and reimagine together. The focus is less on polished outcomes and more on movable parts, the unfinished elements that allow others to step in and take part.
Presenter Bio
Dr. Lucius Von Joo
Dr. Lucius Von Joo is an educator and designer whose work centers on play, public imagination, and collaborative making as tools for learning and social reflection. Lucius has taught in the U.S. and abroad, working with learners from kindergarten to university level, with a focus on media and play. He currently serves as Associate Director of the Digital Futures Institute at Teachers College, Columbia University, where he develops participatory exhibitions, workshop series, and site-specific installations that invite learners of all ages to build, question, and experiment together.
His curatorial work includes MODES, Dead Tech, Puppets in Education, Sandbox, and Boundaries of Adventure Playgrounds, which have been staged in the DFI Gallery. Before his academic post, Lucius co-created The Secret Alley in San Francisco which is an immersive studio and media environment for filmmakers, performers, and many other sorts of collaboration. He also designed for 3 Minute Media, social issues media festival, and later launched Woven Media Fest, designed as a meeting ground that mixes mediums, artistic approaches, and cultural origins to produce new forms of meaning.
His research and practice are grounded in the belief that play is a right, and that people deserve accessible ways to think and communicate beyond written or verbal language. Across his projects, he works to reconfigure spaces so that participation is not an afterthought but a condition.
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This event is sponsored by Artivism: The Power of Art for Social Transformation.
For more information, please contact artivism@adelphi.edu.