Move_Make_Create_

Move_Make_Create_ is a project to address UN research that shows that slum communities in Asia lack tech literacy, which leads to issues of cycles of poverty. Through using technology art, I engage the students to create content while also teaching tech skills that will be vital for life beyond 2021. 

The first time I walked into the first charity school in Bangkok, I asked, “so who is the art teacher?” The woman flatly responded, “ She died three years ago and we have no money to hire anyone.” In the communities I engage, I see no tech-related courses either.

Another major aspect of MMC is the connection of slum communities or rural villages to top institutions to broaden the horizons of the poor students. Through new media events and workshops, the goal is to introduce the children to resources and institutions in the larger community that they typically do not have access to. 

UN research shows that slum and rural communities in Asia are trapped in a cycle of poverty. A lack of tech literacy has been found as one major issue in preventing upward social mobility. After connecting with several charities in Bangkok, I learned how they lack teachers able to teach technology, computers, and new media classes. MMC works with these various charities to offer courses that will introduce and get students creating with new media tools and having experiences that will get them creatively engaging with new technology in 2021. 

This issue is egregious considering that developing Asia is where technology is being produced, but yet, many people lack access to it while suffering from pollution. (We will continue wearing masks after Covid!)

Beyond the slum community, MMC has done events with Chulalongkorn University. I learned that they lack people teaching new media or creative coding. Thus, MMC will start doing workshops in 2021 at the university with the ultimate goal of creating events that will have Chula and slum students working and creating together. I want to hack Bangkok and rural China to help connect students to places and learning they have not engaged with before. 

Move_Make_Create_ works to fill in the cracks that I see within the education system in Thailand that is lacking teachers and people who are able to teach creative coding and new media skills. From the slums to famous universities, there is a lack of educators or researchers who are sharing this knowledge with learners. Thus, by working within existing education institutes Move_Make_Create_ can be part of adding classes, lessons, and experiences to students without needing to establish its own space for classes. For each creative session, I program an application and then bring a setup of projectors, cameras, and computers to offer a makeshift, pop-up creative learning session.

Right now I have gathered equipment to facilitate various group new media-making sessions, but my goal is to be able to get a set of classroom laptops in order to be able to teach coding to all classes. Currently, not all the charities even offer computers or access to computers for students so I am only able to do more coding intense classes in certain charities. 

I grab and try to share all the current coding, programming, AR, VR, and 3D tools as I went to school for interactive art.  

Specifically, the goal is to engage with children living in the slum or rural communities attending charity schools. Currently, all of the charities I engage with do not have any courses related to technology or new media so I am the only person currently offering these kinds of experiences to these students. By connecting with each charity, I can get an understanding of what is going on in each one, which challenges they face or lack, and then figure out a makeshift, pop-up solution for learning to take place. Since I am offering a service and education area the charities currently are lacking, they are very welcoming to meet me and learn about what I am doing and help me to understand what is going on in the community. 

The other community is children in rural China who are left behind as their parents leave the villages to work in large cities. These children lack access to tech and art activities and engagements and thus, MMC sees continued potential to engage and grow in China too.

More broadly, as the creative coding/programming workshops take place this year at Chulalongkorn University, where I will be offering training to art teachers to use some tech in creative ways for new projects, I will be stepping into a role to more broadly impact a larger youth population within the community. 

I enter each charity with my own applications, equipment setup, lesson plan, and equipment to offer makeshift new media learning sessions. As most places I am entering do not have projectors, computers, or people to teach new media skills, Move_Make_Create_ is all about helping to fill in the cracks of charity programs that are already running, but could be offering better experiences and learning. All aspects of the setup, software, and curriculum are shareable and replicable.

I have been holding classes regularly in Bangkok and held paid events at Chulalongkorn University.

I have run and set up events in summer camps in four Chinese villages.

My biggest goal now is to continue networking with all schools and charities to be able to service more people in the community and also look to expand to other populations that struggle the most in Thailand beyond Bangkok. 

As of now, I also need more equipment to fully realize my service, so for now the sessions are using what I have purchased and gathered on my own. 

Working within charities that are already organized and offering classes, Move_ Make_ Create_ offers a practical and realizable solution to tech-literacy issues in the Klong Toey slum and other disadvantaged communities in Thailand and Chinese villages that are lacking support or teachers who can teach new media skills. As UN research shows that the lack of tech literacy creates cycles of poverty in slum communities in Thailand, Move_ Make_ Create_ works to strike this problem head-on within structures that already exist, but lack the resources to offer art and tech courses. Moreover, Move_ Make_ Create_ has partnered with the universities, institutions, and companies to offer workshops to more teachers and students as well as creating original events that connect communities that were never connected before.  

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-I will judge success by the number of total classes I can hold and the number of those classes that will have consistent contact with children to continue building and creating content together. 

-I will also judge progress in being able to create and launch the workshop this year that will be sold to affluent families in Bangkok. 

-I will also judge progress by the number of students I can engage in creative coding workshops at Chulalongkorn.

-In-Long-term, one big thing will be creating the kit and curriculum that can be shareable, and then starting that second remote program with someone else running it will be a big stepping stone. 

Me full-time, and I hire 3-4 different people for help hourly when needed.

I went to school for new media arts and was a founding member of Minneapolis Art on Wheels, a public art group that used technology to engage people on the streets and non art spaces. My experience in engaging people with technology art helps me to use it now as a teaching tool.

I am queer and my boyfriend is Thai/Taiwanese. (We would be married, but that is still illegal here.) I use my queer perspective and my boyfriend's perspective as a Thai and his insights as a Thai choir conductor to ensure my actions, ideas and processes are  and culturally appropriate. Since I am working with Thai people and Burmese, Laos, and Cambodian refugees, I am always careful to make sure that everything I do for classes is appropriate. In China, I work with Chinese people within my business startup I run which helps me to connect and create the summer camps. 

Seeing programs coming from developed countries about using tech resources to solve educational issues seem great for people with access to computers and phones, but I really want to take a step back and look at who has the technology and why. Especially since the places I engage with deal with the pollution of tech production, I find it unethical to see the lopsided tech development happening. The communities and places I am engaging have students and charity schools that don't have access to technology or the people who know who to use it or implement tech in a classroom. Thus, Move_Make_Create core focus is to look at places that are being left out of the technical revolution in classrooms that already exist, but are lacking the right programs or people to teach them. By creating a setup that is mobile and able to fit within current charities, Move_ Make_ Create_ could fill a gap in many developing countries, but the project is just starting and I need more guidance and support, and finances to create a better kit and product. 

It is a bit shocking to see the developed world so ready and happy to push forward with a technical revolution, while millions of people in poor countries are dying of air pollution to produce the technology while also lacking access to the very technology whose production is killing them slowly with each breath. 

I have been doing all actions and fundraising and launching this program by myself and using the profit from my other startup in urban China to fund actions in slums and rural communities. 

I think the solution I present is something that is scalable and something that could really affect many young people who are being left behind in the tech revolution, which in turn continues cycles of poverty. 

While I have been happy to get various event planners and companies to hire me for events and start fundraising this way, I think I could be making more professional connections and I dream to be able to connect with big tech companies who are wanting to have some sort of CSR. I would hope to be able to call upon companies that would be interested in helping to even the playing field and get more tech and tech training to people who have been left out the most. 

I will be very honest that overall, the entire process and growth of the program has been difficult and I have often felt like I don't know where to turn, but I know that the idea and the service is solid. 

I have already started partnering with event planning companies in Bangkok to be able to make money off my product through doing events to pay for the charity tech-literacy classes.

I dream to partner with tech companies in Asia that would be willing to donate or add technology resources that could improve the classes as I have a minimal setup to get kids started learning new media skills, but the kit should be developed. 

I will also continue to build and grow relationships with all types of charity schools in Thailand as I know as of now, almost all lack tech literacy education.  

The first time I walked into the first charity school in Bangkok, I asked, “so who is the art teacher?” The woman flatly responded, “ She died three years ago and we have no money to hire anyone.” In the three charity schools I have entered, they also offer no tech-related courses either. As someone who has access to computers in my Minnesota computers since 1st grade where I loved playing Number Munchers, I cannot stand to think that in 2021 there are still places where students don't have basic access to tech, art, and new media learning. 

As a founding member of Minneapolis Art on Wheels, we received a large grant from the University of Minnesota, and I have worked with a group and professor Ali Momeni to build mobile media machines that can project and cover vast building and even mountains! We set off into Minneapolis and other communities around the world and joined events to reclaim public space and create new experiences for people to engage with technology and artist in a new way outside of the gallery. This experience and working with the group for several years and creating community events led me to my place now where I am very focused on who needs access to technology the most and why. Also, as an artist, I am interested in continuing to think about the power of art to teach, connect and inspire outside of the gallery and in real life.