City-As-School students from the Internet is Serious Business

Kristian Roberts, Joanna Pajuelo, Darnell Lubin, and Brian Garrido, all from City-as-School, collaborated with CUP and Helki Frantzen on “The Internet is Serious Business.”

Helki Frantzen

Helki Frantzen received her BFA and MFA degrees from Bard College. For the last five years, she has worked as a teaching artist and filmmaker, creating educational and collaborative new media projects with teens in Brooklyn, working with organizations such as the NYC Parks and Recreation department, Adobe Youth Voices and the Center for Urban Pedagogy.  She worked as a teaching artist with CUP to produce “The Internet is Serious Business” and “What the Cell?”

Valeria Mogilevich

Valeria is the Deputy Director at CUP. She has been with CUP since 2006 creating design projects that break down the city’s complex systems to help people better participate in shaping the city. In partnership with high school teachers and teaching artists, Valeria has produced over a dozen experiential youth education projects. These projects have been featured in such venues as the Netherlands Architecture Institute and MoMA and such publications as City Limits, the New York Times, and Design Observer. She has presented on project-based learning and community-engaged youth education at the New Museum, NYU’s Steinhardt School, The Cooper-Hewitt, Pratt Institute, plenty of NYC public high schools, and educational institutions from Philly to Toronto. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Brown University in Modern Culture and Media. Valeria is also an independent film programmer and has worked with the Margaret Mead Festival, Anthology Film Archives, and Cinema Tropical. 

Christine Gaspar

Christine is the Executive Director of CUP. She has over ten years of experience in community design. Prior to joining CUP, she was Assistant Director of the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio in Biloxi, Mississippi, where she provided architectural design and city planning services to low-income communities recovering from Hurricane Katrina. She holds Masters in Architecture and in City Planning from MIT, and a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University.

She’s been a CUP fan since 2001, and a staff member since 2009.

Anusha Venkataraman

Anusha Venkataraman is an urban planner, writer, artist, and activist. She is presently the Assistant Director of the Green Light District initiative at El Puente, a community human rights institution in Brooklyn, NY. She has worked with numerous community groups in local organizing efforts, and as a visual artist both individually and with collectives. In 2010, she edited Intractable Democracy: Fifty Years of Community-Based Planning, a book celebrating New York City’s legacy of grassroots neighborhood-based activism. Anusha was the Youth and Outreach Director at the Steel Yard in Providence, Rhode Island.  She holds a master’s degree in City and Regional Planning from Pratt Institute, and a bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Brown University. She served on a 2013 Public Access Design jury.

Ruben Arroyo

Ruben Arroyo, from City-as-School, was part of the Water Underground crew in 2006.

Sean Kelleher and Danny Aviles

Sean Kelleher and Danny Aviles, from City-As-School, were part of the Water Underground crew in 2006. 

Valeria Mogilevich

Valeria is the Deputy Director at CUP. She has been with CUP since 2006 creating design projects that break down the city’s complex systems to help people better participate in shaping the city. In partnership with high school teachers and teaching artists, Valeria has produced over a dozen experiential youth education projects. These projects have been featured in such venues as the Netherlands Architecture Institute and MoMA and such publications as City Limits, the New York Times, and Design Observer. She has presented on project-based learning and community-engaged youth education at the New Museum, NYU’s Steinhardt School, The Cooper-Hewitt, Pratt Institute, plenty of NYC public high schools, and educational institutions from Philly to Toronto. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Brown University in Modern Culture and Media. Valeria is also an independent film programmer and has worked with the Margaret Mead Festival, Anthology Film Archives, and Cinema Tropical. 

Maggie Acevedo and Edwin Rodriguez

Maggie Acevedo and Edwin Rodriguez, from City-as-School, were part of the Water Underground crew in 2006. 

Rosten Woo

Rosten Woo is a cultural producer living in Los Angeles. He makes work that helps people understand complex systems and participate in group decision-making. He produces that work in partnership with local and national groups ranging from the American Human Development Project to the East Los Angeles Community Corporation. His work has been exhibited at the Cooper-Hewitt Design Triennial, the New Museum, the Venice Architecture Biennale, Netherlands Architectural Institute, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, on the internet, and in various public housing developments, tugboats, shopping malls, and parks in New York City and Los Angeles. His first book, “Street Value,” was published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2010. He is co-founder and former executive director of the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP). His website: www.wehavenoart.net

Amber Yared

Amber Yared is an artist and educator. She received a BFA in Studio Art and Art History from Concordia University in Montreal, a BEd from OISE/UT in Toronto, and an MAAE from SAIC in Chicago. She has experience in museum education, community arts, and high schools. In 2006 she interned with CUP and worked on The Water Underground and What’s Poppin’ at Fulton Mall.

Sean Basinski

Sean works for the Street Vendor Project, a membership-based organization of more than 700 vendors who work together to protect the rights of vendors and promote vendor-friendly reform. Sean worked with CUP to help produce the MPP Vendor Power!

Candy Chang

With a background in graphic design and urban planning, Candy Chang likes to make city information more accessible and engaging through design and the creative use of public space. She worked with CUP to design the Vendor Power! MPP.

John Mangin

John Mangin is a construction manager and housing litigator at Fair Share Housing, an affordable housing developer that grew out of the Mount Laurel exclusionary housing cases in the 70’s and 80’s. He was formerly a homebuilder and continues to take building and furniture-making jobs out of his Philadelphia studio. He graduated from Yale Law School in 2008. He was one of three staff members at CUP from 2008 to 2010.  

Christine Gaspar

Christine is the Executive Director of CUP. She has over ten years of experience in community design. Prior to joining CUP, she was Assistant Director of the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio in Biloxi, Mississippi, where she provided architectural design and city planning services to low-income communities recovering from Hurricane Katrina. She holds Masters in Architecture and in City Planning from MIT, and a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University.

She’s been a CUP fan since 2001, and a staff member since 2009.

Community Voices Heard

Community Voices Heard (CVH) is a membership-based community group that works to engage low-income families in organizing campaigns to influence policy that affects their families and their communities. CVH was started in 1994 by women on public assistance who wanted to fight to have their voices included in the national debate on welfare reform. CVH places priority on leadership development, policy education, direct action, participatory research and community outreach to build the tools necessary to engage community members and win on policy issues. CVH is currently working with CUP on the Public Housing Participation MPP.

Jeff Lai

Jeff Lai is a creative director and graphic designer. He started his studio, Office of Jeff in 2004 and works with clients in every industry across a broad range of media including print, motion, and digital. He has taught at the Rhode Island School of Design and Pratt Institute. Office of Jeff worked on What is Affordable Housing?, Bodega Down Bronx, Making Policy Public, and the Zoning toolkit with CUP.

Mark Torrey

Mark Torrey is CUP’s Program Manager for the Community Education programs: Making Policy Public and the Envisioning Development Toolkits. Previously he spent a good long while working as an Information Technology Specialist at the Harvard Graduate School of Design but then decided to firm up his understanding of the built environment by getting a Masters in City and Regional Planning from Cornell University. While at Cornell he completed a number of internships and projects focused on GIS and urban design including work for the Gulf Coast Community Design Studio and the Cornell Cooperative Extension. He wears his pants in the Highwater fashion, which most of the CUP staff find to be ridiculous, but he likes that it keeps his pants from getting caught in his bike chain.