The Agenda

It's New! It's Yours!

by Jean Cozzens

During the month of March 2006, at the Fox Point Branch of the Providence Public Library, we built a giant cardboard city as a collaboration between a whole bunch of people, ranging in age from two through grandmother age. The outcome of the experiment was entirely unknown: introduce a bunch of scrap cardboard, hot glue, “conventional” glue, scissors and X-acto knives and duct tape, and boxes and boxes of fabric, junk, and random materials from the Recycling Center into a branch library that regularly serves as the vital after school hangout spot for kids from the Vartan Gregorian Elementary School down the street—with one local artist/designer as mediator, and three willing librarians as facilitators and cheering squad.