Area 51 Art Panel

Heres the Art panel that we created on Tuesday night.

Expressions of Community

Last night our flat held its flat night. This is a time for us to get together, discuss things, and also have a bit of time hanging out with one another.

Last night we went to work creating a flat panel. This is a colloborative peice of art by us all. What was awesome was to see our different expressions of art come together, to create a beautiful peice of work. We all told different stories, expressed ourselves in different ways on paper, but the story is interconnected and interweaved.

The artwork is to me is a visual expression of our flat, a group of individuals, made out of different brushstokes marks and shadings from thier different journey, who come together to make something new which is beautiful, interwoven and connected.

Hopefully I can put a copy of the artwork up online in the coming days.

Journey of Area 51

I am hoping to do a running set of posts on living in community and in Area 51 (my flat) in particular.
This is because most of my last 6 months has been figuring out how to create a awesome flat culture and community feel in a flat. This has been a dream of mine since I went flatting. I wanted to be about creating a space where people could live well together, caring for one another and growing in relationship with one another.


I moved into Area 51 (our flat) one and a half years ago. We had a pretty cool group of flatties, but we never wrestled with what it means to be a group journeying together. I tried to gain momentum, during the first year, but failed miserably.

At the end of last year, I began discussions with some fellow freinds who live across the road who have created a awesome community of people, who principly came out a church youth group and have now formed a community of 20 people (from both christian and non-christian backgrounds) who are trying to live well in community together. Principly it started a discussion about whether area 51 would like to house members of the community, but also as a way of develioping a flat culture and community in my beloved flat.

At the end of last year, my now good mate, Chris Silvester moved into the flat. Chris' strength is activation, he lives and breaths the ability to create things, and enjoys new expressions. Me and him went about the process of trying to gain momentum in the flat, and then in March our flat began the process of transformation, when Kate another member of the flat community moved in from across the road.

What I have discovered from this experience has so far has been the importance of partnering wtih others with the same vision. I often crave autonomy, but a key principle for facilitating change and creating moment is to partner with others. Real momentum in area 51 was gained when a greater part of the flat held on to the dream and vision for living well in community. Once thisn ocurred we began change.

Newtown Art Collective

My mate Chris Sylvester has set up the Newtown Art Collective. A space where budding Newtown artists can exhibit thier latest works. Check it out.

RandR

This last weekend I went up to Auckland. The reason I went up was to see Rob Bell speak. But due to unexplained reasons this had been cancelled. I had booked cheap flights on Air New Zealand, so decided it was worth me going up and taking some time out from my busy schedule.

What I discovered from taking this short time out was the importance of rest. I have been so busy lately I have not taken stock on whats been going on.

Another great part of the weekend of spending some time in kingsland with Auckland Mosaic, i had the joy of relating with them and their friends, and had some great conversation with people.

A fail was not to get any writing done, but it definitely was a good time to process ans be thankful for rest,