ABOUT OUR WORK
How do we empower people to learn and teach? Like Riding a Bicycle (Brett Hunter and Katie Hargrave) organizes public events for groups of all ages and backgrounds to visualize the groups’ knowledge in order to build both individual and collective power.
Our projects are interactive and collective; people ride bikes, tell stories, and explore their neighborhoods together, creating a collective body of knowledge. We use well-known cultural forms (publications, tours, workshops) in new ways, allowing for participants to be surprised by what these forms can accomplish when pushed beyond the expected. Our work develops over time, is responsive to diverse situations, and it is co-created with participants.
Most importantly, the work is a proposal to our participants: share what you know, teach your neighbors, and by doing so we all will remember the power we each have.
Katie Hargrave
Katie is a socially engaged artist and educator based in Chattanooga, TN. In addition to her artistic training, she choose to study with anthropologists at Brandeis University as a way to develop ethical practices for working within communities. She also brings a history as a union organizer and the skills of mapping complex networks to this work. Katie is devoted to building confidence in others and helping people see their skills, both as a professor and within the work of Like Riding a Bicycle.
See her personal artwork here.
Brett Hunter
Brett was an artist, educator, and facilitator. He was dedicated to building partnerships between institutions, individuals, and communities. Brett was trained as a sculptor, contractor, historian, and teacher. He combined these experiences to develop creative methods to engage people and infrastructure of a place. He worksed across civic and educational institutions to create community-based arts organizations and programing that engaged people of all ages.
Why bicycles?
Bicycles are a symbol for us of skills that folks might have and take for granted. They represent knowledge that is shared, often informally, between generations, friends, and community members. More practically speaking, bicycles are a transportation tool, a device for better health, but also they are a means to explore, to notice the world around us as we move through it. Bicycles move at a speed that allows one to notice, slow, stop, and look closer. We believe bicycles are a way to bring people together, to share their neighborhoods with one another, and to discover the knowledge that exists all around us in the minds and experiences of our neighbors.
We believe in cycling because it creates engaged citizens and benefits public health--allowing one to move at a speed to notice changes in the built environment every day, build connections with the neighbors you see along your route, while relieving some of the pressure for speed and multi-tasking we are experiencing in our contemporary culture.
LOCATIONS AND PARNERS
Like Riding a Bicycle has participated in exhibitions and public events throughout the country. We are most excited to work with partners that are motivated, help us to understand the local context, and who grow alongside us. In an ideal project we are pushing ourselves to develop new engagement methods while facilitating knowledge acquisition for our community partners and their stakeholders. We have worked with non-profits, community development and advocacy organizations, festivals, and galleries on projects of all scopes and sizes from one-hour events to projects that last through several months.
“Katie Hargrave and Brett Hunter design unique engagement experiences for community members and synthesize information and ideas in compelling and often visual ways. Their presentations, interactive events, physical tools and follow-up materials are intentionally adaptable to groups of any size that want to focus on various aspects of revitalization, urban design or arts integration. Their thoughtful focus on specific community challenges and opportunities becomes apparent in early planning interactions, and their adaptability to each situation is impressive. They make a terrific professional team, offering fresh insights to complex projects.”
“Anyone who has organized a public outreach effort with their community [in a public project] knows how challenging it can be to encourage participation. Partnering with Like Riding a Bicycle boosted our organization’s ability to engage more people in the process of designing a new park space [in our neighborhood], and helped us truly listen to people’s voices. Like Riding a Bicycle’s creative and interactive approach to social engagement was refreshing and fun, not only to participants, but to organizers as well.”
“Katie and Brett use their unique perspectives and skills as artists to amplify the voices of the communities they work in. They are not asking people to observe their work, but to engage with it. They ask the right questions, they listen well, and they let the answer affect their work in meaningful ways.”
“I had the pleasure of working with Brett and Katie during their week long residence in North Adams, MA. As a bicycle enthusiast, advocate and rider professionally and personally, it was so inspiring to learn the strategies, activities and projects Brett and Katie implement to take a deeper dive into the community, empower and engage folks, and help to connect, and it is all based around riding a bicycle. Brett and Katie took the time to meet people where they are at, and have conversations and really listen to people. They visited community centers, local events and participated in a community bike ride. Brett and Katie are very genuine, passionate approachable people. Their project contributed to the growing bike culture and and asset based approach North Adams utilizes to fill gaps and overcome barriers. Brett and Katie, please come visit North Adams again!”
“After long conversations at conferences and then admiring their work from afar, I was honored to host Like Riding A Bicycle in my rural community twice: once to present to a group of like-minded practitioners during our “Summer Summit” event and once through our Frontier Fellowship residency program. A pleasure to work with, this thoughtful duo’s approach showed great sensitivity towards my small community as well as an ability to use theoretical exploration to produce hands-on tangible products with the community. I hope to welcome them back again soon!”