How do you convince people who fear each other to come together and imagine a collective future?
The metro area of Monterrey, Mexico is exploding with the energy, creativity and spirit of a great world city. However, Monterrey is stuck in place, lodged between polarized responses to deep-seeded urban problems. Environmental shocks and trauma from the drug war have merely sharpened divides, driving locals further behind the safety of their windshields, their gated neighborhoods, their nostalgia for a simpler time.
In the midst of this gridlock, a Monterrey-based capital investment firm approached me about developing a film project that could help locals start to trust each other and talk to each other about new ways of living.
Instead of proposing a single video, we conceived of a cinematic vision campaign that would allow us to discover and communicate a shared vision for the city’s future. Rather than importing ideas from other places, we draw from hidden experiences and visions that already exist in the city, revealing possible solutions to divisive urban problems through a series of “story modules,” or bite-sized stories about locals undergoing transformation.
Although the project has yet to progress beyond the development stage, our collaboration influenced the strategies of Javier Leal Navarro, general director of the Municipal Planning Institute of the Monterrey-area suburb of San Pedro Garza Garcia.
Role: Project Co-Director
For: Capital Natural
Date: 2017 -
Type: narrative strategy, media campaign, community engagement
