To combat car-dependent sprawl and social alienation in Monterrey, Mexico, I proposed a cinematic visioning campaign aimed at sparking imagination of local residents about creating dense urban communities.
Role Project Director
For Capital Natural
Date 2017 - 2018
Service strategy, engagement, content, campaign
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.
Story Modules
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. And 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.
Sample Proposal slides
Impact
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.