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tv   Mayors Press Availability  SFGTV  January 15, 2016 2:45pm-3:01pm PST

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information and you are never fixed and it can go wherever it wants to go? everyone who has donated to it could use it, host it, share it. >> for quite a great deal of team she was hired in 2005, she struggled with finding the correct and appropriate visual expression. >> it was a bench at one point. it was a darkened room at another point. but the theme always was a theme of how do we call people's attention to the issue of speci species extinction. >> many exhibits do make long detailed explanations about species decline and biology of birds and that is very useful for lots of purposes. but i think it is also important to try to pull at the strings inside people. >> missing is not just about
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specific extinct or endangered species. it is about absence and a more fundamental level of not knowing what we are losing and we need to link species loss to habitat loss and really focuses much on the habitat. >> of course the overall mission of the academy has to do with two really fundamental and important questions. one of which is the nature of life. how did we get here? the second is the challenge of sustainability. if we are here how are we going to find a way to stay? these questions resonated very strongly with maya. >> on average a species disappears every 20 minutes. this is the only media work that i have done. i might never do another one because i'm not a media artist per se but i have used the medium because it seemed to be the one that could allow me to
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convey the sounds and images here. memorials to me are different from artworks. they are artistic, but memorials have a function. >> it is a beautiful scupltural objective made with bronze and lined with red wood from water tanks in clear lake. that is the scupltural form that gives expression to maya's project. if you think about a cone or a bull horn, they are used to get the attention of the crowd, often to communicate an important message. this project has a very important message and it is about our earth and what we are losing and what we are missing and what we don't even know is gone. >> so, what is missing is starting with an idea of loss, but in a funny way the shape of
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this cone is, whether you want to call it like the r.c.a. victor dog, it is listen to the earth and what if we could create a portal that could look at the past, the present and the future? >> you can change what is then missing by changing the software, by changing what is projected and missing. so, missing isn't a static installation. it is an installation that is going to grow and change over time. and she has worked to bring all of this information together from laboratory after laboratory including, fortunately, our great fwroup of researche e-- g researchers at the california academy. >> this couldn't have been more site specific to this place and we think just visually in terms of its scupltural form it really holds its own against the architectural largest and grandeur of the building. it is an unusual compelling object.
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we think it will draw people out on the terrace, they will see the big cone and say what is that. then as they approach the cone tell hear these very unusual sounds that were obtained from the cornell orinthology lab. >> we have the largest recording of birds, mammals, frogs and insects and a huge library of videos. so this is an absolutely perfect opportunity for us to team up with a world renown, very creative inspirational artist and put the sounds and sights of the animals that we study into a brand-new context, a context that really allows people to appreciate an esthetic way of the idea that we might live in the world without these sounds or sites. >> in the scientific realm it is shifting baselines. we get used to less and less, diminished expectations of what
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it was. >> when i came along lobsters six feet long and oysters 12 inches within they days all the oyster beds in new york, manhattan, the harbor would clean the water. so, just getting people to wake up to what was just literally there 200 years ago, 150 years ago. you see the object and say what is that. you come out and hear these intriguing sounds, sounds like i have never heard in my life. and then you step closer and you almost have a very intimate experience. >> we could link to different institutions around the globe, maybe one per continent, maybe two or three in this country, then once they are all networked, they begin to communicate with one another and share information. in 2010 the website will launch, but it will be what you would call an informational website and then we are going to try to, by 2011, invite people to add a
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memory. so in a funny way the member rely grows and there is something organic about how this memorial begins to have legs so to speak. so we don't know quite where it will go but i promise to keep on it 10 years. my goal is to raise awareness and then either protect forests from being cut down or reforest in ways that promote biodiversity. >> biodiverse city often argued to be important for the world's human populations because all of the medicinal plants and uses that we can put to it and fiber that it gives us and food that it gives us. while these are vital and important and worth literally hundreds of billions of dollars, the part that we also have to be able to communicate is the more spiritual sense of how important it is that we get to live side by side with all of these forms that have three billion years of
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history behind them and how tragic it would be not commercially and not in a utilitarian way but an emotio l emotional, psychological, spiritual way if we watch them one by one disappear. >> this is sort of a merger between art and science and advocacy in a funny way getting people to wake unand realize what is going on -- wake up and realize what is going on. so it is a memborial trying to get us to interpret history and look to the past. they have always been about lacking at the past so we proceed forward and maybe don't commit the same mistakes. food just about expensive eat but food for everyone and there's organizations in the city that
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are doing really good work making sure that healthy food it assessable to everyone. more and more as follows are are becoming interested in upper arlthd they want to joy the open green pace sea know where their food it coming from we'll look at 3 programs talking ushering agricultural and garden to new heights. so what exactly it, your honor agricultural >> it the growing food or flowers within city limits traditionally we've been referring to communities gardener that is a raised bed over and over upper argument has
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a more a farming way of farming. >> so tell me 0 what's growing in this garden. >> a really at all plant. in the one of the rare places, you know, people have access to green space 24 is one of the places to grow things like the purple floor. it is sort of recognizing that the more diversity in given space the better not to just have one thing by everything supported each another >> it provides the community with an opportunity to get their hands dirty and reach 0 out and congressmen with the community in ways they might have not
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otherwise to engage with one other. >> now the dpw urban planning program so see how the garden community. >> so i grew up on a farm in air force base we picked the foods open the trees and share with other families and as i drive around san francisco i see any trees with apples or mrumdz and lemon trees i can see the food going to waste and brought that idea back to the department many of the trees where the fruit would go to waste we origin or crop and pick other fruits and delivery this to food banks or shelters to people who need them. >> i'm here with nang wong hello nang. >> hello.
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>> i need to understand house this gleaning work. >> we come and harvest like for example, we'll come over here this is the lemon and plug it like this. >> (laughter). >> made that good, good and ease. >> the trick is how not to hurt the branches. >> like the thing. >> i'm so excited about this. the people are so passionate about where the food goes to the private property owners give us the food they're happy that no of a t is going to waste >> oh.
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thank you. thank you. again job aura natural >> (laughter). >> from backyards to back lots let's take a look at the food and community bonding at the free farm. >> my idea was to start growing food and giving it away. and getting my neighbors to who had space and having a kind of event that brings people together not to run our food program this time around but to share the wealth of the abundance of our welfare. we were all divorce and as part of our philosophy of working together and working together. >> what's the most rewarding aspect of volunteering for the
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free farm stand. >> well, we could is a generalic satisfaction but something about giving food away it's giving something i brought that in and sort it and gave it to you it's primitive to be able to give something some basically to someone else. >> now serving number to 49 come on down. >> we have the capability of producing this food and in san francisco you can grow food all year round so the idea we're capable of prougdz food in our own backyards we're here to demonstrate an bans of food and i think that giving it away for free we show individuals it in have to be a comedy.
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>> we build time together and it's the strength of any ideas of the connections we'll turn that connection and the more connections you make no mistake about it the more you can have a stronger power and not have to rely on money that's the people power. >> in this episode we've seen the urban farms and gardens provide more in fruits and vegetation people can have the special produce available it can be a place to give back by donating food to others and teach our children the connection to the earth and
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environment it's truly >> welcome to the regular meeting of the for wednesday, january 6, 2016, happy new year i'd like to call roll at this time. commissioner hasz commissioner hyland commissioner hasz commissioner johnck commissioner johns commissioner matsuda and commissioner pearlman commissioners, the first item on your agenda is general public comment at this time, members of the public may address the commission on items of interest to the public that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the commission except agenda items. with respect to agenda items, members of the public may address the commission up to 3 minutes i have no speaker cards does any of the members of the public wish to speak on a