The Resilience Project at Pasadena City College


The Resilience Project at Pasadena City College

By   |  Sep. 14, 2020

This is an edited blog post submitted as part of the Pando Days wrap-up from Pasadena City College. We asked the PCC team to reflect on their Pando Days experience and let us know what’s happened since the July Finale. 

Our project is a virtual landscape that explores new ways of encouraging preparedness and fostering community resilience. It uses art and interaction to create games, media archives, and virtual reality meditations that explore resilience, both on practical and personal terms.

It’s also an exploratory tool for disaster preparedness while helping to rethink the ways information can be experienced. One goal is to help us become better prepared to face critical situations and emergencies.

We’ve seen it this year—with wildfires ravaging thousands of acres, displacing people from homes, and polluting the air of the entire state of California.

I also think the Resilience Project offers a terrific opportunity to use design thinking to teach social responsibility.

They will be affected as they are forced to navigate the challenges brought by climate change, and the struggle for a more sustainable future.

We’re planning a virtual exhibition centered on resilience.

Next, we’d love to partner with a public health office or agency to design a disaster preparedness simulation game that could actually be used in training or information events on a large scale. And now we feel a sense of urgency.

When we started the project, we could have never imagined a global pandemic with its devastating effects on our society.

At the same time, the Saddle Ridge Fire, the Getty Fire, as well as the previous deadly Camp Fire, have turned a million trees to ashes.

Only this time is even worse—because it’s compounded by the Corona Virus’ disruption.

Silvia Rigon is a Professor of Visual Arts and Media Studies at Pasadena City College.