At our January 17 Yonge Talks Speaker Series event on the power of play, panelists Claire Nelson, publisher of our Detroit sister publication Model D and the creative director for Urban Innovation Exchange, and Rosalyn Morrison of the Toronto Community Foundation, will be joined by a Detroit creative type who knows a little something about how goofing around can build community.
 
As part of the design collective Wedge, Ajooni Sethi helped create and host the first ever Hopscotch Detroit, which last September saw 3.75 miles (over six kilometres) of the city's streets chalked up with a hopscotch course. Kids and adults alike took advantage of the course, whooping it up in streets normally dominated by cars. The aim was to boost Detroit's sense of self and sense of fun.
 
(They also think the event has taken the Guinness World Record previously held in Eden Mills, Ontario, a 5.506-kilometre game created by Step UP 4 Change, Right to Play at the University of Guelph and Free the Children at the University of Guelph.)
 
Yonge Street talked to Sethi about the project. Her infectious laughter punctuated much of the interview.
 
Wedge, the design collective you're part of, has been described as "brashly precocious." Is that true?
 
We tend towards the crazy, which is another way to say it. We like putting creativity into places where it's not expected. We like to shake people up to reimagine things, getting people to see the spaces around them as resources and opportunities when they wouldn't normally.
 
Where did the idea for Hopscotch Detroit come from?
 
It came from where most of our ideas come from, which is sitting around drinking beer, thinking about collaborations we could do with other people of similar minds. How do we connect with the city to better understand its resources and meet people we want to work with in the future? We have a brainstorming session every month or so. I don't remember what the other ideas were, they were kind of crazy. Hopscotch just stuck. There's something magical and silly about a four-mile hopscotch course. As we started telling people about the idea, we realized how much power the idea had. Every single person had a different reaction, each unique and personal and powerful. You'd talk to someone who has lived in Detroit for a long time and they'd say, 'I remember when I played hopscotch outside my house when I was little.' Somebody else would say, 'My friends and I used to go out to a park that isn't there anymore.' Whether they were from the city or the suburbs or somewhere else, like my friend from France who lives across the street, they all knew this game. When you have a city like Detroit with so many diverse communities that can be so separated, to find something that connects all those communities is incredible.
 
How much chalk did it take?
 
We started off joking, "Guys, it's going to take a ton of chalk to do this.' When we did the calculations, it turned out to actually be just under a ton of chalk. We had gallons and gallons and gallons of this chalk paint that we developed. We experimented with that for the months leading up to the hopscotch to get the perfect recipe for something that would stay long enough to be a collective experience but not be permanent, because we didn't have the city's permission. Parts of it are still out there, which probably they shouldn't be. I still go out and see kids hopping on random parts of the course.
 
What was the response?
 
It was incredible. First there's the people who helped paint it, then the people partnering with us and the volunteers and then the people who came to the event on the last day. It went way beyond our original intentions in ways we couldn't have planned for. We couldn't have planned how all the volunteers would come together for different reasons, from different backgrounds, who ended up becoming great friends out of this project because they spent hours painting together. Then there were the people who randomly stumbled across it: "What are you doing? What is this? What?" It was something to disrupt their day.
 
What was the thing that most hit home to you what you had accomplished?
 
There was an article written about Hopscotch Detroit a month and a half or so after the event. It was by a woman who lives in Michigan about two hours from here. She's in her 80s. She heard about Hopscotch and decided to go out and hop on her sidewalk and draw a few squares. She wrote 'I didn't make it very far but it reminded me of playing when I was little and what young minds do.' The article is so beautiful. The fact that this woman wrote about it after just hearing about it, not even being there, shows that there's so much strength in perspective.
 
Will you do it again?
 
What we've said to people is, "Maybe we'll do it again, but how would you do it?" Even if it's just the one time, all the collaborations that it's sparked—it was good to just take the risk. We didn't have city permission when we started, we didn't have all the materials, we didn't have the money, we didn't have any reputation in the city—nobody knew us. We started a culture among our friends and the people we met that we were just going to do things, even if people told us the resources weren't there or people told us it couldn't be done. Creativity and art isn't something for after you've already spent money for all the other things. Creativity and art are basic needs, and are something essential for innovation and moving forward.
 
Paul Gallant is Yonge Street's managing editor.
 
This interview has been condensed and edited.
 
The details of the free January 17 Yonge Talks event are here, as well as a link to register.
 
We will be using the hashtag #yongetalks for the event.