Our cities surprise and confound us by scrambling the categories we use to plan and understand them. At once dense and sprawling, crowded and empty, urban but centerless, dynamic and stalled, the landscape where we live defies planning and leaves us with little grasp of its meanings or pleasures.

Yet it is the product of our choices, individually and as a public: we live here now. So, what can we make of it?

Suddenly will bring art and food and public conversation to bear on the common cause of making meaning and life in the landscape where we live now — as it is, as we are, as best we can. 

Borne of the insights of German urban planner Thomas Sieverts, suddenly accepts the paradoxical “in-between’ condition where we live — an inextricable mix of urban and rural, natural and manmade, global and local — and looks to the creative capacity of citizens, artists, writers, and others to articulate meanings and relationships that can sustain us and enrich our lives within that condition.

A festive convocation of planners, activists, neighbors, friends and strangers alike, with food, films, art, music, and frank, ranging conversation, suddenly seeks common ground and new tools for living here now.

In Seattle and Burien, three days of events, occasioned by Thomas Sieverts‘ visit to the area, will bring diverse communities into common conversation around art, writing, film, public policy, and great food.

Come and discuss the wonderful things happening in Burien, and your thoughts for the future with this esteemed urban planner.

The schedule of events is as follows:

• Thurs., July 2nd 4pm-6pm: Burien through Community Eyes: Walk the City with Thomas Sieverts (gather at B/IAS, located at 5th Ave SW & SW 150th St at 3:45pm, Burien; free and open to the public).
• 6pm-8pm: Conversation and Nosh with Thomas Sieverts, Burien political and civic leaders and neighbors (also at B/IAS, 5th Ave SW & SW 150th St., Burien; food by The Mark & Sal’s Deli.)

For more information on Burien events please go to www.burienparks.net or call 206-988-3713.

Seattle Schedule:

• Wednesday, July 1st, 

9 am – 10 am: KUOW-FM radio interviews with Thomas Sieverts
• 12:00 pm – 2:00pm: Thomas Sieverts in public talks with Seattle City Council and regional policy makers (at Seattle City Council chambers; free and open to the public).
• 7:30 pm: “Urban Aesthetics,” lecture by Thomas Sieverts (at Town Hall, 1119 8th Ave., Seattle, $5 suggested donation)
• Friday July 3rd 1 pm – 4pm: NW Film Forum presents “Police Beat” (written by Charles Mudede and directed by Robinson Devor), with after-film panel discussion with Thomas Sieverts, Matthew Stadler, and Charles Mudede (NWFF, 1515 12th Ave., Seattle, Tickets $7).
• Evening: Corridor Project closing dinner hosted by Michael Hebb, with Matthew Stadler and Thomas Sieverts in conversation, including a celebration of “suddenly: where we live now, the visual chronicle;” (location TBA, price TBA, see www.onepot.org for details).
• Ongoing: A portable version of the exhibition, “suddenly: where we live now,” organized on the occasion of German urban planner Thomas Sieverts’ visit to Seattle, will be on view throughout the four days at a location to be determined.

The exhibition includes work by:

• Elias Hansen & Oscar Tuazon
• Molly Dilworth
• Michael Hebb
• Michael McManus
• Marc Joseph Berg

The exhibition opens July 3, 7 p.m., and coincides with a Corridor Project dinner. Exhibition and dinner location TBA.

Please visit www.onepot.org for dinner location and exhibition hours.