A Letter to Ashoka.org Re: Ana Crisan & Chris Gardiner
A LETTER FROM SOENKE BEHNSEN TO ASHOKA.ORG
Dear Sir or Madam,
May I kindly draw your attention to this urgent call (see below) I received through one of my contacts in Toronto, Ana Crisan, being member of the international photo community, flickr.com, who herself lived on the streets of Toronto several years ago.
My name is Dr. Soenke Behnsen. As a german physician and psychiatrist who works with homeless people in the city of Cologne, Germany, I know very well about their circumstances of living. As an ashoka supporter since almost two years, I am convinced that ashoka’s strategy is the only to change the world in a creative and sustainable way. Moreover, ashoka network is a powerful community of international solidarity and support for its members.
Maybe you’ve already heard about this forthcoming eviction. Mr. Gardiner created himself a “home” under a bridge in nice toronto, which should be protected and respected.I don’t know if you are in partnership with organizations working with homeless people in Toronto, but I suppose you are.
As an international problem of poverty and social handicap, homelessness is to be handled both in a political and individual way. I think it should help to find a good solution for this citizen of Toronto by drawing public attention on this forthcoming eviction and make it a topic for public discussion. This could be a ‘bottom-up’ strategy for fighting homelessness, showing one-to-one solidarity and finding solutions for people in your neighbourhood, and showing vivid citizen partnership to these individuals, whilst discussing homelessness in a socio-critical way.Thank you very much for any further help on this topic. I admire your ‘volunteer now’ project and wish you all the best.
Sincerely and with best regards,
Dr. Soenke Behnsen
Cologne, Germany
Visual Thinking (website)
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Ashoka
www.ashoka.org/
Their Mission is to Build A Competitive Citizen Sector
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ABOUT
Raphie Frank is a New York City- based interactive producer, writer, photographer and designer, with supplemental expertise in Usability & Online Marketing. Raphie helped found swandivedigital in 2000 after ten years of production, technical and design experience in the Visual and Performing Arts worlds. While at swandivedigital he oversaw multiple engagements for such organizations as the Markle Foundation, Referral Networks and the Shubert Foundation, before setting out on his own in 2005 as a freelance intermedia consultant.
Prior to his experience at swandivedigital, Raphie traversed the artistic globe as Culture House Director (“Asylum” theater/cafe/art gallery, Prague, 1992-1993), award-winning short-film Producer (Bacchus, Germany, 1998), Theatrical Lighting Designer and published photographer. Raphie graduated from Vassar in 1990 with degrees in Psychology and Dramatic Writing and has published 50 interviews with leading city blog Gothamist.com since August, 2004.
PORTFOLIOS ::::: producing ::::: writings ::::: photography ::::: design
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PERSONAL HISTORY
Planning Warhol in Prague: Part I: The Asylum Culture House & The Warholesquian Sensibility
excerpt
The Asylum of cultural myth, for those who were in Prague and in the sub-cultural know during that winter and spring of 1993, lingers in memory as a crazed Bacchanalian Warholesquian happening, even if, public nipple piercings and simulated urination aside, a generally less explicitly sexual version. One minute you might go into the café, a smallish cave-like hole-in-the-wall we always thought of as the Soul of Asylum, and there would be a bongo, guitar and violin foot-stomping Celtic jam. Ten minutes later there might be a cultural film about Rodin flickering across the wall, and another half hour after that you might find a wanna-Kerouac poet spouting Beat banalities or diamonds across the room and over the cheers or heckles of his temporarily captive audience. Read Essay
Planning Warhol in Prague: Part II: Kafka and The “Refounding” of the Asylum Culture House
excerpt
Look at an old 19th Century Italian landscape painting and you might think “Wow! What unique vision those Italians had! Look at the gem-like fragile clarity of the leaves and their sparkling translucence. Look at those elongated spidery trunks! ” Then you go to Italy and look at the actual landscapes and the actual trees and you realize those painters were simply painting what they saw. That’s what it looks like.
To read Kafka is a similar experience. “The Castle” and “The Trial” are not the twisted mad ravings of a genius, but simply faithful recordings of the daily Czech experience with authority. That day was the first, but certainly not last, day I think I truly understood that. Rik felt it too. And that understanding came upon us this time not in a twisted brow knowledge kind of way, but more in a brown coal smog, nowhere-to-get-away-from-it, kind of way. Except that instead of being everywhere all at once, it’s nowhere all at once which is so… Czech. So… passive aggressive. Read Essay
Yes, Virginia There is Still A Santa Claus
excerpt
Interestingly enough, I think that moment bothered me more than — sorry to blow the lid on this Virginia — finding out my parents were Santa Claus four years previous. On some level I already knew Santa was a fraud even before Brian Kux, my red-haired neighbor two doors down back in Washington D.C., cemented into eternity my collapsed North Pole house of card illusions one Christmas Day. Playing outside together with our new toys, he told me with an almost conspiratorial glee that he had seen his parents putting presents under the Christmas tree the night before. It didn’t come as much of a surprise and, although he was a full year older than me, I didn’t need his wizened input to immediately understand the exact implications of what that meant. The writing had already been on the wall for some time now.
After all, Santa looked different every time we met at the shopping mall and sometimes he was in two places at once; I would see him again on the way home from the mall collecting money for the Salvation Army on a street corner, the helicopter he’d come to the mall in nowhere in sight. And didn’t Santa use a sleigh anyway? I knew there was something fishy going on by the time I was four. Read Essay
Riven Hearts
excerpt
I said “no” a couple times, A little too loudly. Guess it made me mad, that unpaid electrician waking up at 3am to catch a train to an isolated Long Island train station the producers “forgot” to pick up. Guess it made me mad having shit bubble up the drain in the shower of the rooms they gave us. And we were told we’d made the choice. After all, we were offered a ride back to the City each night; eight hours between call times. Three hours home and three hours back. And the Assistant Camera Man with a child at home to support who said he was mad as hell cowered in fear when the time came to say “Yes” or “No” to the face of the Producer when I spoke for the crew at the request of the crew.I understood, but wished they had not said they would if they wouldn’t. Read Essay
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Raphie Frank :: business artivist 
[…] —————————————————————————————————————————— To Mysti2 in London: Why Ana Crisan’s (Spirited_Away) fight against “Homes to Houses” matters… It’s a story, Mysti. It’s a story of hope and redemption and overcoming fear to fight for what you believe. It’s LIFE, Mysti. That’s why you can’t just simplify it. There are a thousand different angles because Ana is a microcosm of the best in us all. Let her down now and I think we let all of ourselves down. Because we are all connected and we are all points of light in a universe otherwise far, far too dark… (more) —————————————————————————————————————————— Why Change Never Happens :: Lack of Conversation… (more) —————————————————————————————————————————— Mayor David Miller & The Dalai Lama A Letter from Dr. Soenke Behnsen of Cologne, Germany, to the Toronto Mayor I have visited your website, and recognized that you met His Holiness the Dalai Lama two years ago. I have had the great honour to meet him, too, as a former representative of the protestant church of cologne, several years ago. I totally agree with his statements, published at his public talk at the SkyDome in Toronto, April 25, 2005, “the power of compassion”, and several times in his countless speeches, he took the view that we have to support any own initiative of poor people to organize themselves… (more) —————————————————————————————————————————— Trickle Up Economics (aka “The One Song”) It’s simple, Ana. Blindingly simple. It’s Economics 101. There is a short supply of heart and spirit in the world and we can create a market for it.; and it all begins with an honest convesation. We can do it just like Enron created a market for electricity in California (ask me, if you don’t understand!). But Enron did it for the wrong reason, GREED, and we do it for the right reason, LOVE. And we all know that greed without spirit amounts to about as much life force as a hole without the doughnut. around it… (more) —————————————————————————————————————————— A Letter From Dr. Soenke Behnsen to Ashoka.org The Ashoka.org Mission is to Build A Competitive Citizen Sector Maybe you’ve already heard about this forthcoming eviction. Mr. Gardiner created himself a “home” under a bridge in nice toronto, which should be protected and respected.I don’t know if you are in partnership with organizations working with homeless people in Toronto, but I suppose you are. As an international problem of poverty and social handicap, homelessness is to be handled both in a political and individual way. I think it should help to find a good solution for this citizen of Toronto by drawing public attention on this forthcoming eviction and make it a topic for public discussion. This could be a ‘bottom-up’ strategy for fighting homelessness… (more) —————————————————————————————————————————— more available here: HELP ME GROUP :: http://www.flickr.com/groups/help_me/ ANA’S PIC :: http://www.flickr.com/photos/73752718@N00/172653646/ ALONE IN A CROWD :: boojummy.blogs.friendster.com/snipehunter/2006/04/alone_i… —————————————————————————————————————————— […]
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