about me.

Hi, I’m Diana.

I care about supporting people to make meaningful connections to place.    This is important because communities with a shared sense of purpose and identity are more resilient and more powerful in times of change, and because I believe that place is an important source of personal and shared meaning.

I’m passionate about storytelling in writing and in sound, about deep listening both within organizations and with communities, and about what makes people feel comfortable and cared for in their environments.  I started my creative life as a dancer and choreographer, and the sense of rhythm, space, and breath that I developed fills everything I do, to the tips of my fingers.

I think questions are the most important thing. And secretly, I hope that one day I’ll be able to help make our neighborhoods as mysterious for grownups as they are for children, and as fascinating to residents as they are to tourists.

Here’s a sample of what I’ve done elsewhere around the web:

Writing and Media

. “Making Space for Stillness,” t.e.l.l. New England.  September 2015.

. “Food is Not the Only Thing,” Digest: A Journal of Foodways and Culture.  December 2014.

. “Ship to Shore: Celebrating Families in the Industry,” for the New Bedford Working Waterfront Festival.  September 2014.  Here’s a selection of the stories I produced as part of my residency with the Working Waterfront Festival, funded by MassHumanities.

. “Sensing Latency: Ruins as Sites of Imagination,” for the Rachel Carson Center’s Seeing the Woods.  Jan 2014.

. Working Waterfront Festival 10th Anniversary Retrospective, for the New Bedford Working Waterfront Festival.  Sept 2013.

. “Neighborday Results are In,” “These four big ideas are the cornerstones of good neighboring.” GOOD.is, April & June 2013.

. “Search Image,” neighborhood soundscape, WHRB Radio Broadcast, May 2013.

. “With Taste, Smell, and Imagination.”  History at the Table, March 2013.

. sometimes I read and tell stories on cowbird, which is excellent.

. inspiration about walking here, hospitality here, and play and urban intervention here

. Chalk Magic.  Fresh Eye Fridays, MIT CoLab Radio, 2013.

. “My Avatar is a Turkey.”  MIT CoLab Radio podcast, 2013.

. “Passeggiata.”  Experimental map-video, 2012.

. “Producing Authenticity: Redevelopment and Boston’s Haymarket.”  Master’s Thesis, 2012.

. “Towards a Theory of the Social Capital Entrepreneur.” unpublished, 2012.

. “Community Learning in Boston’s Dudley Street Neighborhood.”  MIT CoLab Radio.  February 22, 2012.

. “Food Planning for Your Local Economy.”  with Christina diLisio.  Planning Commissioner’s Journal, Winter 2012.

. “Imagining an Elastic City.”  polis, November 15, 2011.

. “Feeding a Renaissance: How New England’s Food Heritage is Important for its Future.”  The New Planner, Winter 2011.

. “The Community Preservation Act: community impacts and funding allocations.  A 10th Anniversary Study. “ with Ellen Kokinda, Martiza Martinez, Elizabeth Panella, and Mona Funicello.  Tufts University, Spring 2010.

Projects

. Our Riverside, a neighborhood-based creative research program for teens in Cambridge.

. Magazine Beach: a place apart.  I am part of the exhibition team for this show at Gallery 344, in Cambridge.

. Hack the Museum, at the Harvard Museums of Science and Culture

. Neighborday, a GOOD holiday, as an Imperative fellow

. terroir studio, a collaborative platform for events that promote learning and community

. the culinary heirloom project, with cuisine en locale

. “Play in the City”, a GSD Tourism Club workshop.  March 9, 2012.

. the uni project.

. thanksgiving stories, the first step in a curatorial innovation project for Harvard’s metaLAB.