The Medium

To reach a better understanding, it was necessary to introduce a new method, Portals.

Portals are gold shipping containers equipped with immersive audiovisual technology, that connect people separated by distance and difference. Upon entering a Portal, you’ll come face-to-face with someone in a distant Portal as though you were in the same room.

This chamber transformed both what we know and how we go about knowing it. Specifically, Portals increased the capacity of disparate people and communities to define their narratives and create connected political spaces, thereby expanding the possibility of studying politics in beneficially recursive ways.

Portals are…

Purposeful places for every day, unscripted interaction; an intentional space to congregate

Counterpublic spaces (i.e., the barbershop) giving those on the margins a place to engage beyond the gaze of dominant groups

Centered on connections, the opposite of isolation which we know to compound unfreedom

Locally rooted but connected to other local spaces (informed by the vision, goals Community runand needs of their communities)

Able to center the experience and expertise of unfree voices and acknowledge their agency and wisdom to provide solutions to violence and injustice

Turning criminal justice into a resource for sharing knowledge, developing cross-community consciousness, and a platform for contestation

Non-hierarchical, non-exclusionary – anyone can take part

Promotes interaction with non-random others who have shared experience

Transcends barriers of physical distance and lack of resources, connecting groups across geographic divides

Collaborative space to transform hegemony and build power