The MIT FEMA Trailer Project is accepting applications to win the Armadillo, a transformed FEMA Trailer. The trailer, once intended to house families in the Gulf Coast displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, is currently being transformed into a hybrid composting center, vertical garden, permaculture library, and multipurpose space. What would you do with a mobile garden armadillo?
Applicants may be individuals, groups, governmental agencies or organizations (including schools, churches, and non-profits). There is no cost to apply, or to receive the trailer. The Armadillo will be delivered by the MIT FEMA Trailer Project to the winning applicant. However, once the Armadillo has been donated, all expenses and maintenance related to the trailer are the donee's responsibility. MIT, the MIT Visual Arts Program, the MIT FEMA Trailer Project and any individuals associated with the MIT FEMA Trailer Project relinquish all responsibility for the trailer once it has been delivered.
*Guidelines for Application*
Due: January 20, 2009
To request an application, please e-mail fematrailerapplication@gmail.com.
Successful applications will demonstrate the following criteria:
1. Need
2. Capacity to maintain the trailer
3. Plan for use of the trailer 4. Commitment to existing trailer functions (compost/vertical garden/environmental sustainability)
Please address any questions to fematrailerapplication@gmail.com.
Submit the attached form by January 20, 2009, along with any supporting materials* via snail mail, fax, or email to:
MIT FEMA Trailer Project
c/o MIT Visual Arts Program
265 Massachusetts Ave., N51-328
Cambridge, MA 02139
Email: fematrailerapplication@gmail.com
Fax: 617.253.3977
*Supporting materials may be anything that gives us a better sense of who you are; e.g., websites, press about related projects, photos of the proposed location for the trailer
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The trailer will be available for touring engagements and stops around the East Coast, prior to being donated in Spring 2009. If you or your organization is interested in scheduling a tour date or stop, please contact Jae Rhim Lee, jrlee@mit.edu.
The MIT FEMA Trailer Composting Station and Vertical Garden was designed and built by students in the course Advanced Projects in the Visual Arts: The MIT FEMA Trailer Project--Gina Badger, Colin Kerr, Samuel Kronick, Christopher Taylor, Kari Williams, and Lucille Ynosencio. The course was taught by teaching assistant Caitlin Berrigan and instructor Jae Rhim Lee, Visiting Lecturer in the MIT Visual Arts Program.
For more information, please visit http://fematrailer.mit.edu
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About The MIT FEMA Trailer Project
In the fall of 2005, FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) purchased approximately 145,000 travel trailers and mobile homes to house Gulf Coast residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Since their deployment, the trailers have been tied to a host of issues, including:
-health concerns due to formaldehyde off-gassing in the trailers (at the center of a class-action lawsuit against FEMA and trailer manufacturers)
-spikes in documented mental health problems in residents of trailer parks
-the lack of affordable housing in many regions of the Gulf Coast available to residents moving out of trailers
-thousands of idle surplus trailers currently sitting in rented parking lots across the country.
As such, the FEMA Trailer has come to symbolize many of the environmental, social, economic, and administrative challenges associated with temporary disaster housing. The goal of the MIT FEMA Trailer Project is to catalyze positive change in these areas and develop alternative solutions for FEMA Trailers through two vehicles:
-The MIT FEMA Trailer Challenge, a campus-wide competition produce collaboratively by the MIT Visual Arts Program and the MIT Public Service Center
-Course 4.365, Advanced Projects in Visual Arts: The MIT FEMA Trailer Project, taught by Visiting Lecturer Jae Rhim Lee in the MIT Visual Arts Program
The goals and directives of the MIT FEMA Trailer Project are:
1. Investigate the environmental, political, and social issues related to FEMA Trailers.
2. Formulate feasible, socially conscious, and innovative alternative uses for the 94,000+ surplus FEMA Trailers through the MIT FEMA Trailer Challenge. The MIT FEMA Trailer Challenge invites members of the MIT Community to submit projects which propose alternative uses for the thousands of surplus FEMA Travel Trailers used as temporary disaster housing in the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. Winning projects will receive monetary awards and will be considered for inclusion in a publication. 3. Compile and publish a document with technologies applicable to FEMA Trailers and ideas for alternative uses of surplus trailers generated by the Challenge, course projects, and from outside MIT.
4. Transform a single FEMA trailer currently located at MIT into a hybrid composting station/vertical garden which will be donated to a community or non-profit organization, as part of the Transdisciplinary Art Course "Advanced Projects in Visual Arts: The MIT FEMA Trailer Project." The course applies environmental justice and permaculture principles in the conceptualization and re-design of the trailer.
For more information, please visit http://fematrailer.mit.edu
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