Mark is a national leader in the development of regenerative public places. In the last three decades he has collaborated to direct, facilitate, or inspire designs for more than five hundred new community-generated projects in Portland, Oregon alone. Through his leadership in communitecture, inc., and its various affiliates including the The City Repair Project (501(c)3), The Village Building Convergence, and the Planet Repair Institute, he has also been instrumental in the development of dozens of participatory organizations and urban permaculture design projects across the United States and Canada. Mark works with governmental leaders, community organizations, and educational institutions in many diverse communities.

www.communitecture.net

www.cityrepair.org

www.marklakeman.net

www.planetrepair.org

Katherine Melcher is an associate professor at the University of Georgia’s College of Environment and Design, where she teaches courses in participatory design, social theory and design, healthy places, and urban design. Her research interests span two areas: landscape architecture theory and the social aspects of design, with a special focus on engaging communities in the design process. Katherine is the author of Community-Built. Art, Construction, Preservation, and Place Throughout history and around the world, community members have come together to build places, be it settlers constructing log cabins in nineteenth-century Canada, an artist group creating a waterfront gathering place along the Danube in Budapest, or residents helping revive small-town main streets in the United States. What all these projects have in common is that they involve local volunteers in the construction of public and community places; they are community-built….

Born in Missoula, MT in 1976, Amanda Browder received an MFA/MA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She currently lives in Brooklyn, producing over 30+ large-scale fabric installations all around the world. Amplifying multiple voices, she collaborates with local community groups and sources her textiles from local donations. Exhibitions include: Triennale Brugge, Belgium, Project 1: ArtPrize; SPRING/BREAK Art Fair; Nuit Blanche Public Art Festival; Dumbo Arts Festival; White Columns, NYC; Nakaochiai Gallery, Tokyo. Published in Unexpected Art: Chronicle Books and Strange Material; Arsenal Pulp Press. In 2025 she received the Iowa Governor's Award for Arts in Service. She received numerous grants such as the NEA with the Sioux City Art Center, the Buffalo Art Museum AKG and St Charles Art Center, IL. She is a 2021 NYSCA/NYFA artist fellow and has been an artist-in-residence at UNLV Las Vegas, Erie Arts & Culture, Reach Projects and University of Montana. Photos and reviews have appeared in New York Times to Fiber Art Magazine and founder www.badatsports.com