Compensation Policy UPDATE:  We figured it out, and contributors of the most recent funded collection of 7 tours, have been paid according to the closest approximation of W.A.G.E. standards ($150 for participation in a group show, in this case) with an option included (insisted on by the survey results) for tour contributors who do not want monetary compensation to donate it back to the project, or forward the payment to another project of their choosing. Thanks so much to everyone who helped think this through! Looking forward to recording and paying yall next time!

Compensation Policy Survey

Hear Our Houston is in the process of determining a system of equitable compensation that
1. avows the value of contributions beyond money
2. still offers a fair portion of any money currently funding Hear Our Houston to the contributors that make it possible
3. accomodates the wide difference of opinions that contributors have about compensation 

Step 1 was a few awkward trials in which I offended contributors by offering money, or made them indignant when I did not

Step 2 was thinking about it a lot

Step 3 was creating this survey which was e-mailed to all past contributors (if you are a contributor who has not yet taken this survey, please do) and compiling the responses

Step 4 is figuring out how to incorporate these results into a fair system ready to implement once final grant payment is received for the most recent funded round of contributions

Step 5 is ongoing study Feminist Economics that take into account labor and value outside of what the market officially recognizes, as well as improving my audio recording and post production skills so facilitation is less time intensive and there can be funding to cover both my time and contribution honoraria

Step 6 will be integrating a survey at the beginning of future funded tour projects

Step 7 will be more rigorously documenting the time I spend facilitating each tour, thinking about whether scaling particular contributor payments to according to time and infrastructure costs is relevant, or if that will unfairly advantage people who are already likely to have a platform for their narratives (because they use the internet, are good at public speaking, are not new to this, etc) and simultaneously re-evaluate if there are parameters that can structurally build equity in to a more even platform 

Hiatus

Hear Our Houston started as a way to celebrate the underappreciated. In recent years, Houston has become over touted, and has especially employed arts and culture to brand itself as a global destination city. In order to steward these recordings' intimate reflections on our neighborhoods, while protecting them from becoming a real estate research tool, it feels best to put Hear Our Houston on hiatus.

These tours will remain available online, as many of them already represent a Houston of years past, but the next wave of tour creation will wait for the next bust to set in. 

. 

Syeda Hasan brought us this KUHF 88.7 News profile on Hear Our Houston, with input by Raj Mankad on his Stroll Along Hillcroft, and by Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin of their experience walking Maria Jimenez's tour of Cesar Chavez Blvd. 

 

Hear Our Houston is honored to be recording seven new tours with residents, business owners, and community leaders around Second Ward, East End, Harrisburg, and Magnolia Park. 

We will have a screening event: An Evening in the East End at 6pm October 29 at Houston Community College Southeast – Felix Fraga Campus, 301 N. Drennan. 3 minute clips from each of the 7 Hear Our Houston tours will play with corresponding photos, and the Magnolia Park Oral History Project will also screen their video.

Frank Partida, advisor on Magnolia Park Oral History Project and contributor to Hear Our Houston,
at Hidalgo Park Quiosco and Historical Marker (that he helped get installed)
Hear his tour with Dr. Irene Porcarello here.

These 7 tours are funded by Houston Arts Alliance's grant matching
National Endowment for the Arts Our Town Grant funds
for the project Transported + Renewed

Hear Our Houston is on display at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston
as a part of Incommensurate Mapping curated by Dean Daderko Aug 23- Nov 30, 2014

photo by Lillie Monstrum                        

Over 60 students in Karie Buss's HCC Northwest English Composition classes have created and swapped tours as a part of their curriculum for two semesters so far. Now you can find a selection of these tours posted in full in the tour library.  

Writer and educator Karie Buss and Hear Our Houston founder Carrie Schneider presented at the Houston Community College Celebrating and Serving Houston Faculty Conference 2014. 

Karie shared how she uses Hear Our Houston as curriculum to teach personal narrative, interview, and argument essay writing, how the students were asked to walk a mile in each others' shoes, and what their response essays taught us about the project. 

View of private gallery of HCC student tours used interactively throughout two semesters.
Only ones approved by students were posted publicly.

Hear Our Houston at 

A cartogram of Houston and its surrounding geography, visually distorted to achieve uniform road density throughout the region. Generated using the Gastner-Newman
dispersion algorithm and street data from Google Maps. 
Created by David Feiland Carrie Schneider

Houston Center for Contemporary Craft
4848 Main Street, Houston, TX 77002

Opening Reception
Friday, October 4, 5:30 – 8:00 PM

SPRAWL Lecture Series talk by Carrie Schneider 
Thursday, January 9, 7:00 - 8:00 PM 

In partnership with Houston Center for Contemporary Craft's current exhibition, SPRAWL, Hear Our Houston is highlighting three tours about custom craft practices in Houston.

Throughout the duration of the exhibition, Hear Our Houston is excited and honored to be posting these tours: homecoming mums from Katy, the rise and decline of grills at Sharpstown Mall, and custom piñatas for celebrations all over town.

Juany Favela's custom piñata creations at The Little Piñata Shop

Uriel Garcia-Vega designing custom jewelry at Sharpstown's Jewelry Exchange Center

Cindy Hook's wall of homecoming mums for Katy area schools

Palms Center 1965 Larry Evans Houston Chronicle

Hear Our Houston is so excited to be partnering with Southeast Houston Transformation Alliance (SEHTA) to create tours around the historic Palm Center! Check out tours on history, music and community, health and wellness, food and growth, business and education, and family and community. Clips from nine tours devoted to this area as well as newly excavated historic photographs will premiere on August 23rd.

The new Hear Our Houston app is available here!

It makes finding, hearing, and creating tours easy on the go!Thanks to Locacious and Robert Miles Kemp.

suits by Thuy-Linh Cornett and photo by Lillie Monstrum

The Human Tour 2013

Carrie Schneider and Alex Tu are walking the route laid out in 1987 in Michael Galbreth's The Human Tour.

Join us for any or all of ten walks variously scheduled from February 10- March 10, 2013 as we complete the entire route. 

Our arrival party is 7pm, Sunday, March 10th, 2013 at Natachee's on Main Street. Join us for a parade, video screening, and ceremony to transfer the suits from functional cover to artifacts of our odyssey.

The Human Tour: An Anthropomorphic
Route Through The City of Houston
1987 - , by Michael Galbreth

The Human Tour 2013
       in the Press 

Houston Press 
-Meredith Deliso

Offcite
-Edward S. Garza

Glasstire
-Regina Agu

KPFT Living Art
-Michael Woodson (Feb 14)

The Human Tour 2013 is funded by Houston Arts Alliance individual artist grant awarded to Carrie Schneider

A list of art works that use walking on Glasstire.

I recently traveled to New York to check out Big Onion walking tours,
meet with Todd Shalom of Elastic City artist led conceptual walks,
and to work with the developers of Locacious, a walking tour app for iphones.   

From Project Row Houses to Lanier Middle School to Meadow Wood Elementary- and describing all imaginable neighborhoods in between- Hear Our Houston is proud have focused this Spring on hosting the work of young writers!

Neighborhood map by Veean

Inprint's workshops at Project Row Houses after school program taught by Ryler Dustin, Bryanda Minix, and Ifeanyichuku Nwosu Okoro II (Res) bring us PRH Grade School Inprint Writing Workshop and PRH Middle School Inprint Writing Workshop.

Writers in the Schools writer in residence Sara Cooper's seventh grade writers bring us Loving the Noise and other Houston Tales, Houses of Herons and other Bayou City Scenes, and From Small and Quiet to Mind-Boggling Wonders.

Writers in the Schools writer in residence Stephanie Hruzek's third grade writers bring us 2012 Time Capsule.

Thank you all for the amazing tours!