What's in a Name -- Cycle P15 Style
Out from the quiet corner came the brilliance.
I was at Intuit: The Center for Outsider and Intuitive Art, talking to teens in the IntuiTeens program. The topic? The good, the bad and the future of phosphorus.
I was there to share my enthusiasm for an innovation happening right here in Chicago – recovering phosphorus from wastewater and turning into non-polluting fertilizer – and to try to kindle interest in participating in an art project celebrating that transformation. Surely, it fell with a thud, you say. But zeal – and some augmented reality – carried the day. Many of the teens were intrigued.
With time left at the end, I asked if they would like to brainstorm a title for the project with me. I had a hastily-arrived-at working title of “Cycle P,” and wanted to jazz it up or come up with something else.
Ideas flowed onto a flip chart. Then out of the corner it came.
One of the teens, who had not uttered word to that point, who had had her head down working intently on her artwork the entire time – who I thought was totally uninterested in what we were doing – quietly said, “What about 15? Cycle P15?”
I said, “Oh that’s fun. Fifteen, because this is the year 2015?” And she said, “No, because 15 is the atomic number of phosphorus.”
Wow and bingo!
That’s why I love the Cycle P15 name so much.
~ Christine Esposito, Project Lead
