Leslie Kern

World-making means the process of both imagining and creating space(s) where things can unfold otherwise. Practicing female friendship as a way of life is, I think, a world-making activity.

When communities
advocate for “spaces for youth,” the kinds of spaces they come up with are
skate parks, basketball courts, and hockey arenas. In other words, spaces that
have boys in mind as users, and where girls have trouble finding access, acceptance, and safety.

When Swedish architecture firm White Arkitekter actually approached teenage girls to design scale models of public space, the
girls came up with “places for sitting together face to face, protected from weather and wind, to see without necessary [sic] being seen, a sense of intimacy without being constrictive; and most of all, to be able to leave an imprint on their city.” 1