It was a perfect 72 degree Saturday as crowds milled through the booths lining the Bowery at the Festival of Ideas in New York City. Held outside of the New Museum, the event featured more than 100 grassroots non-profits and businesses showing off everything from social justice initiatives to fancy food products.

It was hard to miss artist Paul Villinski‘s Emergency Response Studio, a mobile art studio he created in order to work in New Orleans after Katrina. Villinksi modified a 30′ Gulfstream Cavalier trailer, almost identical to the trailers FEMA uses, and drove it down from New York City after the hurricane hit.

The idea is to allow for artists to “embed themselves in situations and respond creatively to unfolding events.” It’s quite the sight; powered entirely by a 1.6 kilowatt pholtovoltaic system, it features a 10′ geodesic skylight, a wall that folds out into a deck and a clean, modern look that made living in a trailer actually seem cool.

Later I happened upon this cute and very literal think tank from Ghana ThinkTank, which aims to explore the friction inherent in the foreign aid process. Problems are sent from the think tanks in countries like the United States and the U.K. to think tanks in countries like Cuba, Ghana and El Salvador, where they try to solve our problems from afar. The whole point is not really to solve anything, per se, but rather to explore issues with how foreign aid functions today, from translation issues to the difficulty of solving complex problems without really knowing a country’s culture or people.

Over at the Housing is a Human Right tent, Michael Premo (above with the headphones) talked to me about his inventive non-profit, which collects and shares stories about people from across the country trying to find or maintain a home, which seems especially relevant considering the rash of foreclosures in the aftermath of the housing bubble. Stories are told via audio stories, photographs and videos, as well as in special exhibitions held everywhere from museums to laundromats.

One especially cool project was </archive>, an open archive created with the help of QR stickers. It works like this: stick the QR sticker somewhere in the city, scan it with your smartphone and then add text and a picture to an online entry. Then, anyone else who comes along and scans the sticker will bring up your short entry. The hope is to create an evolving archive where users can “locate a memory in the city, post a commentary, a protest, a form of advocacy, etc …”

Brooklyn Grange, one of the city’s most successful rooftop farms, was also present, selling all kinds of sustainably grown veggies. If you aren’t familiar with Brooklyn Grange, it’s a one-acre commercial farm that operates on top of a rooftop in Long Island City and sells its wares through CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) and farmers markets.

A few other interesting booths: internet bartering site OurGoods (which we wrote about earlier this year), story-sharing app Broadcastr and online architectural project Urban Omnibus. Overall, a fascinating (and free) event that the organizers will hopefully bring back in 2012.

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