In this special episode of Just Can't Not, Steve Carter (@stevecarter) and Justin Dusett (@jdusett) join host Chris Lindstrom (@stromie) to explore the origins and evolution of Explore Rochester, highlighting its role in connecting individuals to their surroundings and each other.

We explore the significance of the upcoming 10-year retrospective exhibition, which will be held at the Rochester Contemporary Art Center from March 7 to May 10. The exhibition will feature contributions from over 500 local creators, showcasing a diverse array of perspectives on the city.

Lunchador will be live recording on First Friday March 7th from 6pm - 9pm so come say hi!

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• @ExploreRochester
• Rochester Contemporary Art Center (@roco137)

Mentioned in this episode:

Check out the Pauly Guglielmo Show (@googs0105) each Sunday to learn about the ups and downs in business and life!

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Well, that music means it's time for another episode of Just can't not, the show where the lunch at our podcast network talks to the people who just can't not do the things they're doing.

I'm Chris Lindsterman here today to talk to a couple of people that I have met so many times over the years.

And I don't.

I know I'm embarrassed that I haven't had at least one of these people over the last 10 plus years.

I've been doing my own show and I'm pretty sure he should be embarrassed too.

Oh, I'm very embarrassed.

You're talking about me, right?

Not Justin?

No.

Well, I haven't known Justin nearly as long.

So, guests, why don't you introduce yourselves.

Justin, you go first.

I'm Justin Doucette, one of the co founders of Explore Rochester.

Yay.

And.

And I'm Steve Carter.

I'm also one of the co founders of Explore Rochester.

Yay.

See, now we get Cheers.

Wow.

So this, so why you guys are here today.

And this is a great excuse really to talk about Explore Rochester, but we're gonna put some promos out there right away.

So The Explore Rochester 10 year retrospective is launching on March 7, first Friday at the Rochester Contemporary Art center, starting at what, 6:00pm I imagine.

Yeah, I think it's six to nine, I think is the plan.

You know, first Friday, 6:00.

It's always a decent guess to pick 6:00 as the starting, but.

So this, this is a, this is something that has kind of defined Rochester in many ways over the last decade.

But why don't you guys tell me in your own words what is Explore Rochester right now?

What is this?

What's the feed and what is it meant to do?

Yeah, I'll jump in and Justin, add color or whatever else.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, real quick, I'm.

I'm going to cut you off.

Just.

I don't want to say that it's.

That it defined Rochester.

I do think Rochester defined Explore Rochester and still does.

So I just wanted to get that out there.

And Steve, I know you got things to say, but I just wanted to get.

Get that little point.

No, that's a key piece because I mean, that's behind the.

The start of Explore Rochester was really the intention of it being driven by the people that contributed to it and not the.

By us in any way.

Like, it's really about the perspectives of the people that are contributors and those are mostly made up of people that live in Rochester or the Surrounding area.

So, yeah, I guess as a brief, ish overview, Explore Rochester Today is an Instagram account that every week shares a new perspective of Rochester.

Um, we leave that Rochester part a little bit vague to allow for it to be the greater Rochester region.

So sometimes we do get people that live, I mean, out in Honeyohy or out, you know, like Burgeon, like, further away.

Not necessarily defined by the city limits.

But the Rochester plus Finger Lakes region.

Yeah, but we try not to go into, like, Ithaca, Corning and Buffalo and Syracuse.

We let them have their own explorers.

And so, yeah, we've done this for 10 years now on Instagram.

And it's funny to think about because, I mean, Instagram at that point was a very different platform than it is today.

But in a lot of ways, we've tried to keep this account consistent over that time.

Like, it's continuing to share.

Right now we have.

What is it, nine photos a week or nine posts a week, which is a post is a photo plus a caption.

It's a square photo.

Because that was the format that Instagram was at the time.

We don't do video through it.

We don't do carousels of multiple photos.

We try to say, like, to a contributor, it's like, hey, how can you define what you're trying to speak about with one image and explain it with one image?

And so that's been really cool to see how at this point, over the course of 10 years, that's 502 contributors.

We're actually past 502 because we're in year 11 now.

Oh, wow.

So we're still going.

But over the first 10 years, it was 502 different people, which was really great.

So, you know, when you're launching this, this is.

You know, this format has now become almost.

It's become such a standard that it's hard to remember that this was, you know, when this launched and when, you know, Instagram was.

In its earlier days, this format wasn't as ubiquitous as it is now.

It was still somewhat novel in places that, hey, you had a contributor on a weekly basis with a certain amount of things, talking about things.

So how.

How does that, you know, when you look back at starting it, what was.

What was the drive at that point to choose that format versus something else?

Like, it limited what you could do, but in many ways, it defined what it was because of limitations.

Yeah, I'm gonna let you take it just because I feel like it'd be sacrilegious to like that one from you.

Well, I feel like I'm a big fan of creative constraints.

Currently, like my job, I work in marketing for a company that makes film for film photography.

And so wait, people still use films?

Exactly.

Pictures.

Steve Carter.

Exactly.

And so that's still happening.

But I think part of what attracts people to like film is the constraints.

Like you have a phone in your pocket that can take thousands of photos really fast, but you go through that and there's not a lot of value placed on them sometimes and you forget about them and they get buried on hard drives or wherever.

And so there's something about having creative constraints that allows you to really be like, okay, what, how can I describe this thing in the limitation of 2,000 characters?

Like, so it's a few paragraphs maybe and one photo that's in, cropped into a square, which is not a common format anymore.

And so it's cool to see how different contributors, different people interpret that.

And that's.

We've seen a wide variety.

I mean again, 502 contributors.

You get all sorts of different styles and, and creativity.

I mean you get people that are painting things and placing them in the image and then taking a photo of that image or of that painting and that set up.

You get people sharing all black and white images.

You get.

Early on we tried to keep everything to an iPhone, but over time.

Or a smartphone shared with a smartphone.

But over time we've expanded it to allow for different mediums.

So a lot of people have started to include film into their weeks too, or just different formats.

But that is another layer of just like being able to have those constraints.

And so I think that really helps, like having those guidelines kind of.

Otherwise it's just so open ended.

I mean I feel like that's.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it was about giving it a certain timeline.

It was never like, oh, all these people are going to have access and we're going to talk about it over the course of the entire existence.

It was, you've got five days to speak about what makes this city, this city to you.

And you're going to do that in whatever way you want.

Whether it's by, like you said, documenting the doors in the neighborhood, to the bar that you go to, to the restaurant where you met your partner, whatever it may be.

It was just a, here's five days to do that.

Let me figure out eight things that are really important.

And then.

And then I'm going to.

That's it.

I'm done.

You know, people have reached out, like, oh, I'd love to go again.

We're like, sorry, like, you did it.

You did a great job.

Thank you for doing it one time.

But, like, there's a.

There's so many people here to think that are worth celebrating and that are worth sharing their.

And actually, that's a good point, too, is.

Is the fact that, like, 502 people, that's a lot of people.

And it's been really cool to get to know a lot of the people from that.

And there's a lot of them that we don't know.

Yeah.

But, like, really, when you think about that, in the essence of, like, the region of hundreds of thousands of people that live in the greater Rochester region, or over a million, actually.

And it's like, we really.

This could.

This project could keep going for a long time if you really wanted to.

So.

Yeah.

Well, let's talk about the process for a second, because you all.

Any of these kind of projects where you have this constant churn of you need a new person every week, how does that process go?

And especially, as, you know, the two of you as collaborators.

We'll talk more about that later.

How do you end up deciding, you know, who's going to be the next person?

How far in advance are you doing that?

And how do you.

How do you choose who's going to be next?

Because that is.

There's a weight on that, because there is a choice about what goes on the feed.

In the beginning, it was just mostly friends and friends of friends, because it's easy to say yes to something that has a couple thousand followers on Instagram, but when it's like 16 people following, you're like, sure, I'll spend the next several hours or days or weeks putting together a week.

And then it led to, you know, just like with any community, you find people within that group of people that work really well also or have something unique to say.

So we really put a lot of trust in the people that have previously shared to recommend people that should also share, whether it's because they're similar to them or because they're completely different from them.

And we've found some of the most unique perspectives just from.

Thank the.

From that kind of a recommendation of this person should go.

I think they would bring a lot to the table.

Yeah.

And.

And I think it's very much like one of those boards that you're, like, trying to Figure out who, like, it all comes back to this person, you know?

And so, like, I don't know.

What was it?

It's always sunny in Philadelphia.

Yeah.

Charlie Day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The classic with, like, all the red yarn going to the different things, the lines connecting and all that.

And that's.

That's kind of how it's been.

Because when it first started, I mean, it started with a spreadsheet of just like, okay, I'm gonna start writing down names of people that I think could be good at this.

Hey, things can still end with spreadsheets, too.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

I'm definitely a spreadsheet person.

We've got one to share with you when planning this gallery spreadsheet.

We live on spreadsheets currently.

Yeah.

Trying to go to the Excel competitions.

Have you seen those?

Oh, I have watched some.

It's really weird.

It's invigorating.

I never felt more alive than watching a guy turn his whole Excel into, like, blue and purple squares in, like, three seconds.

Pivot tables.

Yeah, pivot table.

Pivot table.

It's all gets me going.

Oh, I'm gonna show you a spreadsheet after.

It's gonna blow your mind.

Oh, yeah.

Let's go.

Yeah.

Steve.

No, ours is pretty simple, and there's a lot of information on it in the sense that I.

Like, we started making that list, started reaching out to people early on, and.

And then from there, it's like, okay, we want to.

Like, a lot of the early contributors from year one were a lot of people that we knew of or knew that took good photos.

Because when this account first started, it was like, again, like Justin said, we didn't have any followers.

And, like, when we launched it, it was just like, hey, this is a project we're starting for Rochester.

And.

And I think early on it was like, let's have different people that we know.

Like, we really admire their photography.

But this.

This account has grown to be more than just, like, a page that's just, like, your favorite photos of Rochester.

It's.

It's more about the story and, like, how it all comes together between the image and what the person, the contributor has to write.

So, yeah, so.

So that's kind of.

You know, it seems like it's kind of a spur and a web in many ways, of how you get to the next thing.

So what I kind of wanted to go into now was, like, talking about the actual launch, because every project has some sort of history where either you have this moment where you're just like, God, I gotta do something.

I gotta make something.

Or I'm listless.

I need to find something.

What was when you guys were talking about doing this or even before you both were talking about doing it?

Like, where did this, where did this come from?

What was that spark of a moment that made this happen?

Yeah, I mean, you want the origin story, so we're going to give you the origin story here.

Justin and I kind of actually really met because of Explore Rochester.

Like, we didn't.

We didn't like, come up with this idea necessarily together in like, start planning everything together and then launch it.

It kind of like launched and we started working together on it and it just naturally kind of evolved from there.

Explore Rochester really started as a hashtag, actually.

2012.

Yeah, yeah.

And so I was in.

I was in college still and so Youngs.

Yeah, So I was in college and it just like, I'm not from the Rochester area and so friends of mine in college, I.

I was planning on, like, leaving Rochester after graduating.

I was planning on either moving back home or to Chicago.

That was my plan.

And I didn't really.

I went to school in North Chili and North Chili, if you think that's like Rochester, if that's your understanding of Rochester, it leaves something to be desired.

It's a cate.

Well, Itacate is amazing.

Yeah, that, that was, that was a special place out there when it was, you know, at the gas station.

Yeah.

Yes.

There was a photo shared on Explore Rochester of a Tecate at the gas station.

And I was, I, I looked at it and then interestingly enough, like, the.

Owner, the owner's name came up recently.

I just had Fairport Food and Drink over.

Yeah, that'll be coming out in a few weeks.

Oh, that's great.

But Jose's name came up, so Shout out that place.

Yeah, yeah.

And it was Schmags and Itacate.

That was like the two places that.

Were like food schmeg's was wild.

What, What a place that was like, so place that.

Those giant breakfast sandwiches and giant plates.

Those.

That place was completely crazy.

And the fact that that even existed, it was fantastic.

We're just gonna turn this into your other podcast.

Yeah, yeah.

We're gonna evolve this into Food about town.

Yeah, exactly.

But, yeah, but that's, that's become a key piece of, Of Explore Rochester is.

It's, It's.

There's been a lot of food and beverage coverage through it through either Owners of those or founders of those businesses or people that work at them or help shape them or.

Or participate in them or enjoy them.

So that's part.

It's part of the experience of being in a place, is experiencing that part of culture, because it is part of.

It defines part of where you are is how are you enjoying being there?

Yeah, most definitely.

And it's.

I think that's part of the thing.

It is sort of that slice of Life.

Yeah, yeah, 100%.

And so going back to North Chili.

So, yeah, I thought that was Rochester, I think, for a moment there.

But some of my friends would, like, go into the city and, like, either just go to Javas or go to Spot or just different areas in the city.

And I started going with them from North Chili into the city, and I was like, wow, this is.

This is cool.

Like, this is fun.

There's.

There's more things here and there's a nicer energy.

And this is a.

13.

And so I think Rochester is very much a different place today than it was then, but agreed.

But even then it was like, oh, this is interesting.

I like this.

And we started, like, going and just taking photos with our phones and sharing them and meeting up with other people that wanted to take photos and see interesting things, like the abandoned subway or like, going to Lake Ontario to.

There's just different spots along the lake that were just like, oh, this is really interesting.

There's a Kodak tower downtown.

Whoa, Kodak is from Rochester.

That's cool.

And so there's just like, a lot of stuff like that.

And so I think in.

In college was doing that.

Me and three friends, two friends were.

One day we went and took photos at the abandoned subway.

And I was like, oh, these are really cool.

We should all share our photos with, like, the same hashtag so other people can see all of our photos.

Because there was no Instagram stories back then.

There was no, like.

Like I said before, there was no video.

There was.

Instagram was a very different place.

So it's like, how do you point people to, like, these different things?

So it was like, yeah, let's use the hashtag.

And at that.

At that time, also, I think that's.

It is an important inflection point to mention.

So I'll be interjecting with, like, a little history here and there, because that was at the time, and you guys are wildly better at social media stuff than I am.

I'm hot garbage at that.

But, like, hashtags defined how people found things For a long time.

And it was like your choices of hashtags mattered so much.

And now it's kind of an afterthought that gets bolted on and it doesn't matter almost at all anymore.

But then hashtags kind of defined how people found everything and ran across new things.

That's like when people are searching.

That's how they did it.

Yeah, yeah.

That's how you would find at that point in time.

It was about.

You were trying to build a following in some capacity on Instagram and that's how you would find web magazines.

I joke all the time.

There was Live Authentic and Live Folk, which were these two hashtags that were from this one magazine.

But if they shared your photo, it was gonna get in front of thousands and thousands of people.

And so whether you were a creative or just somebody that was experimenting with the platform, it was a way to reach people.

But then down to something as small as like five people getting together and going to a spot on Braddock's Bay, like, oh, let's all share this with the same thing, and then kind of introduce our friends to these other friends that we're with online or whatever it may be.

So, yeah, it was integral to that.

Yeah.

And that also was another inflection point and point in time where it became like more normal to meet people from the Internet, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

And it was kind of the first time where, I mean, it's been happening since the Internet existed.

Right.

It happened on message boards in the 80s.

Totally.

Yeah.

Right, I remember that.

Yeah, yeah.

This is like you're dialing into text based message boards.

It's been going on since as soon as you could.

But I think that culture of, oh, you're taking cool pictures, let's just go meet up and let's go do a photo walk or something.

That immediacy of it and the reduction of effort.

Right.

The lowering of that friction.

It's more convenient.

It changed it.

The barriers changed in less barriers.

And so there was something.

And because you now had a phone, which is essentially a computer in your pocket too.

So there's something about having a camera that's always with you and essentially a computer in your pocket that made it really convenient to do those things.

And so.

And an inherited activity, like that's the activity is.

Was walking around.

Yeah.

Oh, you've got to see this wall therapy mural.

It's like going up right now.

We got to go check that out.

Or the coffee at that place looks good.

Let's go drink it like well, and it's interesting because that was also not to bring it back to food and drink, but that also was, you know, at that time, that was also the.

When specialty coffee shops were launching in Rochester, third wave.

So it was at the same time, so many different inflection points of photos of places, you know, dominating what has become marketing or even the perception of marketing is that, like, things has to have to be vis.

You know, visible first instead of taste first.

Yeah.

And that all kind of came from that same attitude and that same timing.

Yeah.

So what I want to.

I just want to go.

One more thing before we go to our break is, you know, when we're going back to the beginning, we're starting to.

Starting to launch the Instagram.

At what point in that do you guys start to say, hey, this is our thing.

How did that happen?

Yeah, so, I mean, at that point where we were in the story was that was the hashtag starting.

And that was the first thing.

I was still in school using the hashtag, friends were using the hashtag.

It started spreading a little bit organically throughout Rochester.

And then just in classes that I was in in school, I like, started using this as like an idea for a project.

And I think I.

I viewed it more towards like what Justin was saying it was like online magazine.

Like, just like trying to make it like some sort of thing for Rochester, but through online and using social media for it.

When are you going to get your grade for this project?

Yeah, I should check.

Yeah, should check with professors on that.

I think I do have some grades and some of them were okay.

So.

Yeah, but that's the reason I'm still here.

But yeah, so it was, it was like that was.

This thing was always lingering.

I think I have like a five year plan list somewhere that was like, make something of Explore.

Rochester was like bullet five.

Five things in five years.

It was like I really wanted to like make something of this.

2012.

But then just through talking with other friends about it over time and just being like, hey, I have this idea, this thing.

I, like, got the Instagram handle.

I started that spreadsheet that I'm still using today and started making a list of names, reaching out to people.

And then I, like, published it and put the first post out.

And then I was like, oh, I probably need a logo.

And there probably Needs to be some sort of identity to this thing.

And so that's where I then reached out to a mutual friend of Justin and mine, Joe, and I was like, hey, you know how to design things?

Like, I don't have any.

I don't have any money.

This is a project that you.

You've come to like, photo walks that we've like done together.

You have any interest in like helping design a logo for this project called Explore Rochester?

And he was like, yeah, sure.

He's like, can I bring a friend when we meet up?

I was like, yeah, sure.

Classmate of his.

And that classmate happened to be Justin.

And so that's really when we got to know each other.

Yeah.

And this is like week one of Explore Rochester.

Like it literally had just started because you can go back to the first week and you can see there's no logo in the corner of the photo for like the first couple weeks.

But as soon as we landed on the logo.

Every post from that point.

Point on.

Every intro.

Yeah, yeah, every intro post.

Sorry, yeah, we don't put a logo on all the, the photos.

We're not trying to.

Yeah.

Brand splash everywhere.

But yeah, so that was in.

Justin designed that logo.

We all kind of contributed to the.

The process, but that was Justin's design.

And so we've.

Yeah.

Since then.

Yeah.

Gone from that.

So.

So really.

Yeah, that's.

That's when we start.

It started going, I think, pretty early on.

I mean, within the first few weeks you start seeing people be like, oh, that's a cool idea.

Like, can I like go on it for a week or just.

You saw these names start following it and you're like, oh, yeah, I remember this person.

And one of the cool parts about early on is every time somebody new contributed, they posted about it to their audience too, on their own social media.

And so I think that cross pollination, I guess is a good way of putting it, is like the audience on Explore Rochester would follow them and then their audience would follow Explore Rochester.

So it was kind of mutually beneficial early on.

And we grew really quickly because of that.

I think in the first year we got to 10,000 followers.

By the time we did the year one gallery.

Sure, yeah.

I don't know, something like that.

Which is also kind of wild that.

I mean, I think because it was early, there was a vacuum for something that was definitively for Rochester and about Rochester and it was like a gathering place for people just to see that stuff.

Yeah, yeah, it was like.

And it wasn't just taking place online.

You Know, it was a community thing.

We hosted what we called Rocks to Meet.

It was at the same time that Instagram was also leaning into community because they were trying to build something, so they were hosting Insta meets.

And so by taking this digital thing offline, people really start to have a sense of place and a sense of community with the other folks that may be like, oh, I've seen your photos, but it's nice to meet you.

And that really helped to amplify it because it became something.

It became the sum of its parts.

It became something once you move it offline in that way, and we saw it continue to grow from there.

So that first year was really integral to proving that, to proving that it wasn't just like, talk to us for seven days and then we'll.

And then good luck.

It was like, you're.

You're coming into something and you're going to meet other people and you're going to celebrate why you shouldn't leave and go somewhere else or what makes you love it or what makes this place home for you.

Yeah.

Well, we're going to keep on talking about the story of Explore Rochester.

So we're going to take our break and we'll be right back.

And we're back with the second half of our conversation with the Explore Rochester team.

So again, the event coming up at Rochester Contemporary Arts center, the launch event is on first Friday, March 7, starting at 6pm, going all the way to 9 or whenever people happen to leave.

And then that's going to be up for a while, right?

Oh, yeah, two months.

I think it's the plan.

So what is it?

March 7th to May 10th?

I should have brought a postcard.

Could the 10th be a first Friday?

It's 10 days into the month, so it'd have to be May.

No, I think.

I think it's up past the first Friday because we are doing an event on the first Friday.

We're doing events on all three first Fridays.

Oh, that's awesome.

So, yeah.

So what's the plan?

Is there, like, different genres?

I know there's some plans in the works, for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The first one is going to be just the opening, you know, so I don't know if you said it yet, but you'll be there, which is really exciting.

No, I'm excited.

We love being out for.

For some of these big events.

We've done.

We've done a few where we bring a whole setup and we talk to guests and we talk to people about their experience with it.

Yeah.

Because this is such a personal thing for the people that contributed to it and for people that lived through, you know, the entire journey or just learning about it now, for sure.

Yeah.

So specifically, you'll be talking to contributors, so the.

Some of the previous 502 people that will be exhibited during the show.

So we're going to be there for like 20 hours straight talking to every single person.

Yeah, no, he.

Blue said he has one mattress, so you'll probably stay there.

It's going to be great.

Is that an art piece mattress?

Like you have to look at it and decide it's going to be in the window.

What does this mattress mean to me as an art piece?

I don't know, but there'll be a phone plugged in for you, so you'll be good.

Good.

But yeah.

So that's the first Friday.

That's.

That's March 7th.

And then in April, we'll be doing a panel where we're going to bring a couple of folks in to talk about a little bit of everything, kind of the state of.

Of media, the state of the city, and kind of how this project has been derivative of both of those things.

Yeah, I think we'll be.

I think we'll be facilitating that and recording that as well.

Yeah, yeah.

Which I'm really excited about.

Yeah, yeah.

And then the closing night.

Steve, I'll let you take that one and touch on it just a little bit further.

Yeah.

And the closing party, I guess, is what we're.

We're calling that.

So giving people one more chance to kind of come out and see the whole exhibition and be a part of it in case people missed the first two first Friday events.

And that's also an opportunity where we're hoping, over the course of this whole run of the exhibition, to also raise some funds for what we're calling the Explore Rochester Community Fund.

And that is something that will be raising funds to help support the future of photographers in Rochester.

And hopefully those end up being future contributors on Explore Rochester.

But really looking to raise some funds for being able to support workshops or classes or even equipment around photography to just help the next generation around this.

So we felt like as part of this whole exhibition, we wanted to be able to have some purpose too behind it that transcends just the space and the exhibition and kind of using this opportunity for all of us to come together and see what the last 10 years look like visually on the walls of roco, the last 10 years of Rochester look like through the eyes of the 500 or so people that played a role, but then also being able to take that and push for being able to raise some funds to be able to support the next generation too.

Yeah.

Is that already live or still finalizing?

Yeah, not live yet.

Still working out.

We're trying to figure out the way we're going to handle that.

So, yeah.

Fair tbd.

So follow Explore Rochester on Instagram to pay attention for whenever that fund is available for you to contribute.

And I think that's, you know, that's part of the thing is contributing back to what has given you so much.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think that's something that I've found.

Being a part of Rochester has given me so much more than what I've put into it.

And it's turned me into a better.

Yeah, you know, better.

A better citizen, a better person and, you know, better contributor and member of the community.

Yeah.

By giving something back of my time, of my passions and other things.

I was kind of wondering just like from that perspective, like when you're looking back at the whole thing, like, how do you see how it's changed both of you guys through the process?

Yeah, I mean, I can speak for myself in that.

Like, I feel like I think there's a beauty in Rochester in that the size of the city that it is, there's.

You still get all these amenities, you get great food and beverage, you get just a lot of things going on.

It's a great art city, you have some great museums here.

Just things to do and that I enjoy.

And so the.

But the nice thing about it is it still feels like in some ways a small town in that you can like walk into one of these restaurants or a coffee shop or something and you see a lot of familiar faces and you can, you can strike up conversation even if you hadn't seen them in months.

And just, it feels like just like yesterday, you know.

And so there's something really beautiful about that.

And so I feel like the word contributor that we use for explore Rochester, I think that was very purposeful.

Even though 10 years back, my what, 24 year old self.

I don't know if I fully knew what I was talking about back then, but still I think there was something to it and it is intentional because I think for me I've become more of a participant in, in the city and in what goes on here and feeling like it is accessible to do that.

And part of it is just trying.

Things, you know, but that that word means something to you now that it couldn't have.

It can't mean the same thing when you're 24.

Right, right.

Because you don't, you don't know what it means to really contribute to something.

Yeah, yeah.

Because we're all kind of active participants in this.

And.

But to contribute is.

Is more than that.

It's to.

How do you.

How are we bringing stuff to the table and how is the table providing for us?

So really looking at it through that way, it's like, whether it's for eight days or 10 years or whatever it may be, it's like, how are you showing what is making it something for you?

I don't know.

I.

I stumbled a little bit there, but.

No, no, it's.

It's.

It's a, It's a tough question because, like, you know, the city has changed, but I'm sure you guys changed a lot through the process.

Yeah.

Way less hair.

Same.

But like, hey, you.

You're growing up, right?

I mean, 24, like, you think you're an adult, and then 10 years later you're like, oh, right.

I had no idea who I was.

No idea in a real way.

But like, this has to like, define so much of that experience.

I mean, I'm much like Steve.

I.

When I was.

I was 23, you know, just a baby compared to you, Steve, 24.

I was.

I was in school and I thought the same thing that I was out of here.

Once I finished at MCC and Explore Rochester as a microcosm for what the city represents, introduced me to so much that, you know, I.

I live here and have since then.

I.

I never did move away.

I met my partner through Explore Rochester.

Related things.

Like, I've made amazing friends through that.

So it really is.

It.

It offered a light into something that I had previously not shown anything upon.

Like, it.

It was something I thought I had to leave to be creative.

And I found out there's incredible creative people here.

There's smart people, there's talented people.

You know, we got involved with other organizations through Steve and through Explore Rochester.

It really connected me to so many of the moving parts and showed me that they were there.

And I think it has.

You know, I like to think that it's done that for other people as well.

And that's really been one of the coolest parts about it, is that lasting impact.

And so then, like, through the.

Through the community fund, it's that times the future, you know, like, what it's done for us.

How do we help do that for others?

Yeah.

How do our contributors contribute to contributing?

Contributed so much to us.

You know?

Yeah.

And I think.

I think one of the things, like, from this that was an unintentional consequence in a positive way was that, like, us starting this.

It wasn't to, like, oh, yeah, I want to, like, start something so that everybody gets to know who I am and, like, I get to, like, get stuff from it or become well known because of it.

It was like starting this intentionally from the start was.

Was trying to keep us on the.

On the back end.

We.

We tried not to make it our voice on the account.

So even as it was growing, really not make, like, putting photos of ourselves up in it or anything like that.

We haven't contributed.

Yeah, we.

We haven't ever contributed, either of us, really.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was intentional.

Just the intern.

Yeah, just the intern.

I thought you might have, like, oh, there's a blank week that happened somewhere that you had to fill that you just sent in.

Even in.

Can you imagine the pressure, just being like, oh, somebody can't.

So let me distill the last 10 years and then also talk about the city.

That's all you have to do is distill 10 years into, like, one week.

Yeah.

How could you not?

Yeah, I mean.

I mean, you've gone through the process.

You were a contributor.

What did you do?

I did eight.

Year eight.

I was going to say year eight.

It only took eight years for me contributing to Rochester, for me to get into the.

Get into the hallowed halls of explorer Rochester.

Your bust is almost done, by the way.

Yeah, exactly.

What color jacket do we get here in Rochester for the.

For explore Rochester?

Lilac.

Of course.

It's a lilac jacket.

Yeah.

Why even ask?

Yeah, why?

Obviously.

But no, like, I do think that, that you bring up a good point by saying that, like, it took eight years for you to go, because, like, I probably met you around year one or year two.

Oh, pretty early.

And so.

But that's the interesting thing is, like, it's really funny to see every time when somebody goes, like, like even year 10, like, somebody will go, and people will be like, finally they're going.

And it's like.

But that's actually like a.

I can't.

Believe you are already gone.

You're letting them go again.

Yeah.

But the interesting thing with that is, like, when you really think about it, 502 people is a.

It's a lot of people, but it's not like it's a small percentage of the amount of people that truly live here.

And.

Yeah.

That are on Instagram and that's.

That's like, the one thing is like, you have to have an Instagram account to go on Explore Rochester, but that's, that's a pretty high percentage of people.

Now when, when Explore Rochester first started, it was probably a much lower percentage of people on Instagram when it was for the Youngs.

Yeah.

And that's why it's cute.

Remember what your first Instagram photo was?

Oh, God, I don't.

I can scroll back.

All right, well, Steve will keep talking and you scroll back, but you need.

To use a hashtag.

This is my move is I have Steve Carter first post and then I could, by going to that hashtag, I could see what my first post is.

I also have Explore Rochester first post.

And by checking it, only person to still actively use hashtags.

Which is why Explore Rochester still exists.

Oh, yes.

Yes.

I started.

While you're scrolling.

I'm gonna keep scrolling.

Good luck.

Dinner the other day, kind of talking about it and it's like mine was like the corner of a box fan and in my, you know, second floor bedroom of my parents house where I lived at the time.

And.

And I just think about that like what the medium started out as for me, which was like, oh, I'm gonna put a fake film filter on this photo of my fan and what it's become now, which is like a.

A documentation, an archive in a visual.

I.

I've spoken with people about it kind of being like a sketch, a sketch pad for me creatively.

It's like taking.

I'm not a photographer, but the colors and the shadows and the light like inspire me to.

In my design practice.

Watching that from what it was 13 years ago or whatever is pretty fun thing to go back and I would love.

Now it looks like you stopped scrolling.

I did.

You found it.

I did.

Okay.

Okay.

So great year.

Relatively early.

Phenomenal vintage.

So this was in.

Looks like this was in Seattle at a restaurant called Radiators.

So this is just outside of Pike Place Market.

Okay.

Shockingly enough, it's a food picture.

I'm surprised.

I love that though.

That's.

So I think it was like, looks like a breakfast sandwich and tater tots and other stuff, you know, as you did at the time.

Fantastic.

My second one was six months later.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Ellison Parks.

This is one of the weirdest things I've ever experienced in Rochester.

The entirety of Ellison park flooded and this was.

This was in the springtime.

And during the springtime is when all the carp are moving through all the waterways.

So the Entire park had flooded, and we just gone down just for whatever, and we pull into the parking lot, and there are dead carp all over the parking lot of Ellison Park.

That's wild.

A carp park.

And they're this big, right.

These are big fish.

And you could hear them flopping in the grass in the remnants of the water that was left from the flood.

Did you go save them?

No, they're giant, weird fish.

But, like, the fact that I can go look at that is.

Remember that day to a T.

Yeah.

That little photo.

And I wouldn't have thought of Radiator because, like, it's been.

Yeah.

Now 12 years since I've been to that place, but now I remember that day really well.

Yeah.

And it's funny how that those images can really do that for you.

They can kind of bring you back to that moment, and that's really what we kind of want to do through the gallery and through you.

Talking to the folks that have contributed at the gallery is like, what, you know, some people contributed eight years ago, nine years ago, 10 years ago.

What does that image mean to you now?

Maybe it was the library that you used to go to, and that library is not there anymore, or maybe it was your elementary school, and you think about that in that way.

Or maybe it was just like that breakfast sandwich, and you're like, oh, I remember when Hearts had that breakfast sandwich.

Changed my life.

You know, I did.

I did try to.

When.

When Poutine was trying to recreate that, I was looking through all of my documentation from the time to see if I could find what the source of the role was.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because I remember knowing it then I.

Went deep down a Reddit hole for that to try and figure out, because I remember they were, like, getting that bread shipped in, I want to say, out of Toronto.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Happy.

We both know this.

Yeah.

That's incredible.

But.

Yeah.

But just looking back at the.

The last 10 years as just that, as an archive, as a.

It's like, kind of ignites one of the senses where, like, if you smell something, it'll bring you back somewhere to that place.

And this is bringing you back to that place, to that state of mind and an opportunity to look at where you've gone from there and how that impacted you.

And it's really.

It's been fun for me to look back because I do see those restaurants or those parks or those.

The subway.

Like, just getting there was a whole different thing back then.

And I say back then.

But getting there was so different.

But I think about, like, the impact that that's had and where it's brought us to.

It's really a fun hole to dive into.

Yeah.

And that's, that's.

There's a couple of points from that that I can think of, but one is really fun that with this, we curated 502 photos to be in this exhibition.

The contributors don't know what photo is going to be on the wall, so it's going to be really fun for people to walk in there and see, oh, wow, like this thing.

I remember exactly where I was when I took this.

And so there's been a lot of them asking me and probably asking you too, Justin, of like, what photo did you select?

And we're like, I'm not going to tell you.

As soon as I learned that it was one from everyone and you guys were picking, I'm like, I love that.

Yeah.

And I love that, that, like, you have to go back and look through the whole thing and think about it too, because it's a lot of.

It's a lot of things to look at.

Yeah.

What I was kind of wondering, is there, like, was there any inflection points, looking back through the whole thing, that you remember that contributor for a reason?

Is there something that, like, stands out?

Not necessarily because it was, oh, these are the best pictures I've ever seen.

But for whatever reason, it pops out at you.

There's.

There's a.

There's a few that I can think of, but what one, Just like a grouping of them is everything.

You can visually see that through a lot of these posts.

But then you could also see people using photos that were from pre, like, March of that year to like, try to remember what it was like before this too.

So it was an interesting balance to see during that period of time.

And then one of the other things that immediately comes to mind is us.

As we were looking through posts, there was like one week that I can remember clearly where this person that went, like, every photo that they shared that week got over a thousand likes.

And it's like, that's a thing where, like now just because the changes of the platform and the prioritization of video on Instagram, it's harder for posts on Explore Rochester to get seen by as many.

Like, it doesn't get seen by a high percentage of the followers, which is really.

It's just out the algorithm suppressing it.

And so it's interesting to see at that time, like this whole week of somebody's posts.

Over a thousand, over a thousand, over a thousand.

You're like, oh, wow.

Like a lot of people got to see that and interact with it and commented on it.

And post just changes that the platform have made.

You can start to see stuff there too.

So that's interesting.

There's.

That, there's like those folks.

There's a couple photos that I remember vividly.

But what I find myself going back to is like, look, thinking back to photos of like the Year one gallery and like seeing just this mass of people at.

That was at Maker's gallery and studio.

Oh, right, Maker upstairs.

So I, I like buried those photos.

But I think that we're out of like the statute of limitations for breaking fire code now that we're out of that.

Like, I think about that night and just how special that was because, you know, I have a personal relation to social media and the way that it can affect people and how we can rely on it in such a way and to see them, everybody come offline for that night and just to have this true community in its.

In its truest form, from like the folks that donated things for us to give away that night to the local institutions that supported us, to, you know, people like, like Alex and Annie and Zach at that time kind of supporting us in that night.

Shout out to the Donut King.

Shout out for sure.

That was another point in time thinking about that.

It's such a special memory for me because again, I was.

We were a year in a little over.

And it takes me back to that moment and I thought about that while we were scrolling through this, these, these years.

Just like that's what it always has been about.

It's always been about how do we use this digital platform to bring people offline.

How do we do that and how do we encourage people to connect outside of the following and the liking.

And that was one of the first times outside of the rocks to meets and things like that where it really felt like.

Like hell yeah.

Like this.

This is real.

This is real.

This is something that you can, you can shake its hand and that's really a special thing.

And the last couple of years made that a little bit more difficult.

And we're encouraged to do that again.

Like, let's celebrate that and.

And bring people together in that way.

Yeah, that's.

I think that's the thing that I'm most excited about for this exhibition is just, like, having these opening nights or closing parties and stuff like that, where it just really allows the community to come together in person.

And this was a lot harder to do if we tried to do something like this a few years ago.

And we've hit, like, the milestone of 10 years.

And so you have, like, this collection now that it's like this visual archive, but it's not only about those photos.

It's about the people.

And that's really, like, goes back to the mission of Explore Rochester that we kind of crafted over the years is, like, really the goal of this is to connect people with people and people with place.

That's what we've always said.

That's, like, a very succinct way of kind of putting it.

Yeah, that's the tattoo, but really short and concise.

Yeah.

Yeah, but that's.

That's really what it is.

It's like, we, like, through connecting to the place that you live, you're also able to connect with your neighbors.

And you see, like, it's really cool to see people be like, oh, wait, you, like, you went on Explore Rochester.

Or.

I saw your post in, like, in real life and, like, seeing those connections, like, I've talked to people that have contributed even recently, and then being like, yeah, I was, like, at work, and somebody came up to me, and they're like, I loved your week on Explore Rochester.

And it's like, that's cool.

Like, that's a really special thing.

And that's really.

That.

That in person is really what we want.

And we actually, like, we did.

I think it was a presentation for.

What was it like, the Parks of New York State Convention.

I'm just chilling.

It was like.

But it was like the.

The parks convention for New York State, and they were talking about, like, how can we use social media to.

To, like, help get people interacting with the parks more?

And so we kind of did a little presentation for that.

This is years back, but, like, one of the things is, like, really a huge goal of what Justin said is, like, we're using social media to get people offline.

Like, that's really the ultimate goal in the end.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's not about the.

The platform and the followers.

It's about the place that it can hopefully impact and the people in it.

If you appreciate something, you're going to want to take care of it.

You're going to share it with other people.

And that's really what it all boils down to.

And to give it so that the next person that wants to leave, to go to, thinks they need to.

To go to school or to be creative or whatever, they realize it's right here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So one of the last couple things I wanted to talk about is collaboration.

So as two people who have collaborated for a very long time, that's a living relationship.

Right.

It changes.

It evolves as you're growing, as the project changes and everything else.

How has that experience been and how has, you know.

You know, what are the, you know, some of the experiences with collaborating that you remember from that.

From the 10 years?

You know, the good thing is we didn't just keep it to one thing, you know, collaborate on one thing over 10 years, but we're like, what if we do other stuff on top of it.

Yeah.

And so it's been a.

It's been a fun process because when you have somebody that you trust and that really is putting their heart into the same thing that you are, when you need to take a step back for a second, you've got that person that can kind of take over it.

But also when you're putting together something that has been unknowingly 10 years in the making, you have a lot of personal investment in what needs to be seen.

And the conversations that come from that have been incredible.

Just the brainstorming over this last couple of weeks and months has been really special because it's been forced reflection, but also an opportunity to really collaborate on something again because it's been able to run itself a little bit.

And I can say that while Steve's been the one running it, but between that and the intern.

Yeah, it makes a lot of mistakes, but tries hard.

And it's been nice to kind of get something that we can sink our teeth into again.

Yeah.

And, Steve, I'm gonna let you take it because you've really been running the.

Running the shit.

But.

Yeah, no, I mean, one.

I'll just take a step back, too.

I mean, as part of this, too, we've had other people step in and help us out along the way as collaborators, like, I know Olivia Prinzy, Dan Gribbin, and Joe Snell, who.

Joe was the one that connected us in the first place.

They all played a role, especially in the early years of Explore Rochester, it definitely, like, started really with us, but it.

It grew.

They helped us get through certain milestones early on, and it really helped motivate us and then.

But yeah, really getting to know each other through that and how we work and.

And that's led to collaborations.

Like Justin said, outside of Explore Rochester, like, there was different things that I was a part of.

I remember, like, Upstate Social Conference that I was a part of and helping out.

We needed help with design, and I was like, Justin.

And then through that, Justin met, like, the whole team.

And then from that, you got a job at another place.

Yeah, I got a job somewhere.

Like, just look at YouTube adults and having jobs.

Oh, yeah.

How about it?

Yeah.

Yeah, this is.

Yeah, believe it or not, this is not our job.

Yeah, we don't make.

We don't make any money off of it.

Yeah, just like all of.

All of our.

All of our passion projects.

Right.

I think it's one of the great things about being here is we've had the opportunity to create things that we really care about from, you know, for me, from Fruit About Town to nominate to lunch at our podcast network.

And then, you know, you'll Explore Rochester and contributing to, you know, the cocktail revival and so many different things that both of you have been involved with, being able to show your passion and be able to contribute like we talked about.

But, you know, Rochester has had that opening for us to, you know, bring ourselves into it.

Yeah, it's a city built by people that are willing to take a risk and create something.

And, you know, we were talking a little bit during the break about the.

The logo placement in the bottom left corner and how the first few weeks we didn't have a logo, but we were.

Steve still ran it.

He still started it because he was like, no, we're gonna do it.

And then, yeah, a couple weeks in, we got to that, and it's been like that for the last 10 years.

And then for the first full year, we were introducing people in a certain way and we found that, like, maybe it was year two, something like that.

We figured out, like, now this is how we're going to intro, folks.

And we've done that for the nine years following, like, these little things that we were able to make and then test in live action and fail in public and succeed in public and iterate upon ourselves in front of a live audience.

That's a pretty fun thing to do.

And the city provided us a platform to do that.

It.

It wasn't a place where it was like, well, you got six months to do it, right.

Or get out.

You know, like we.

We could fuck around and I don't know if we're allowed to swear here.

Yeah, whatever.

But what a great opportunity, right?

Like.

Like in a bigger city, like, you'd have to have so much more investment, so much everything.

Yeah.

And we just did things because we cared hard.

Yeah.

We were able to say, this is never something that we want to make money off of.

And it still is that, like, it is.

It's a.

It's a project and it's a way to expand upon a belief that the city has people in it that make it amazing.

And it.

It will always be that for as long as the people that are here believe that and are willing to expand upon it.

So.

Well.

And that kind of brings us to, you know, we're.

We're coming up on our time and I'm gonna ask the question that is.

It's the question that was always gonna be asked after 10 years.

Is, you know, is there an end?

Is this something that is gonna live regardless of participation from.

From, you know, you.

You know, from Steve or Justin or anything else?

Is this a project that will live or does it have an end?

What.

What is that?

How do you feel about that right now?

Yeah, we're waiting for the right small business direct to consumer brand that's really focused on Rust Belt cities, and we're gonna sell this.

And we are right off.

Are they gonna cut out the middleman by going direct to the consumer?

Direct to the consumer.

Which is awesome because you don't.

You don't have to worry about.

And they're going to be transparent.

Think about the middleman.

We hate the middleman.

The middleman, yeah.

So we're gonna sell it and we're.

Just trying to raise the value.

We're just.

Yeah, this is really a valuation increase.

Because we press tour right now to.

Drive up the valuation Q4.

A shares, B shares.

So many things, dude.

Seeds, seed, rounds.

Are you freaking kidding me?

Planet.

Planet.

But yeah, Steve, Yeah.

So now that I foiled that, I don't know, I mean, here's the thing.

Like, I.

I think there's.

There's still so many more people out there that live in Rochester that have a voice, have a perspective, and I think that's valuable to share.

And I think.

I think there's a.

Like, if I see the value of this drop and I see people not interacting with it, and it's just like not bringing any value to the community, then that that's probably a good time to hey, let's, let's put a pin in it and call this a day.

But so far like when I've talked to people even over the last year, there's a lot of people that still find a lot of value in it and make a lot of connections from.

Helps different small businesses in the area and it's helped just different people make connections that are valuable.

And so with that I'm like, ah, like I, I can't.

Even though this is a lot of work, it's like I, I don't see a definitive end date.

I mean if we, if we had an intern.

Oh wait, we do have an intern.

If we had two interns, yeah, maybe, maybe that could help it keep going for a little bit longer if I could find the right people to kind of play a role in it.

But right now, I mean, able to keep it going.

There's a system.

And that's kind of what Justin was saying too is like we kind of found naturally over the course of the 10 years what works and how we can kind of streamline things to make it really easy to like really make it all about the person that's sharing on it.

Not have to do a lot of extra fluff, not have to like always be thinking of things to post about.

It's really like, oh, it's, I can go and reach out to two to three weeks worth of people or two to three months worth of people at a time, get them lined up, send them emails, get them all locked in and then just kind of go from there.

And it's, it's usually pretty plug and play, which is nice because it has a system at this point.

So that being said, I think that one of the things that has been consistent in the last 10 years is the platform has changed.

And there could be a time where the platform phases us out and where they decide you can, you have to pay to post more than once a week or whatever, you know, and that could, that could be it.

That could be the nail in the coffin that's like we're out.

But so we're reactive to the way that the platform, platform is changing because at the end of the day that's.

We'Re dependent on it.

Yeah, that's what we, what we live on.

We built on onto this and whatnot.

So I think I am.

Yeah.

But I think the special thing about having this like 10 year retrospective is, and I'm really thankful to Blue and the team at, at Roko for, for identifying that this is something that is worth putting up on their walls.

And I think it is.

And we were always talking, I mean, for like, the last five years, like, should we do something when we hit 10 years?

Never did I think that we were going to be able to make it work at Roko.

I thought we were going to have to, like, find a random old abandoned building and try to put stuff up on a wall and spend a lot of time trying to do it ourselves.

And thankfully, there's a team there that's really good at what they do.

Yeah.

And they're really helping make this successful.

But that's one of the things that's really special about taking a second to, like, identify this moment or mark this moment as like, hey, this is a moment in time where there's 10 years worth of imagery photos within the city that were taken by different people in the city.

And this is what it looked like over that, over that time.

And that's something that, like, I think to me, as somebody that has, like, worked in photography and film and identifies with, like, the history of the city and its ties to Kodak, really, really greatly.

Like, I.

I think there's something special about this being, like, a visual archive marking this moment in time.

And I mean, like, one of my favorite photographers at this point and one of my favorite things about, like, Rochester is the Albert Stone Collection.

And so you get so much change of the city that the city was booming during that time.

In a crazy way that's hard to even understand.

Yeah.

Today, where.

Where are those housed?

Well, I know that the Rochester Museum and Science center owns the collection, but I think they have a website that you can actually go and view online a lot of the collection.

But, like, that's seeing Rochester in a moment in time, which is really, really cool.

And I think there's other projects out there that are showing Rochester in this moment, literally.

Oh, that was.

That was terrible.

But, like, there's other things like, that are also, like, documenting these moments.

And so I think that just.

It's really cool that this is like, where the Albert Stone Collection is the perspective of one photographer over a long period of time.

The cool thing about this exhibition specifically is you get 10 years of.

Of the city and the region, but you get it from not just one perspective.

You get it from 502 perspectives.

So.

And it's all physical and it's there that you're looking at it.

It's not something that you can swipe by.

You know, it's like let's spend a little bit of time and remind ourselves where and when and.

Yeah, well, speaking of when, where and what, why don't you guys tell people when they can come visit Rochester Contemporary Art center to check out the Explore Rochester 10 year retrospective experience?

Yeah.

Well, opening night is March 7th, 6:00-9:00pm we are gonna have an opening party that's gonna be a great time.

Chris is gonna be there like we said earlier, recording some stuff with past contributors and then that's going to live in the space for the rest of the show.

So definitely come back.

If you go to the opening, come back because there'll be a new experience added probably a week or so later to the whole thing.

But it will be at ROKO from March 7th through May 10th.

Yeah, and they'll be open.

We'll do the couple first Fridays in the middle of that.

So the first Friday of both of those months, same time, 6 to 9, but then they are open.

Looks like 12 to 5 on Sundays, 12 to 5 Wednesday through Thursday, 12 to 9 on Friday and 12 to 5 on Saturday.

And all that's on their website and it'll be up.

And that's.

It's not a one night thing.

So don't feel like you need to come out on the, on the first Friday.

But please do, but please do but.

Come out the first Friday and then come back because there's so much things to see, so much amazing perspectives that have been shared.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's, there's, it's going to be a really fun night the, at the opening, but it might not give you the best opportunity to really dive into like the, all these photographs that are going to be up on the wall.

So yeah, I definitely think it's one where I know for me I'm planning to go multiple times, many, many times.

Not even just during installation, but just like to take in the different years and try to like see the different connection points that you get throughout the whole thing.

So I think it's really special.

Not that I'm like biased in the sense that certainly not.

But like I do think just I'm excited to see what it all looks like because we spent the last few months curating this and part of that curation process was a process of finding all of the photos first and putting them all into folders and then curating from that.

That took forever.

But the fun thing about it is like even us going through that curation process, we didn't get to see what it looks like on the walls.

And going kind of year by year and looking at it, you don't actually necessarily see how these different points all connect.

So once it's all up on the walls, it's going to be really special.

And we've got a couple other things integrated into the gallery that are really going to help bring it all together and put a little bit of data to what has been captured over that whole time, as well as some interactive elements.

So it's going to be fun to really bring that all together into one space.

And yeah.

Well, I really appreciate you guys coming over and talking about the, you know, about the gallery opening and explore Rochester in general.

If you want to learn more about what's going on in Rochester right now, especially from the podcast side of things, you should go to lunchadore.org and check out all of the shows on the network.

As Steve intimated, we're also working with in this moment on turning all of their chat books into audiobooks.

We're really proud of that work.

The first three should be out.

The first two more should be out this week.

One's out now and we also have so many more coming.

We also have a music show starting with Kate Rogers from Bad Blood and the Sound called Nights and Weekends that should be out when this one is out as well.

We're really happy about becoming more part of what Rochester is today.

So thank you so much for joining us for this episode of Just can't not see you out at the Rochester Contemporary Art Center.

This has been a presentation of the Lunch Podcast Network.

Steve Carter, nickname Steve Carter.

Activities, photography quote see in the gallery suckers.

Thank you, year eight week 24 contributor Chris Lindstrom.

Nick.