408 We Create Butterflies

Wonderful Wings

Turning hundreds of community-created butterfly drawings into a citywide AR spectacle

#WeCreate408 initiative · AR (Membit) · San Jose, 2024–2025

What if a city's public art were made by everyone in it? As part of San Jose's #WeCreate408 initiative, residents of all ages — kids and adults, crayons in hand at public events across the city — designed their own butterflies from a simple template. Each flat drawing was transformed into a dynamic 3D model and geo-located in the skies over San Jose, creating a citywide AR scavenger hunt in which participants discovered butterflies at public locations to qualify for prizes. The project converts a simple drawing activity into massive, immersive world-building, shifting citizens from passive observers to active co-authors of their city's digital landscape — with the potential for new "swarms" of community art in future editions.

Participants color butterfly templates at a table covered in crayons. — Community members create the butterfly drawings.

Membit app view of a We Create 408 welcome panel and an orange butterfly in a park. — The welcome panel in the Membit experience.

Membit app view of red and blue community-designed butterflies above a city sidewalk. — Drawings take flight above the sidewalk.

A red AR butterfly and other colorful butterflies float above a San Jose street. — A close view of a butterfly on a downtown street.

A purple butterfly drawing appears at large scale in an AR view of a street. — A community drawing becomes a large AR butterfly.

An upward Membit app view of community butterfly drawings against the sky and tree canopy. — Butterflies among the trees in the Membit app.

Colorful community-designed butterflies float against a blue sky in augmented reality. — A swarm of community-created butterflies.

A red We Create 408 heart appears on a San Jose plaza. — The We Create 408 heart in the city.

Purple completion screen reading that the butterfly hunt is complete and prizes are available. — The butterfly hunt completion screen.

Jay's Role

Immersive experience design and creative direction.

Collaborators

Butterfly drawings: Artists of all ages in and around San Jose.

Technology & Medium

Augmented Reality

Client & Sector

Civic & Public

Conceptual Framework

Wonderful Wings is a participatory public artwork built from hundreds of butterfly drawings made by artists of all ages in and around San Jose. Across the 2024 and 2025 editions, those individual drawings became a shared AR landscape. The work connects a personal act of making with a collective public presence: residents become contributors to the city’s visual life.

The experience joins the workshop table, the smartphone, and the city. A common drawing template makes participation approachable, while the AR scavenger hunt invites people to move through public places and discover one another’s contributions. My immersive experience design shapes the process through which these drawings become a citywide experience. Shared authorship is central: the community’s drawings are the foundation of the work.

Bibliography

City of San José, Office of Economic Development and Cultural Affairs. “NEWS RELEASE: City of San José Announces April Community-Wide Creativity Challenge.” City of San José. April 3, 2024.
WeCreate408 / City of San José Office of Cultural Affairs. “This Years #WeCreate408 Creative Challenge.” WeCreate408. 2024 campaign prompts.
WeCreate408 / City of San José Office of Cultural Affairs. “This Years #WeCreate408 Creative Challenge.” WeCreate408. 2025 campaign prompts.

← Previous

We Stand On Their Shoulders

Brooklyn is Watching