ANIMATING DEMOCRACY E-NEWS

 Animating Democracy News and Updates

Reverend Deacon Edgar W. Hopper to be inducted into People’s Hall of Fame

www.citylore.org
Established in 1993 to honor grassroots contributions to New York's cultural life, the annual People's Hall of Fame awards honor the contributions of ordinary people outside the glare of mass media. This year, a committee of New York City lovers and City Lore’s Board of Directors selected Reverend Deacon Edgar W. Hopper from St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church to join the People’s Hall of Fame for his work to save and restore the Slave Galleries, a racially segregated area of seating behind the balcony of St. Augustine’s on the Lower East Side. The Slave Galleries Restoration Project was supported by Animating Democracy. “The People’s Hall of Fame shines a bright light on the city’s most precious nonrenewable resource: those individuals who delight and inspire us with their character, presence, and exceptional talent. They are the ones who make New York New York,” says Steve Zeitlin, director of City Lore. Each inductee will receive a larger-than-life token of esteem—a large bronze cast of an actual subway token—from City Lore, a nationally recognized organization devoted to showcasing the cultural heritage of New York City. City Lore was also supported by Animating Democracy for its Poetry Dialogues project.

Carole Zawatsky to direct the new Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage in Cleveland

www.maltzjewishmuseum.org
In July, Carole Zawatsky left The Jewish Museum in New York to become the director of the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage in Cleveland. This new museum, set to open in spring 2005, will explore the history, traditions, and achievements of northeast Ohio’s Jewish community through the lives of its individuals and families. Zawatsky’s role as education curator at The Jewish Museum was instrumental in developing dialogue programs for the groundbreaking exhibition Mirroring Evil: Nazi Imagery/Recent Art, supported by Animating Democracy.

Animating Democracy in the field

In late October and early November, several artists and organizers representing Animating Democracy projects presented at three national conferences. At the National Conference for Dialogue and Deliberation in Denver, members of the Traces of the Trade project presented selected scenes from the documentary video about filmmaker Katrina Browne’s ancestors, who were New England’s largest slave trading family. Dialogue practitioners discussed the film in relation to their own work as catalyst for dialogue about white privilege. The session was repeated based on interest. Urban Bush Women representatives demonstrated how dance and dialogue can be combined to catalyze public dialogue through the company’s recent project, “Are We Democracy?” At the Imagining America conference in Philadelphia, New WORLD Theater presented a session about Project 2050 that included youth participants involved in the project. The project was well received as a model for university/community partnerships; involvement of scholars, artists, and youth as co-creators of knowledge; and giving voice to youth about civic and social issues.

Pam Korza and Barbara Schaffer Bacon also made presentations about Animating Democracy at the recent Grantmakers in the Arts conference in Cleveland and at the Social Theory, Politics and the Arts conference in Fairfax, VA.

 News from the Field

Leadership for a Changing World announces call for 2005 awards

www.leadershipforchange.org
Leadership for a Changing World, a program of the Ford Foundation, is seeking nominations of community leaders across the country who are successfully tackling tough social problems. Seventeen outstanding social justice leaders and leadership teams who are not widely known beyond their immediate community or field will receive awards of $100,000 to advance their work, plus $15,000 for learning activities that will support their efforts. The program seeks to encourage a public dialogue that recognizes a wide variety of leaders and leadership models as authentic and important to social progress. To this end, the program includes a major, multiyear research initiative and numerous forums to bring awardees together with other leaders to share experiences, address specific challenges, and explore opportunities for collaboration. Nominations will be accepted by the Advocacy Institute through January 7, 2005.

Academy for Educational Development announces next grant round

www.aed.org/newvoices
The Academy for Educational Development has announced its next competition for 15 grant awards to support nonprofits and promising new leaders committed to social justice. Averaging $100,000 each, the two-year grants offer support for salary, fringe benefits, financial assistance, leadership training, mentoring, and professional development. Sponsored fields of work include international human rights, HIV/AIDS, migrant and refugee rights, racial justice, reproductive rights, and women's rights. The deadline to apply is January 10, 2005.

Sol y Soul premieres Cappers

www.solysoul.com
Sol y Soul, a Washington, DC-based arts organization that supports established and emerging artists by presenting creative works with a social conscience, premiered Cappers last week. This new work explores the theme of urban renewal in Arthur Cappers/Carrollsburg, a public housing project in Southeast Washington slated for redevelopment. Part theater, part journalism, the play weaves together interviews from the community that speak to the permanent displacement of low-income families throughout the country.

Exact Changes requests assistance in documenting impact of arts-based projects

Exact Changes is a new collaboration between Art in the Public Interest and the Center for the Study of Art & Community that is working to document arts-based programs that have produced significant and sustained positive impact in their respective communities. The goal of the project is to better learn how these programs have managed to thrive and make consistent, measurable contributions over time. As such, the project is seeking assistance from the field in identifying projects that meet one or more of the following criteria: programs of high artistic quality and significant and sustained community impact (10 years or more); the development of a sustained support system for the creation and delivery of arts-based community development programs; and/or a measurable and indelible increase in awareness of and support for arts-based community development programs as a valuable community resource. For more information or to suggest a program, contact Bill Cleveland at the Center for the Study of Art & Community, bill@artandcommunity.com, with the subject line “Exact Changes.”

 Articles and Publications

Home, Land, Security: Exploring Displacement reviewed by Star Tribune

In her article, “Home, Land, Security,” Mary Abbe reviews Intermedia Arts’ most recent project and exhibition, Home, Land, Security: Exploring Displacement. The project, a new multidimensional project that examines the policies and conditions that impact Minnesota’s new and existing immigrant communities, includes a visual exhibition featuring five immigrant artists, brown bag dialogues, film screenings, performances, and community workshops. "How is the notion of home connected to a place? To land? And how do those connections create a sense of security?" asks Sandy Agustin, Intermedia's artistic director. The exhibition runs through January 22, 2005.

 Events on the Horizon

The Power of Dialogue (POD): Constructive Conversations on Divisive Issues
Philadelphia: November 18–20, 2004
San Diego: February 3–5, 2005

www.publicconversations.org
When conflict in the public sphere is expressed by devaluing, stereotyping, name-calling, and demonizing, vital energy is diverted from constructive purposes. People become loyal to their viewpoint and denounce what they believe to be an “opposing” situation. This can rupture the sense of community and conceal positive options for living and working together.
 
Chronic polarized conflict is often grounded in differences in values, identities, or world views and is often resistant to conventional methods of intervention. Dialogue, however, can be a transformative force because it goes directly to the ground where protracted conflict begins. It encourages people to articulate and understand their own and others’ values, identities, and relationships, creating openings for civility and respectful coexistence. As a result, new ground is created where people can learn to work respectfully and constructively with differences.
 
Through experiential exercises, an extensive dialogue simulation, presentations, and demonstrations, participants will learn how to apply the key elements of Public Conversations Project’s dialogue facilitation.

The Two Fires Festival
Dates: March 18–21, 2005
Braidwood, NSW, Australia

www.twofiresfestival.com
The Two Fires Conference will be held at the Two Fires Festival, a unique festival celebrating and extending the legacy of the great Australian poet, conservationist, and reconciliation activist Judith Wright. The conference will run over four days, celebrating and nurturing the essential relationship between the “two fires,” arts and activism.

Co-convened by Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University's Globalism Institute and the Centre for Popular Education at the University of Technology Sydney, the conference aims to bring together communities of people active in all the areas of concern that motivated Wright—including conservation, reconciliation, place education, and the creative arts. The conference welcomes proposals from artists, activists, community cultural development practitioners, scholars, educators, and change agents that explore the key themes of the tension between art and activism, place, and environment. Proposals must be received by November 15, 2004.

Democracy and the Arts: Voices and Choices
Dates: May 2–3, 2005
Kent, OH

The Sixth Annual Symposium on Democracy, Democracy and the Arts: Voices and Choices, draws on the lessons of May 4, 1970, when Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on unarmed Kent State University students protesting the invasion of Cambodia by United States troops.

Kent State University invites proposals that deal with multiple perspectives on democracy and the arts and that inform an understanding of the present and allow a vision for the future. Proposals should focus on any of the following content areas: art as memory, art as education, art as an instrument of social change, art as an expression of freedom, art and protest, art as a way to facilitate civic engagement, the role of government in the sponsorship and control of the arts, arts in different kinds of democracies, art in relation to power and privilege, art as commodity, and public art in relation to public values and public spaces. Deadline for receipt of proposals is 5:00 p.m. EST on December 3, 2004. For more information, contact Larry Andrews, chair, Symposium on Democracy Committee, Kent State University, at landrews@kent.edu.

 About Animating Democracy

Animating Democracy is a four-year initiative of Americans for the Arts and is made possible with support from the Ford Foundation.

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