ANIMATING DEMOCRACY E-NEWS
January 2005
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Animating Democracy News and Updates |
Animating Democracy announces intern positionwww.artsusa.org/about_us/internships.asp
Animating Democracy seeks an undergraduate or graduate student for a spring 2005 internship. The intern’s primary responsibility will be to research and write profiles of arts- and humanities-based civic dialogue and engagement projects for the Animating Democracy website Project Profile Database. In addition, the intern will assist Animating Democracy staff with various projects to support the program’s goals. Candidates must have strong writing and research skills and a strong familiarity with Microsoft Office products, including Word and Excel. A student with interest in community arts/arts-based civic engagement is preferred. Application deadline is January 31, 2005.
Americans for the Arts announces membership opportunitywww.artsusa.org/get_involved/membership/join_form.asp
It’s a new year, and membership in Americans for the Arts has new benefits to offer you! As a member of Americans for the Arts, you have direct access to tools to help you work toward your community’s goals. As a member, you will receive discounts on items in our bookstore, including Animating Democracy publications and resources; Arts Link, the Americans for the Arts quarterly newsletter, which provides valuable research and information on the state of the arts field; access to more than 15 listservs covering a wide variety of topics, including cultural diversity, emerging leaders, and community development; and reduced registration fees to seminars and the annual Americans for the Arts Convention. The 2005 Convention in Austin, TX, June 11–13, 2005, will again feature four workshops developed by Animating Democracy which are designed to illuminate opportunities and best practices for linking the arts and civic engagement.
Join this month and receive a 50 percent discount on Animating Democracy: The Artistic Imagination as a Force in Civic Dialogue. This national study profiles selected projects that have effectively linked the arts and civic dialogue and identifies issues and trends in the art and civic dialogue realms.
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News from the Field |
ARTOGRAPHY: Arts in a Changing America extends grant deadlinewww.lincnet.net/artography/
ARTOGRAPHY: Arts in a Changing America is a new funding program that aims to support exemplary art making as seen through a lens of the changing demographics of the United States and its expanding realm of cultural aesthetics. ARTOGRAPHY will award eight to 12 organizations two-year general operating support grants of $25,000 to $50,000 a year, with additional funds made available to grantees for targeted purposes on a competitive basis. A preliminary application is due by January 31, 2005. Professionals from the arts field will review these applications and invite full proposals by April 4, 2005. ARTOGRAPHY is being incubated by Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC) with a grant from the Ford Foundation.
American Festival Project posts documentation from 2004 ART & DEMOCRACY Gatheringwww.appalshop.org/afp/gathering.htm
In September, The American Festival Project’s 2004 Annual Gathering—ART & DEMOCRACY, A National Gathering of Artists and Activists—brought together national and international artists and cultural workers with the goal of building coalitions and encouraging artistic cross-pollination. This gathering at Appalshop dovetailed with the Kennedy Performance Project, a two-day gathering that opened with presentations from community arts projects in the eastern Kentucky mountains and culminated with a discussion of the future of community arts throughout the nation. Documentation from this event, posted on the American Festival Project website, include articles and perspectives from participants such as artist Marty Pottenger, former Director of Multidisciplinary Arts at the NEA and consultant to the Ford Foundation Vanessa Whang, Director of the Kentucky Foundation for Women Judi Jennings, Founder of the Teen Project in Santa Fe Chrissie Orr, and Executive and Literary Director of Pangea World Theater in Minneapolis Meena Natarajan.
Lower East Side Tenement Museum announces dialogue facilitator positionswww.tenement.org
The Lower East Side Tenement Museum, a participant in the Animating Democracy Slave Galleries Restoration Project at St. Augustine’s Church, has announced an opening for dialogue facilitators at the museum. These part-time facilitators for the “Kitchen Conversations,” one-hour facilitated discussions available to visitors after their tour of the museum, will engage visitors in dialogue and help them to gain new perspective on contemporary immigration issues. Candidates must have previous experience facilitating dialogues or mediating discussions, experience working with a diverse group of people, excellent communication and organizational skills, the ability to speak comfortably in front of groups, a strong awareness of contemporary immigrant issues, and the ability to work flexible hours. To apply, fax a cover letter and resume to Karly Li, interpretation associate, at 212.431.0402 or e-mail kli@tenement.org.
Danville Transportation Enhancement Project organizes “Danville: A Show of Hands”www.DanvilleProject.com
As part of the Danville Transportation Enhancement Project, designer John Zwick and artist Maggie Sherman organized “Danville: A Show of Hands.” The exhibit consists of 600 clay handprints impressed to cover a tree on the town green. Students traced their handprints onto clay sheets and inscribed answers to five questions on their life in Danville, VT. Students then met with friends, neighbors, and family members to collect additional handprints. Pressed into the tree during Danville's autumn festival in October 2004, the prints succeeded in keeping members of the community engaged in the Danville Transportation Enhancement Project and encouraged further community dialogue surrounding what’s important and valuable to Danville residents.
USC Annenberg announces Getty Arts Journalism Fellowshipshttp://ascweb.usc.edu/asc.php?pageID=246
The School of Journalism at the USC Annenberg School for Communication has announced its fourth annual USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Fellowship, May 5–26, 2005. The fellowship is an intense, three-week multidisciplinary program that aims to improve arts coverage by bringing together artists, curators, theater directors, administrators, funders, and colleagues. The program is designed for all journalists—editors, reporters, and critics—with at least five years of experience. It seeks a small group of print, online, or broadcast journalists who are passionately interested in disciplines both outside of and within their area of expertise, and in examining the current states of art making and arts coverage. Applicants must demonstrate significant dedication to their fields and the ambition to make a future impact. International applicants are welcome. Applications must be postmarked by January 15, 2005.
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Articles and Publications |
Three new case studies posted onlinewww.americansforthearts.org/AnimatingDemocracy/reading_room/reading_002.asp
Three more in a series of case studies about Animating Democracy-funded projects have been posted to the Animating Democracy website:
Allen County Common Threads Theater Project
Arts Council of Greater Lima
In Ohio’s Allen County, issues of race, leadership, and water resources have divided city and county officials and residents. The Allen County Common Threads Theater Project sought to address these issues. Building upon a successful 2000 event called Common Threads, the Arts Council of Greater Lima, Bluffton College, and a steering committee of interested citizens set out to develop a second Common Threads revolving around an extended theater residency by Sojourn Theater and a culminating performance and community conference in 2002. Over 14 months, Sojourn company members interviewed 400 Allen County residents. Their words and perspectives fueled Artistic Director Michael Rohd’s script for the “poetic documentary” play, Passing Glances: Mirrors and Windows in Allen County. This case study, written by Animating Democracy Project Liaison Sue Wood, provides an in-depth view of Sojourn Theater’s intensive community-based theater process and its dialogic aspects, as well as the community conference facilitated by Pat Romney and a team of trained local facilitators. The case study describes the project’s broad-based community leadership—a core team of organizers and “sector leaders” who effectively linked to various constituents. It also analyzes tensions that were constructively addressed, including naming and framing the issue, negotiating insider/outsider concerns, and collaboration between artist and dialogue consultant.
The Slave Galleries Restoration Project
St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church and the Lower East Side Tenement Museum
The Slave Galleries Restoration Project was a collaboration between St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church and the Lower East Side Tenement Museum to restore and interpret two slave galleries in the church—cramped rooms where African American congregants were segregated during the 19th century. The intent was to use the power of the historic site and the conversations about how to restore and interpret it as a catalyst for exploring contemporary issues of marginalization on New York’s Lower East Side. The project brought together community preservationists—leaders representing African American, Asian, Latino, Jewish, and other ethnic and religious groups—with scholars and preservationists in this process. The community preservationists were trained in dialogue facilitation skills and then engaged people within their own communities in dialogue about current issues they face. The Slave Galleries Project illuminates issues of ownership of history: Who controls the course and terms of projects like this one that are at once a link to specific histories, but that also have broader civic intent? Written by project organizers, the case study explores issues of authority in decision-making, as well as control of resource allocation through the multiple relationships in the project. The project exemplifies building and sustaining the community’s capacity for civic dialogue through the creation of a cadre of community preservationists skilled in civic dialogue facilitation.
Ties that Bind
MACLA/Movimiento de Arte y Cultural Latino Americana
In September 2002, MACLA, a San José-based Latino contemporary arts space, premiered Ties that Bind: Exploring the Role of Intermarriage Between Latinos and Asians in Silicon Valley. The photography-based installation of new work by artists Lissa Jones and Jennifer Ahn reflected on the history of Asian-Latino intermarriage and contemporary perceptions of ethnicity in the San José area. Capitalizing on the groundswell of public interest in ethnic and racial hybridization trends borne out by Census 2000, the Ties that Bind exhibition and dialogues sought to engage a broad cross section of San José residents in civic dialogue about how Asian-Latino intermarriages in Silicon Valley are challenging the prevailing myths of ethnic identity. This case study, written by Lynn E. Stern, offers insights into MACLA’s use of an ethnographic-based curatorial approach to drive the project’s artistic development, and reveals how the project team wrestled with ethical and aesthetic considerations in the process of rendering the participating families’ personal stories into art. It also chronicles challenges and insights gained along the way that prompted key changes in the design of the project, namely an increased role for the artists and a shift in the scope of the dialogue component. The project and case study also raise key questions about the nature of civic dialogue: Does civic dialogue necessarily need to be “public”? How does the intent to foster civic dialogue affect aesthetic choices?
Duke performance students engage Durham communitywww.communityarts.net/readingroom/archivefiles/2004/11/its_about_build.php
New on the Community Arts Network, artist and collaboration expert Sheila Kerrigan writes about her 2003 course at Duke University in Durham, NC. In “Community-Based Performance: Where Art and Activism Intersect,” Kerrigan describes her experience teaching nine university students the process of effecting social change through the arts. During the first weeks of the course, Kerrigan trained the students in the principles of community-based art. Through facilitated dialogue exercises, the students chose the issue of “stereotyping” to design and perform an original theatrical production. Later, working with an Americorps leadership program called Public Allies, students worked with teens from two organizations in Durham to lead dialogues and develop a play around depression and suicide, an issue central to area youth, which was performed several times within the community. In detailing the project from start to finish, Kerrigan explores the challenges of the community art-making process from her point of view, as well as from that of her students.
National Center for Creative Aging announces new publicationswww.creativeaging.org/publications.html
The National Center for Creative Aging, a professional organization dedicated to promoting understanding of the vital link between creative expression and the quality of life of older people, released two new resource and training guides in 2004. A Stage for Memory: A Guide to the Living History Theater Program of Elders Share the Arts, by Reyna Larson, explores the nuts-and-bolts of reminiscence-based “Living History Theatre,” a program of Elders Share the Arts, through sample activities and case studies from 25 years of work in New York City. The Arts and Dementia Care: A Resource Guide, by Anne Davis Basting and John Killick, examines ways to help staff or volunteers create, implement, and sustain arts programming in dementia care settings. The guide includes examples of promising practice programs from around the country; offers strategies for how to overcome common obstacles such as institutional buy-in, fundraising, and evaluation; and concludes with an extensive list of resources.
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Events on the Horizon |
Southwest Arts Conference (SWAC)
Date: January 28, 2005
Phoenix, AZwww.arizonaarts.org/SWAC/
Artists and arts organizations help give a community an identity, contribute to the local economy, bring visitors and new residents into a community, and provide a forum for the different voices in a community to speak and be heard. As artists and arts organizations strike a balance between achieving their mission and offering experiences that are valuable to participants, they take on various roles that overtly or subtly impact their community. PULSE: The Arts in Civic Life, the SWAC 2005 conference, explores the unique place artists and arts organizations occupy in our communities. Poet, educator, and native of Nogales, Alberto Ríos, will be the keynote speaker and will talk about his roles in the community as artist, arts supporter, private citizen, and public educator.
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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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Share With Us! |
Do you have news you would like to share with Animating Democracy and the broader world of art and civic engagement? Send an e-mail to adi@artsusa.org with "Animating Democracy E-News" in the subject line. Please be sure to include full contact information.
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