ANIMATING DEMOCRACY E-NEWS
October 2003
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Animating Democracy News and Updates |
National Exchange on Art & Civic Dialogue Newswww.AmericansForTheArts.org/AnimatingDemocracy
The National Exchange on Art & Civic Dialogue was held in Flint, MI, October 9-12, 2003. Many pioneering artists, cultural leaders, activists, and dialogue professionals joined us to share the roots of this work as well as their current work. We were extremely pleased to welcome Grace Lee Boggs as our featured presenter. She was an inspiration for all throughout the conference. Thanks to all who made the event such a great success! Now that we’re back in the saddle, don’t get too comfortable--the Exchange goes on! This month, check out the updated National Exchange section of the Animating Democracy site for Grace Lee Boggs’ speech and Alice Lovelace’s Groupspeak poem, performed during the Exchange closing. And for a recap of the event, take a look at Linda Frye Burnham’s review of the event on the Community Arts Network site, www.communityarts.net/readingroom/archive/52adi.php. Finally…we hear you’re interested in continuing the discourse. So, how did the National Exchange stimulate your thinking about your work? the future? Visit the online Discussion Forum section to continue the Exchange. And stay tuned in December for session notes, photos, and more!
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"Imagining Robert" Chosen Among Outstanding Documentaries of 2002The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has notified the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities that “Imagining Robert: My Brother, Madness, and Survival” has been chosen by the Academy’s Documentary Screening Committee as one of the outstanding documentaries of 2002. In addition to honoring the film with a special screening at UCLA’s James Bridges Theater, the film will be shown with one of this year’s Academy Award nominees for best documentary short. “Imagining Robert” was produced by the team of Lawrence Hott and Diane Garey of Florentine Films/Hott Productions, Inc., with funding from the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities, Animating Democracy, and the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships in Mental Health Journalism.
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Mott Foundation Awards $1.3 Million to Flint Youth Theatrewww.mott.org
The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation in Flint, MI, has awarded $1.36 million to the Flint Cultural Center Corporation to build the endowment and underwrite the operating costs of the Flint Youth Theatre (FYT). The theatre, a grantee of Animating Democracy and host of the National Exchange on Art & Civic Dialogue, served more than 81,000 Flint residents through its programs and facilities last year. "We have a long association with this institution and believe it plays a significant educational role throughout the greater Flint area," said Mott Foundation President William S. White. "This grant will allow FYT to continue its excellent community-based, social-issue productions and help to build an endowment to sustain that excellence for many years to come."
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News from the Field |
Public Conversations Project Introduces Faith Quilts Projectwww.publicconversations.org/pcp/index.asp?page_id=226&catid=67
The Faith Quilts Project, a new activity of the Public Conversations Project, will aim to bring together quiltmakers and faith communities to convey the richness of each faith to the broader Boston community by creating collaborative works that express the central aspects of each faith tradition’s religious and cultural heritage. As quilts are created, photography, audio, and video will capture the process of quilt design and creation and result in a short film. Other project activities will include quilt exhibits, film screenings, and facilitated interfaith dialogues through 2006, culminating in a grand exhibition of the quilts with performances of faith-inspired music, dance, art, poetry, and a collaborative quiltmaking resource book.
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Artists in the Cause of Human Rights explored at Comparative Human Rights ConferenceThe fourth annual comparative human rights conference, organized by the UNESCO Chair in Comparative Human Rights at the University of Connecticut, took place at the University of Connecticut, Storrs Campus, in late October. The event reflected on the role artists have played in mobilizing people for the causes of freedom, self-realization, and human dignity. Presenters at the conference---including Hugh Masekela, The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, Arturo Arias, Hugh Blumenfeld, Conny Braam, and Patricia Thrane---explored the role they have played in promoting social justice and suggested ways in which the arts can transcend the barriers of prejudice and translate the ideals of human rights into reality.
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Articles and Publications |
Critical Perspectives Essays Posted Onlinewww.americansforthearts.org/AnimatingDemocracy/reading_room/reading_003.asp
The first installment of Critical Perspectives, a collection of writings about three diverse Animating Democracy Lab projects, has been posted on the Animating Democracy website. First, essays by Ferdinand Lewis, David Rooks, and Jim O’Quinn, as well as a response to the essays by Michael Fields, exploring Dell’Arte International’s Dentalium Project have been posted. Second, you’ll find essays by John Kuo Wei Tchen, Rodger Taylor, and Lorraine Johnson-Coleman related to St. Augustine’s Church’s Slave Galleries Project and the Lower East Side Tenement Museum’s Slave Galleries Project. An introductory essay written by noted cultural essayist Lucy Lippard explores the challenges of writing about civically engaged art.
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The Art of Dialogue by Dr. Patricia Romney Posted Onlinewww.americansforthearts.org/AnimatingDemocracy/reading_room/reading_010.asp
In The Art of Dialogue, dialogue specialist and clinical/organizational psychologist Patricia Romney offers an accessible review of the ideas of selected historic and contemporary philosophers and dialogue theorists---including: Socrates and Plato, Mikhail Bakhtin, Paulo Freire, David Bohm, and David Isaacs---and considers the implications of their ideas for arts-based civic dialogue practice. Animating Democracy invites you to read Romney’s article and discuss it on the Animating Democracy website discussion forums.
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San Francisco Chronicle Reviews Henry Art Gallery’s Gene(sis) Projectwww.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/10/04/DD295114.DTL
As an effort following the The Henry Art Gallery’s Animating Democracy Lab project, the exhibition Gene(sis): Contemporary Art Explores Human Genomics is showing at the UC Berkeley Art Museum. About the exhibition, staff writer Kenneth Baker expresses: “Visitors will probably leave "Gene(sis)" more confused than when they arrived, both about the issues touched upon in it and about the potential of art to respond usefully to them. But ten years from now we may remember this as a turning-point exhibition, like the "Information" show that baffled and frustrated people at New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1970, at the threshold of the digital age.” Gene(sis) will close in San Francisco, CA, on November 16, 2003.
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Flint Youth Theatre Case Study Posted Onlinewww.americansforthearts.org/AnimatingDemocracy/reading_room/reading_002.asp
Another new Animating Democracy Lab case study has been posted on the Animating Democracy website. …My Soul to Take, the Flint Youth Theatre project addressing the issue of school violence, is examined in a case study written by Sue Wood, formerly the project’s director. The case study illuminates when and how a cultural organization can effectively contribute to broader public discourse on a pressing and painful community issue. Further, it analyzes the particular aesthetic style of FYT’s production, how it evolved from and supported dialogue, and reflects upon FYT’s capacity to do the work within its broader mission as a theater for young people.
Visit the Animating Democracy website for continued updates on projects and publications.
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Federal Health Project Uses Boal in TexasAugusto Boal's Forum Theater techniques were recently used in a project at Bruce Elementary School in Houston's Fifth Ward to address a section of abandoned, polluted land across from the school. The project, a collaboration between groups including Mothers for Clean Air, the Sealy Center for Environmental Health & Medicine, and the National Institute for Environmental Health Science at the University of Texas Medical Branch-Galveston, provided space for community members to express their frustration around environmental issues using Boal’s work, centered on socio-cultural animation through community theatre. John Sullivan, project director, joined Animating Democracy for the 2002 Learning Exchange in Los Angeles.
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CIRCLE Website Redesignedwww.civicyouth.org
The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) recently updated and redesigned its website to reflect the latest research on youth, civic, and political engagement. New features include links to 'Quick Facts' highlighting the most popular facts and statistics on youth voting, civic education, volunteering, community service, and other topics.
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Events on the Horizon |
National Convening of Artists, Organizers, & Educators, January 23-24, 2004, New OrleansAt certain moments in history, an idea catches on that transforms how social change is thought about, discussed and practiced. At the National Exchange on Art & Civic Dialogue convened by Animating Democracy recently in Flint, Michigan, many participants -- artists, organizers and educators from diverse backgrounds and places -- agreed that they had arrived at one such moment. The energy produced at that gathering was so dynamic that some began a conversation about continuing to share gifts, skills, talents and resources.
These artists, organizers and educators are convening a national exchange calling for, as Grace Lee Boggs articulated in Flint, "nothing less than a revolution in how we think about and practice social change.” The event will be held in New Orleans, LA from the evening of Friday, January 23 through mid-day, Sunday January 25, 2004. There are no registration fees to attend the event; however, the organizers have agreed to pursue some specific proportional recruitment goals. For more information, contact Lisa Mount at lqmount@earthlink.net.
Public Conversations Project introduces new workshop, April 20-21, 2004www.publicconversations.org/pcp/index.asp?catid=51
For spring of 2004, Public Conversations Project will introduce a new workshop entitled ‘Staying Grounded When on the Spot.’ In response to participant comments, the new seminar will prepare facilitators to address those moments that can threaten to turn any carefully crafted meeting or dialogue session into confusion. In this workshop, through presentations, exercises, case examples, and discussion, participants will develop skills in staying grounded, even in difficult moments.
For more information on this workshop, or others offered by Public Conversations Project this winter and next spring, visit their website.
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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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