For THE SHIPMENT, Young Jean Lee gave herself the most uncomfortable challenge she could imagine: to make—as a Korean-American—a show about black identity. The show was made in collaboration with an all-black cast and is divided into two parts. The first half is structured like a minstrel show—dance, stand-up routine, sketches, and a song—and was written to address the stereotypes the cast members felt they had to deal with as black performers. For the second half of the show, Lee asked the actors to come up with roles they’d always wanted to play, and wrote a naturalistic comedy in response to their requests. Read More >

I visited 25 neighborhoods, talking with hundreds of people, and asked them what the most meaningful places in their neighborhood were: if they could make unofficial postcards of just their neighborhood, what would they choose? I took photographs of each of these places, chose 100 final images, made 10 vintage postcards of each, and unleashed 1000 postcards into the city, pre-postmarked, pre-addressed to me, and with a simple prompt: “When I look at this postcard, I think about…”. Providence Postcard Project

“The Charlottesville Mural Project showcases the talents of artists and designers while creating a more interesting visual landscape in the city. With the goal of producing at least two murals per year–one with an established artist, and one as an outreach project–we bring public art to the streets and communities of Charlottesville and beyond.”

From their website…

Founded in 1997, New Urban Arts is a nationally-recognized community arts studio for high school students and emerging artists in Providence, Rhode Island. Our mission is to build a vital community that empowers young people as artists and leaders to develop a creative practice they can sustain throughout their lives.

The Creative Time Summit-the world’s largest international conference on art and social change-is headed to Washington, D.C.! Creative Time Summit DC: Occupy the Future will be held at D.C.’s historic Lincoln Theatre on October 14 – 16, 2016. We are planning a field trip (tentatively on the 14th — mark your calendars!)

Dialogue will involve several presentations about particular groups and broader thematic conversations about ethics and social engagement in the arts.

Art in the Public Interest (API) is a nonprofit organization that supports the belief that the arts are an integral part of a healthy culture, and provide significant value both to communities and artists.

The Arts and Civic Engagement Tool Kit: Planning Tools and Resources for Animating Democracy in Your Community features customizable worksheets containing thoughtful questions, clarifying sidebars, and examples to help users plan, design, and partner to create meaningful engagement activities.

Between the Door and the Street: A Performance Initiated by Suzanne Lacy from Creative Time on Vimeo.

The Design Studio for Social Intervention is dedicated to changing how social justice is imagined, developed and deployed here in the United States. In practice, we function as a creativity lab for social justice work in the public sphere. The Studio is a space where activists, artists, academics and the larger public come together to imagine new approaches to social change and new angles to address complex social issues. We also design social interventions that engage populations in imagining and designing new solutions to social problems.

Girls Rock Camps help girls build self-esteem and find their voices through unique programming that combines music education and performance, empowerment and social justice workshops, positive role models, and collaboration and leadership skill building. The GRCA supports camps around the globe in this mission.

Welcome to Making Art in/with Communities, a practice-driven course exploring the relationships between collective art-making and civic engagement. As part of this course you will read about and research current community art practices and create short projects that engage with the Charlottesville community. This website will host many of the readings, resources, and examples that we will be looking at throughout the course. This is a living document — we will be adding and shifting information as the semester progresses. For the most up-to-date logistical information, check the schedule page every sunday night. We are looking forward to working with you this semester!

~ Peter Bussigel & Katie Schetlick