Author(s): McQueen, Ann
Date of Publication: January 2015
The Fledgling Fund, a private foundation launched in 2005, seeks to “inspire a better world” by supporting the work of documentary filmmakers and building the evolving field of social issue documentary film and media. It believes in the power of film to engage communities in timely issues and focuses its grantmaking on supporting filmmakers’ outreach and engagement efforts, helping them build awareness, strengthen movements, inform decisions, and even impact policy. While all the films it supports address
Author(s): Boggs, Grace Lee
Date of Publication: 2003
In October 2003, Detroit-based activist, cultural worker, and octogenarian Grace Lee Boggs energized and inspired a national gathering of artists, arts organization and community leaders, and activists with her speech at Animating Democracy's National Exchange on Art & Civic Dialogue. Boggs described a United States that is increasingly jobless; that jeopardizes its youth in a problem-wrought education system; and that is resented for its economic, military, and cultural domination. "Can we create a new paradigm of our selfhood and our nationhood?" she implored. In Boggs&
Author(s): Holo, Selma
Date of Publication: Nov 17, 2021
Animating Democracy invited museum studies scholar Selma Holo to write an article from ideas and themes she found compelling at the Animating Democracy Learning Exchange held in Seattle in May 2002. Her article responds to the arts-based civic dialogue work of the three museums participating in the Animating Democracy Lab--the Andy Warhol Museum, the Jewish Museum, and the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington--comparing it to other museums whose efforts have intersected with the sphere of civic ideas and issues.
Author(s): Bacon, Barbara Schaffer; Korza, Pam; Williams, Patricia E.
Date of Publication: 2002
This article explores the role that museums can play in expanding opportunities for democratic participation through civic dialogue and engagement. Published in Museums and Communities Toolkit, American Association of Museums.
Author(s): Korza, Pam; Assaf, Andrea; Bacon, Barbara Schaffer
Date of Publication: Nov 15, 2021
Drawing significantly on the experience of projects within Animating Democracy, as well as a broader sphere of community-based cultural work, this essay considers what value art and humanities can uniquely bring to discourse on important civic issues. It shares some of what the Animating Democracy Initiative learned in its initial phase about the opportunities and challenges of this arena of work, and how Animating Democracy's thinking was evolving regarding the role of the arts in civic dialogue. First published on the
Author(s): Stern, Mark J. and Seifert, Susan C.
Date of Publication: January 2009
Based on a literature review drawing from the social sciences, humanities, and public policy, Stern and Seifert of the Social Impact of the Arts Project at the University of Pennsylvania suggest documentation and evaluation strategies that artists, cultural and community organizations, philanthropists, and public agencies could take to improve the quality of knowledge about the social impact of arts-based civic engagement work.
Author(s): Thompson, Nato
Date of Publication: December 2010
Artists who are committed to social justice through their work must navigate a complex contemporary art world characterized by numerous political positions and aesthetic expectations. In this paper, Nato Thompson observes two overarching approaches taken by artists—strategic and tactical—that operate against a political and economical infrastructure. Thompson describes successful examples in both categories, including sustained place-based work; culturally engaged radical pedagogy; engaged museums; engaged academic institutions; and a variety of work that raises questions rather
Author(s): Peterson, Betsy
Date of Publication: December 2010
Folk arts include a constellation of artistic activities and cultural expressions in community life that are informal, often popular in orientation, amateur, voluntary, and occurring in myriad social contexts. As expressions of deep cultural knowledge, creative expression, activism, cultural durability, and community values, folk and traditional arts can be tools for community empowerment and social change. In this paper, author Betsy Peterson captures a range of cultural activity beyond familiar forms such as protest songs that use cultural tradition to explicitly address or mobilize
Author(s): Bower, Sam
Date of Publication: December 2010
From an environmental perspective, we are living in transitional times; the practices we engage in now have far-reaching implications for the survival of the earth and all its life forms. “Environmental Art” is an umbrella term for a wide range of work that helps improve our relationship with the natural world. Art provides a lens through which to explore aspects of society--from urban food production, climate policy, watershed management, and transportation infrastructure to childhood education and clothing design--from an ecological perspective. This paper provides a brief
Author(s): McGregor, Paloma
Date of Publication: April 2013
Dance practitioners across the country are creating innovative opportunities for community, civic, and social engagement. Choreographer, organizer, and former Urban Bush Women company member Paloma McGregor highlights contemporary community-based dance practice; concert dance that is intentional in connecting to community members and issues; and programs where the next generation of socially engaged dance artists are incubated. Through a wealth of stories and examples of dance artists all across the country, McGregor describes how community-based dance—the work of both pioneering
Author(s): Takeshita, Erik
Date of Publication: May 2013
In his essay, Erik Takeshita, Program Officer for the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) in the Twin Cities, explores the experience of MicroFest: New Orleans and observes that art requires four characteristics to have a positive, sustainable impact on community: Residents and communities are the agents of change, not the targets of change….Art is at the center….Place matters….Art works across sectors and is collaborative. Based on a panel held in the St. Claude neighborhood, he examines common issues in community development: the role of race in community
Author(s): Bivens, Maranatha
Date of Publication: May 2013
Conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have produced a wave of returning veterans suffering from both physical and emotional traumas as well as families, communities, and a society in need of ways to understand, adjust, and heal. Writer and “former military kid” Maranatha Bivens characterizes ways that art is raising awareness of the issues facing service members, bridging gaps in knowledge and communication between veterans and civilians, and offering veterans paths to healing and reintegration in family and community life. Artists are creating work that enriches the public
Author(s): Pearlman, Jeanne
Date of Publication: Oct 20, 2021
In 2002, the Jewish Museum in New York City mounted the exhibition Mirroring Evil: Nazi Imagery/Recent Art. The controversial exhibition featured artworks by 13 young artists, each two and three generations removed from the events of WWII, who used images of Nazi perpetrators to provoke viewer exploration of the culture of victimhood and also as a means of identifying the distinguishing characteristics of evil. Through the art works, extensive interpretive materials, and a program of facilitated dialogues, the Jewish Museum offered a springboard for discussion about
Author(s): Gogan, Jessica
Date of Publication: Oct 20, 2021
In her essay, “The Warhol: Museum as Artist: Creative, Dialogic and Civic Practice,” The Warhol Museum’s assistant director of education, Jessica Gogan, explores how museums can creatively operate in the cultural sphere as “civic engager.” She does this through the lens of two projects: The Without Sanctuary Project and Andy Warhol’s Electric Chairs: Reflecting on Capital Punishment in America. The Without Sanctuary Project, conceived following two racially motivated killings in Pittsburgh, used historic photographic documentation of lynching
Author(s): E. Stern, Lynn
Date of Publication: Oct 20, 2021
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. This exhibition was a photography-based installation of new work by artists Lissa Jones and Jennifer Ahn that 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
Author(s): E. Stern, Lynn
Date of Publication: Oct 20, 2021
In April 2002, on the heels of the Human Genome Project’s historic announcement about the completion of a human genome “rough draft,” Seattle’s Henry Art Gallery opened Gene(sis): Contemporary Art Explores Human Genomics. The exhibition brought together more than 50 recent and new artworks representing artists’ imaginings of the social, ethical, and economic ramifications of genetic and genome research. To spur dialogue about the provocative and potentially polarizing issues, the Henry, together with its community collaborators, devised and implemented a cross
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