40 North Workshop
ANIMATING DEMOCRACY:
The Power of Arts and Civic Engagement
40 North | 88 West - Champaign County's Arts, Culture and Entertainment Council - announces a special workshop to explore the role of the arts in civic engagement.
Americans for the Arts, in partnership with 40 North | 88 West, presents
Animating Democracy: The Power of Arts and Civic Engagement, a workshop from Animating Democracy.
Two days:
9am-5pm, Monday, October 27, 2008
8am-1pm, Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Location:
Champaign County Alliance offices, 1817 S. Neil Street, Suite 201, Champaign (in office building west of Atlanta Bread Co. and El Torro II restaurants on Neil Street)
For more information or to register, contact 217-351-9841 or sbentz@40north.org.
Sponsored by:
National Endowment for the Arts
additional support by:
A youth theater group presents a play in response to escalating school violence. An art museum partners with the African-American community to refocus public attention on issues of race with an exhibit documenting the history of lynching in the US. A development project threatens displacement of low-income residents…and a neighborhood arts center sees potential for art projects that create public dialogue, impacting those residents’ everyday lives.
Americans for the Arts, the nation’s leading nonprofit organization for advancing the arts in the United States, visits central Illinois on Monday and Tuesday, October 27 and 28, 2008 to present Animating Democracy: The Power of Arts and Civic Engagement, a lively, practical, one and a half-day workshop and clinic exploring the arts as a vehicle for social change. The event was organized and sponsored by 40 North | 88 West — Champaign County’s Arts, Culture and Entertainment Council — in partnership with Americans for the Arts. This event is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Animating Democracy: The Power of Arts and Civic Engagement will show just how the arts can foster civic participation to improve communities and build a healthy democracy. This interactive workshop will be co-presented by Pam Korza, co-director of the Animating Democracy program at Americans for the Arts, Washington DC, and Sandy Agustin, Artistic Director at Neighborhood House, St. Paul, Minnesota.
The workshop’s first day, Monday, October 27, takes place from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM and will provide information on the basic principles and best practices of arts-based civic engagement and dialogue. Lunch is included. Day two of the event, set for Tuesday, October 28 from 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM, is a clinic where participants can receive one-on-one advice and consultation from workshop presenters Korza and Agustin.
The cost is $50 per person and $35 for each additional staff attending from a single organization or office. The registration fee covers both Monday and Tuesday’s activities, although attendance at the Tuesday clinic is optional. A number of free scholarships are available, based upon need. For more information and to register, contact Steven Bentz, 40 North Director of Operations, at 217-351-9841 or email sbentz@40north.org.
Animating Democracy: The Power of Arts and Civic Engagement is part of a series bringing arts and civic engagement forums to four select cities nationwide in 2008 and 2009.
Workshop participants will:
build useful skills by mastering the key concepts of arts-based civic engagement, helping them maximize engagement opportunities through concrete program design and community partnerships. They will also have the opportunity to share programs in progress or those that have potential in their communities, as well as to troubleshoot planning and project roadblocks with specialists from the field.
Each workshop participant receives an Arts & Civic Engagement Tool Kit that provides how-to outlines, worksheets, and tools that parallel and supplement workshop content and support participants’ work in communities.
Who should attend:
Artists, arts organization staff, board members and volunteers, educators, public officials, community organizers, arts presenters, social workers, and any organization or individual interested in incorporating arts strategies to achieve civic and social goals.
Schedule:
Day One: Animating Democracy Workshop
Monday, October 27, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Findings from the Americans for the Arts’ Animating Democracy initiative will be shared through case studies, video samples, and interactive exercises. Co-presenters Pam Korza and Sandy Agustin will highlight national trends and identify local opportunities where arts and culture can play a role in fostering civic engagement. Through case studies, video samples, experiential learning, and presentation attendees will:
- Be inspired by exemplary projects that have had important civic and artistic impact
- Learn principles and best practices that can guide effective work
- Experience dialogue and other engagement methods through interactive learning, and
- Hear about local activity and make connections
Day Two: Animating Democracy Clinic
Tuesday, October 28, 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM
Have a program concept you want to test? A challenge in a partnership you’re trying to work through? An issue or opportunity in the community where you really see the arts could be a vehicle for enhancing citizen participation? Sign up for one of our 45-minute coaching sessions with Sandy or Pam on Tuesday, October 28. They will be available to talk with you about your arts and civic engagement ideas.
Why Art & Civic Engagement?
Across the country, artists, arts organizations, social service agencies, community organizers, municipal offices and educational institutions are tapping into the power of the arts and humanities as a powerful way to stimulate civic participation. They have recognized that the arts are a potent vehicle for engaging people in their civic lives by:
- offering a welcoming entry point to civic participation
- bringing forward voices of those often silenced or left out of public discourse
- creating open and receptive spaces for expressing and hearing differing views
- offering new ways of looking at issues that can shift contentious public debate and move people to deeper understanding
- and motivating people to act
Besides contributing to healthy communities and a healthy democracy, civic engagement activities directly benefit the arts sector. Fostering civic engagement satisfies growing public value in engaged arts experiences, strengthens the viability of the arts within the ecology of community, and puts cultural assets to work for the public good. As arts organizations are building relationships with community segments and partners to advance civic and social concerns, they are introducing new constituencies to their own institutions and the arts. Civic engagement through the arts is a way to build new audiences.
“The know-how to create meaningful civic engagement is becoming a desired skill set—as important as fundraising, planning, and marketing,” says Robert Lynch, president and CEO of Americans for the Arts.
Animating Democracy Presenters:
Pam Korza is co-director of Animating Democracy, a program of Americans for the Arts that fosters civic engagement through art and culture. She co-wrote with Barbara Schaffer Bacon Civic Dialogue, Arts & Culture: Findings from Animating Democracy, and co-edited Critical Perspectives: Writings on Art & Civic Dialogue, as well as a five-book case study series. Pam worked for 17 years with the Arts Extension Service at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst where she coordinated the National Public Art Policy Project, and co-wrote and edited the book Going Public: A field guide to developments in art in public places. She directed the Boston-based New England Film and Video Festival, a regional independent film festival. Her consulting and teaching activities have included research for a children’s picture book museum; funding program planning and evaluation with state arts agencies and private foundations, and consultation with individual artists. She established the Amherst (MA) Public Art Commission and served on it for several years.
Sandy Agustin is currently the Artistic Director at the Neighborhood House, Minneapolis, Minnesota, a 110 year old social service agency that works to integrate new immigrants and refugees into the American environment. She is a performing artist whose work as been performed at the Southern Theatre, Ordway Center for Performing Arts, Walker Art Center and Guthrie Theater. She is an arts educator who currently works with the Children’s Theatre Company of Minneapolis, and former adjunct faculty at Augsburg College where she taught dance. Sandy was – among many things over 16 years – the Artistic Director of Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis, a multi-disciplinary community based arts center whose mission is to build understanding among people through arts. While at Intermedia Arts she had the pleasure of curating several multi-disciplinary series and events that addressed social issues. Two highlights are: Thicker Than Water: Art as a Family Value, an intergenerational investigation of creativity; and Immigrant Status, a four-year program looking at the policies and conditions that impact new immigrants by partnering with immigrant and indigenous artists. She is currently a consultant for the Americans for the Arts, Animating Democracy program and for Mu Performing Arts, an Asian American performance company based in Minneapolis, MN.
40 North | 88 West is committed to cultivating creativity in Champaign County. Through advocacy, information and collaboration, 40 North supports and promotes the important role that arts, culture and entertainment hold in making the community a great place to live, work, learn and play.
Americans for the Arts is the leading nonprofit organization for advancing the arts in America. With offices in Washington, DC, and New York City, it has a record of more than 40 years of service. Americans for the Arts is dedicated to representing and serving local communities and creating opportunities for every American to participate in and appreciate all forms of the arts. Additional information is available at www.AmericansForTheArts.org.
