ART IS CHANGE: Strategies & Skills for Activist Artists & Cultural Organizers

In Episode 40 Dipankar Mukherjee, and Meena Natarajan discussed their work around issues of race and justice. In this second half, we asked: How can Pangea, a small community-based cultural institution punching way above its weight, maintain the power and integrity of its community building work amidst the chaos and uncertainty of contemporary life in America? Pangea World Theater spent its 25th a...

Pangea World Theater spent its 25th anniversary year helping their Minneapolis community heal the wounds and sort through the ashes left in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. But this mending and reckoning dance was nothing new because Pangea's work is intrinsic to the story of this place-- It’s struggles.-- It's beauty-- It's resilience. This is the first of two episodes recounting Pangea's...

Needless to say, this year has been both odd and extraordinary. Odd? --- Well, Pick your poison. Extraordinary? --- Because we spent the year having amazing conversations with dozens of creative change agents who are kicking ass making a real difference in the upside-down world we live in. These conversations have helped us at the Center for the Study of Art & Community manage the lurking shad...

Episode 4:  Beth Thielen - Love and Freedom   Bookmakers at San Quentin. Not surprising, given "Q's" clientele. But no, we're talking about real books with real pages that are awe-inspiring works of art.  Transcript Needless to say, this year has been both odd and extraordinary. Odd? --- Well, Pick your poison. Extraordinary? --- Because we spent the year having amazing conversation...

BIO Beverly Naidus's  art life has straddled the socially engaged margins of the art world, artful activism collaborations, and community-based art projects. Her audience participatory installations, artists books, photo-text and multimedia projects have dealt with the anxieties of being unemployed, nightmares about nuclear war, ways to transform body hate, using consumerism to numb ourselves...

Jan Cohen-Cruz has given a lot to the field of arts-based community development. By that, I mean that there's a significant body of academic and community-based artwork, scholarship, teaching, and organizing that are absolutely covered with her fingerprints. BIO Jan Cohen-Cruz was the founding editor of  Public: A Journal  of Imagining America . She directed Imagining America: Artists an...

Henry Frank was rotting in prison alone with no escape. Then, everything changed. In our conversation we talk about the heavy lift of imagining a different future, becoming an artist, discovering true friendship, and embracing his Yurok and Pomo cultures. Delicious Quotes And I was like, I refuse to die in prison. And from that point forward, I started my journey of introspection through the arts,...

Jill Sonke is a creative healer in service to a community of doctors, nurses, artists, educators, and most of all, patients on a journey that reunites the arts and medicine in their age-old roles as healing partners. BIO Jill is director of the Center for Arts in Medicine at the University of Florida (UF), and is currently serving as Senior Advisor to the CDC Vaccine Confidence and Demand Team on...

Show Notes The Story of My Story A Digital Story by K MUSIC PLAYING K: In a funny way, books raised me. I didn't have the things a child needs to be a child; security, safety, comfort, love. But I always found happiness in learning new things. When I turned eight, my mother passed away from her battle with AIDS.I remember how even at her funeral, I was thinking about how I could get my homework do...

 Susan Hill: The Path Made by Walking Forward Susan Hill has, one of the best minds, and hearts I know for translating human creativity to the needs of the human community. In our conversation, we talk about how that complex alchemy works, and doesn’t, getting the respect of people who really distrust you, and what happens when the lights go off in a high-security prison classroom. Here is he...

Episode 29: Becky Reardon - Finding the Moon Becky Reardon describes herself as “In the music” Her songs, tell us about the human community, our mother earth, and the reverence, and awe, and humility, and joy, and solace, and deep understandings that can rise up when you make time and space to listen to what she has to say. Becky Reardon's voice is familiar to the millions of people who heard her...

THE NOUVELLA: STORY-BASED COMMUNITY ARTS TRAINING Hi I’m Bill Cleveland, the host of Change the Story / Change the World.  This week we are going to share something a bit different. In June of 2021 I participated in an international conference convened by the Art in Society Research Network.  My part was a presentation about using story-based strategies for community arts train...

Threshold Questions and Delicious Quotes How do you describe your work in the world? I often refer to myself as a midwife of creativity... I think of it in my dual roles as an educator and artist, as holding space for the birth of someone else's creative thinking and inquiry. And so I liked that idea that, if something goes wrong here I am to hold the space. What is happening when young people cat...

What happens when a tiny city-state with tight control becomes a hub for community-driven, arts-based transformation? Meet ArtsWok , a Singapore-based organization helping people talk about the hardest things—grief, inequality, identity, and even death—with art as the medium and hope as the mission In a place known more for order than outspokenness, how do artists create room for deep conversation...

CSCW EP 24: David O'Fallon - Power Plays Please know that this episode contains descriptions of war that include violence and psychological trauma. We endeavor to do our best to engage these hard stories with care and respect. Please also be aware that there is a lot of hope, healing and optimism contained herein. We hope you will join us whenever you are willing and able. Threshold Questions and...

Episode 23: Alice Lovelace - A Peaceful Disrupter Music Attribution Variations on a theme 1  »  The Rush (w/ drum) - Variations 1 (c) by PodcastAC This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. You should have received a copy of the license along with this work. If not, see <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Threshold...

Episode 22: Bob Leonard - The Continuing Evolution of the Horse Threshold Questions and Delicious Quotes What is the artist's role in the altered and uncertain world we are entering? …there is a human, passion for justice, and it would seem that it's hard to get…as human beings, we rely on the stories that we tell each other to keep our sense of direction. I don't mean down a road, but where's Nor...

Justin Laing: - Taking Back The Land Justin Laing Before starting Hillombo in 2017, Justin worked as a Senior Program Officer of Arts & Culture at The Heinz Endowments for more than a decade. His work focused on small and midsized arts organizations, out-of-school time arts education, and Black arts organizations, with a particular interest in participatory grantmaking. He came to philant...

Episode 20 : Xavier Dphrepaulezz Fantastic Negrito / Have You Lost Your Mind Yet? REDUX On March 14th our friend and Change the Story guest Xavier Dephrepaulezz, also known as Fantastic Negrito will hear if he has garnered his 3rd Grammy in 5 years for his 2020 release Have you Lost Your Mind Yet. To help nudge the stars into alignment for Xavier we are re-broadcasting our Episode 6 conversation w...

Episode 19: Mary Cohen - Freeing Silenced Voices Threshold Questions and Delicious Quotes How can singing a song help change the mind and the heart? ...the thing about singing that's really valuable for me at least is it's embodied. We're using our breath. We're using our voice. We're using our ears. We're feeling the vibrations in our bodies. So being able to do that with other people is super- i...

CSCW EP 18: Ben Fink – A Communist Jew from the Northeast – Chapter 2 Threshold Questions and Delicious Quotes As a self described "communist Jew from the Northeast, what kind of hostility did you encounter in coal country? Honestly, the most hostility I got was from some of the liberals who are like, this is our way of doing things and we have this way of doing activism, and this way of doing com...

CSCW EP 17: Ben Fink – A Communist Jew from the Northeast – Chapter 1 Threshold Questions and Delicious Quotes What defines the work of Appalshop and Performing our Future? The work is creating the conditions, for people in communities to tell their own stories, build their own power, and create their own wealth, and doing it really intensely locally rooted in local traditions and local values Wha...

Here is the link to the Arts Extension Service: Creative Community Leadership Course Info. Episode 16: Henry Robinett - Jazz in the Joint Jazz musician, composer, educator Henry Robinett has the kind of calm, purposeful trajectory that allows him to ignore the detritus, and collect the sublime and the quirk, all in service to making and recording extraordinary award-winning music and helping heal...

Episode 15: Sharnita Johnson – Queen of Community Threshold Questions & Delicious Quotes What was the path that led you into cultural philanthropy? I never saw anyone that looked like me, a black woman in philanthropy, in a city like Detroit, which is where I'm from, which has I think the population is like 90% African American so it just never clicked. that was something that I could do, even...

Episode 14: DIVA CATS - PART 2 Threshold Questions and Juicy Quotes  You artists are volunteers right? "No! We're professional artists. Everybody gets paid and they get paid well" because I won't have it any other way" They may say, "Oh, well, isn't it nice that those men are able to learn some arts and crafts stuff?" No, we don't use paper plates or pipe cleaners, and to Pacia's point, we a...