Animating Democracy Initiative

Animating Democracy, a program of Americans for the Arts, fosters arts and cultural activity that encourages and enhances civic engagement and dialogue. It is based on the premise that democracy is animated when an informed public is engaged in the issues affecting people's daily lives. Launched in fall 1999, ADI is a four-year programmatic initiative of Americans for the Arts which fosters artistic activity that encourages civic dialogue on important contemporary issues.

Resource Link: http://www.artsusa.org/animatingdemocracy

Animating Democracy: The Artistic Imagination as a Force in Civic Dialogue

Barbara Schaffer Bacon, Cheryl Yuen and Pam Korza, Animating Democracy Initiative of Americans for the Arts. Americans for the Arts, 1999.

This report reveals pivotal and innovating roles that the arts can play in the renewal of civic dialogue as well as challenges faced by arts and cultural organizations as they engage in this work.

Resource Link: http://www.artsusa.org/animatingdemocracy

Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center

The Cambridge Multicultural Art Center (CMAC) is a non-profit corporation founded in 1978 as an arts center focused on helping diverse populations better understand one another. Our mission is to present visual and performing arts programs to educate the community about diversity, and make our facility available to artists or groups that might not otherwise have access to a professionally equipped facility or the cultural mainstream.

Resource Link: http://www.cmacusa.org

Chicago Public Art Group

CPAG unites communities and artists in creating high quality public art. They produce mosaics, murals, sculptures, seating installations, banners, and space designs. Their skilled, professional artists specialize in collaborating with community participants to make delightful, meaningful, permanent, and safe public artworks.

Resource Link: http://www.cpag.net

Common Ground: The Future of Iowa

The Wallace Foundation's project 'Common Ground: The Future of Iowa - Convening Community Dialogue to Build a Shared Vision of a Sustainable Future' used the play American Dreamer as a catalyst to engage citizens in discussions about pressing issues of developing a vision of a sustainable future. As the project progressed, displays were produced to summarize the process and the outcomes in each county. Photographers were hired to help portray the land, people, and attractions; writers provided their perceptions of each county, a 15-minute documentary was created as a summary of the project.

Resource Link: http://www.wallace.org

Community Public Art Guide: Making Murals, Mosaics, Sculptures, and Spaces

Olivia Gude, Editor. Chicago Public Art Group.

The Chicago Public Art Group claims that their web-based Public Art Guide is the most comprehensive manual for making public artworks through collaboration with community that has ever been produced. The website represents the collective experience of dozens of dedicated community public artists, working on hundreds of projects, with thousands of participants.

Resource Link: http://www.cpag.net/guide/index.htm

ConjunctionArts

ConjunctionArts supports compelling, socially progressive art within the public sphere. We are committed to developing new forms of artistic agency, critical discourse and public outreach by acting as a venue for fiscal sponsorship and international, cross-cultural exchange.

Resource Link: http://conjunctionarts.org

Critical Perspectives: Writings on Art and Civic Dialogue

Americans for the Arts' Animating Democracy Initiative, 2005.

This 176-page collection of essays explores art, civic dialogue, and reflective critical writing. Twelve essays focus on three compelling projects that employed the unique capacities of theater, visual art, and historic preservation to stimulate people to talk about issues that matter in their communities: Dell?’Arte theater?’s Dentalium Project, about the impact of a Native American casino on the small town of Blue Lake, California; MACLA?’s Ties That Bind, about intermarriage between Asian and Latino Americans in the Silicon Valley; and The Slave Galleries Restoration Project, a project of St. Augustine?’s Episcopal Church in collaboration with the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, about issues of marginalization on the Lower East Side.

Resource Link: http://americans4thearts.stores.yahoo.net/critperwrito.html

Graphic Window

Lisa Heft, Opening Space.

The objective of this artistic activity is to help participants unlock a deeper level of thinking through reflection and use of the body / creative brain. It is utilized before group dialogue to deepen the level of discussion. This exercise was developed by Lisa Heft to help people move from their heads to a deeper level of thinking and discussing through first working with reflection, working in silence and use of the body / creative side of the brain. This is also a good activity to use as an introduction - either introducing group members to each other, introducing the topic of discussion or both.

Immigrant Body

Immigrant Body was a year-long project of filmmaker Maritza Mosquera that focused on individual and group dialogues between immigrants from all over the world. The installation included video, text and portrait prints. Mosquera uses listening and dialogue to gather text and images for the projects.

International Coalition of Historic Site Museums of Conscience

This coalition is a growing world-wide network of organizations and individuals dedicated to teaching and learning how historic sites and museums can inspire social consciousness and action. The museums that are considered "sites of conscience" engage in programs that stimulate dialogue on pressing social issues and promote humanitarian and democratic values.

Resource Link: http://www.sitesofconscience.org

Life Map / Flocking / Witnessing

Lisa Heft.

This exercise, created by Lisa Heft, was inspired by Bill T. Jones (Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane Dance Company). The exercise helps participants tap into their internal images and dialogue about a situation, time or issue through reflection and drawing and movement - the use of the body and creative side of the brain, and the power of ritual. This is often used before group dialogue to deepen the level of discussion.

Mirroring Evil: Nazi Imagery/Recent Art

Mirroring Evil: Nazi Imagery/Recent Art was a contemporary art exhibition at the Jewish Museum in New York City in 2002 which was accompanied by extensive education programs, forums for discussion, and a major publication. The exhibit addressed the complicity and complacency toward evil in today's society seen through the eyes of artists using Nazi imagery as gripping analogies to current social issues. These emerging and mid-career artists are two and three generations removed from the events of WWII and the Holocaust.

Resource Link: http://www.jewishmuseum.org

Museums and Civic Dialogue: Case Studies from Animating Democracy

Americans for the Arts' Animating Democracy Initiative, 2005.

This 88-page book features exhibition projects that demonstrate how three museums have functioned as provocative and effective forums for civic dialogue. Focusing on historic images as well as contemporary and conceptual works of art, the projects highlight new and adapted approaches to curatorial practice, interpretation, and education prompted by civic intention. In-depth case studies also offer insights regarding institutional challenges and changes in practice that necessarily occurred.

Resource Link: http://americans4thearts.stores.yahoo.net/musandcivdia.html

Peace Tiles Project

Peace Tiles offers an easy to follow, dynamic process to engage people of all ages in the exploration of global issues through art, while building connections around the world. Peace Tiles envisions a world in which schools and other public places around the world are bound together through the visual arts. To do this, the Peace Tiles projects stimulates and supports the production and exchange of "Peace Tiles," intimate works of art that, when displayed together, create vibrant, dynamic, large-scale murals.

Resource Link: http://peacetiles.net

PhotoVoice

PhotoVoice encourages the use of documentary photography by enabling those that have traditionally been the subject of such work to become its creator - to have control over how they are perceived by the rest of the world, while simultaneously learning a new skill which can enhance their lives. PhotoVoice?’s mission is to bring about positive social change for marginalised communities through providing them with photographic training with which they can advocate, express themselves and generate income.

Resource Link: http://www.photovoice.org

Shared Vision

Shared Vision is a nonprofit organization founded in 1993. Its mission is to leverage the imaginative power of communities to build cataylsts for social, cultural and economic renewal. It does this by producing monumental public artworks of exceptional quality in urban areas thatengage the public directly in their creation. We harness the combined imaginative power of thousands of people to build a potent force for the revitalization of cities and communities. In this we follow the vision of our artistic director, William Cochran, one of the country's leading muralists. Cochran's amazing "Community Bridge" in Frederick, Maryland was featured at the 2002 NCDD conference.

Resource Link: http://www.sharedvision.org

The Wadsworth Antheneum and the Manhold River Project

The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut, America's oldest public art museum, recently exhibited artist Bradley McCallum?’s innovative installation ?“The Manhold River Project: A Gun Legacy.?” With the goal of engaging diverse audiences in the process of translating a pressing social problem into a meaningful set of cultural metaphors, the exhibit featured 228 custom-designed manhole covers weighing 32,216 pounds - the exact equivalent to the weight of the 11,194 guns confiscated by Connecticut State Police since 1992.

Resource Link: http://www.wadsworthatheneum.org

Wallace House Foundation

The Wallace House Foundation commemorates the remarkable influences of the Wallace Family on Iowa, the nation and the world. The Foundation preserves the Wallace House as a historical center and meeting facility, and facilitates discussion of and education about contemporary issues in agriculture, conservation, democracy and quality of life.

Resource Link: http://www.wallace.org