Community Arts Convening & Research Project
Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA)
Baltimore, Maryland
March 13-15, 2011

Sunday, March 13

5:15-6:15 PM Shuttles arrive at Peabody Hotel and take attendees to MICA's Brown Center.

5:30-6:30 PM Welcome Reception and Registration, MICA Campus

6:30-7:30 PM Dinner, MICA Campus

7:30-8:00 PM Opening Comments

Karen Carroll, Dean for Art Education & Florence Gaskins 
Harper Endowed Chair in Art Education welcomes attendees

Ken Krafchek, Project Director and Managing Editor (MICA)
presents the history of the Project. 

Amalia Mesa-Bains, Coordinating Editor articulates the spirit
and agenda for this year's Convening and Project.

8:00-9:30 PM Keynote & Panel Presentation, University Without Walls

Marta Moreno Vega, President of the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Puerto Rico y El Caribe (CEA)

Dr. Miguel Rodriguez, Rector, CEA

Dr. Ignacio Olazagasti, Professor, CEA

Dr. Maria Elba Torres, Professor, CEA

Arturo Otlahu Rios, Student, University of Puerto Rico (UPR)

Lourdes Santiago Negron, Student, UPR

Pedro Manuel Lugo, Student, UPR

Giovanni Roberto Caez, Student Advocacy Leader

The combined individual and panel presentation focuses on envisioning a Community Arts University Without Walls (CAUWW). It will focus on the courses, course description, curricula with scholars, students and community activists that will provide the framework for establishing an accredited certificate in community arts. This initiative will provide students with limited financial resources access to a culturally grounded educational experience focused on cultural equity, social justice and cultural rights. It is projected that the accredited graduate center El Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Puerto Rico y El Caribe (CEA) will be the institution that houses the certificate program. CEA will develop a partnership with MICA, New York University and other colleges and universities across the nation. The courses occur within communities, taught by scholars, community leaders and artists expert in concerns grounded in cultural equity, social justice and cultural rights.

10:00 PM Shuttles return guests to Peabody Hotel.

Monday, March 14

7:00 AM Shuttles arrive at Peabody Hotel

7:30 AM Shuttles leave Peabody Hotel for MICA PLACE, East Baltimore

8:00-9:00 AM Breakfast Buffet

9:00 AM-12:00 Noon Art in the Service of Ritual and Healing, Part #1

Rhonda S. Cooper, Chaplain, Johns Hopkins

Cinder Hypki, Community Artist & Community Arts Consultant, Faculty, MICA 

Louise Knight, Director, Family Patient & Family Services Program, Johns Hopkins

Led by the community artist, the Chaplain and the Director of Patient and Family Services at the Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins this presentation shares their collaborative work in spring 2010 to create an art-filled Service of Remembrance for families/friends of patients who died there in the previous year. The workshop will include:

• An overview of the ways that different cultures and faith groups have used collaborative art and ritual to find healing, celebration and resolve;
• Telling the story of how various art forms including visual, poetry, litany and music were all used at the Service of Remembrance to help people feel and heal, and transition out of grieving to closure and celebration;
• Leading workshop participants through an actual healing experience to illustrate and share the practices;
• Discussion of the experience and possible linkages with ritual creation for community healing due to violence.

12:00-1:00 PM Lunch catered by an East Baltimore establishment.

1:15-3:30 PM I-Hotel (San Francisco) Writing Group Session

Johanna Poethig, Artist, Faculty, Visual and Public Art Department, CSUMB

Nancy Hom, Artist/Activist/Curator/Community Arts Consultant

Julianne Gavino, Doctoral Candidate, UCSB, History of Art and Architecture

The I-Hotel writing group is investigating the ongoing legacy of an enduring San Francisco-based community arts movement dating to the early 1970s. This story and the politics embedded within offer a sharp edge on which to examine the struggles that artists and under-represented communities experience in society. The "community mythology" ongoing in the I-Hotel experience will be explored through archival material, poetry, visual artwork, interviews and reflections that inform the academic applications to the field. The I-Hotel Writing group will present a short history of the I-Hotel movement and give a sense of its unique character and evolution as a site of the social imagination and community arts through readings, images, stories, research on Kearny Street Workshop and related Asian American collective arts projects in the Bay Area. The session conversation will center around how community arts, mythologies and symbols are created through arts/activist movements and how artists weave through this social practice over time.

1:15-3:30 PM Catalyzing Creative Community Engagement:
                              A Littleglobe Experiential Workshop

David Gallegos, Littleglobe Core Artist, Littleglobe Colorado Director

Erin Hudson, Littleglobe Core Artist, Filmmaker

Littlegobe, a southwest based arts-in-community non-profit consisting of seasoned artists and cultural workers devoted to collaborative creative exchange, will lead a session exploring the practices, pedagogies and capacities related to creative community engagement work. As one of the five writing fellowship groups selected by MICA, part of the workshop will be devoted to the focus of the fellowship -- how we begin to think about creating a Southwest learning center for this work. Participants will have the opportunity to learn about Littleglobe approaches through case studies as well as contribute to the on-going conversation about how we create a meaningful, experiential, cross-sector learning community around this work.

3:45-5:00 PM Defining & Measuring Community Arts Outcomes

Rebecca Yenawine, Executive Director, New Lens

This session will present existing research into the outcomes of community art, will invite participants to participate in a research activity and will explore methods for future evaluation. Participants already engaged in evaluation are invited to share about their work and those interested in advancing the capacity to evaluate this work are invited to brainstorm.

3:45-5:00 PM Arts and Democracy Bazaar: Challenging Our School to Prison Path

Diane Wittner, Arts Educator and Creative Citizenship Organizer

In this participatory session, attendees will consider arts, restorative healing, and special education settings...in relation to democratizing education, juvenile justice and artist/teaching training.

5:15-6:15 PM Baltimore United Viewfinders

Natalie Tranelli, MFA in Community Arts Candidate, MICA

Anne Kotleba, MA in Community Arts Candidate, MICA

Youth Members, Baltimore United Viewfinders

Youth from East Baltimore leadership groups have come together with the shared mission of telling the collective story of their community. Using photography and video, they have captured the ideas, opinions and creative interests of individuals from the neighborhoods surrounding MICA PLACE. Participating youth will share their Baltimore United Viewfinder team philosophy, creative process and goals for activating social change through the art of storytelling. Youth will present video clips accompanied by a photography exhibit and gallery talk.

6:15-6:45 PM Shuttles return attendees to Peabody Hotel.

6:45-7:00 PM Shuttles arrive at Peabody Hotel.

Evening Attendees on their own.

Tuesday, March 15

7:00 AM Shuttles arrive at Peabody Hotel.

7:30 AM Shuttles leave Peabody Hotel for MICA PLACE 

8:00-9:00 AM Breakfast Buffet

9:00 AM-12:00 PM Art in the Service of Ritual and Healing, Part #2.

Cinder Hypki, Community Artist & Community Arts Consultant, Faculty, MICA 

Sandi McFadden, Community Development Consultant

Youth and Adult Community Members, Mid-Govans Neighborhood

Led by a community activist who is spearheading the creation of a Memorial for a beloved Baltimore City Councilman slain violently in 2008, the community artist collaborating with the community to design the memorial, and various adult and youth community members involved in the Memorial Project. This workshop will:

• Illuminate/model the collaborative work of designing the memorial and the ritual accompanying its dedication to and highlight the roles and best practices in such a collaboration.
• Engage participants in actively learning about the Mid-Govans community, from the diverse perspectives of its members, both youth and adult.
• Engage participants in helping the community to design a ritual for the Memorial dedication and in creating strategies for building leadership and ensuring the sustainability of the effort. The ideas generated by workshop participants will contribute directly to the collaborative work of the community and community artist, as well as the Convening paper.

9:00-10:30 AM Community Arts Programming & Management: 

Coping With Change

Phyllis Johnson, Faculty, Columbia College Chicago

Lori Hager, Faculty, University of Oregon

Christopher Adejumo, Faculty, University of Texas

Ken Krafchek, Faculty, Maryland Institute College of Art

This session will examine current patterns of instruction in community arts programming and management in institutions of higher learning. Session participants will discuss contemporary trends in community arts programming and examine the import, currency, and application of today's academic preparation in the constantly evolving environment of community arts management practice. Strategies for improving community arts programming and academic preparation for vocation in community arts management will be explored.

10:30 AM-12:00 Noon ENGAGE at CCA: Model for Pedagogically-Based
                                                   Community Engagement

Sanjit Sethi, Director, Center for Art and Public Life

Megan Clark, Program Manager, ENGAGE at CCA

How can an institution of higher education devoted to creativity provide opportunities for addressing issues of critical social need within the current existing curricular structure? By using the ENGAGE at CCA initiative as a point of departure this session will focus on the ideas, outcomes, and dilemmas of community responsive project-based learning. The session will look at a series of examples and include smaller group discussion on the role of project-based and a larger group discussion.

ENGAGE at CCA is transforming the current pedagogical models that exist at California College of the Arts (CCA) into one that enhances student outcomes by combining project-based learning with community engagement to address areas of critical need in local, national, and global communities. Founded by the Center for Art and Public Life and activated across academic programs throughout CCA, ENGAGE at CCA serves as a hub to connect interested faculty and students to community partners and relevant outside experts for immersive semester-long commitments with specific end-goals. Without creating any additional curricular burdens for students ENGAGE at CCA opens the classroom learning environment well past the walls of the institution and into the community.

12:00-1:15 PM Lunch at Northeast Market

1:15-2:45 PM Alternate ROOTS' Pedagogies of Change:
                             Arts for Local Action and Sustainability

Ebony N. Golden, Creative Director, Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative

Omari Fox, Visual and Performing Artist, New DANGER Movement, RSC

Gwylene Gallimard, Visual Artist, Collaborative Performance Designer

Hope Clark, Mediator, CulturalOrganizer, Facilitator, Trainer

A team of Alternate ROOTS Resources for Social Change (RSC) members have created an outline of chapters for a book they are writing to reflect on the organization's programmatic activities, successes and challenges, the outcome of which will create a series of Action Lesson Plans. This Learning Exchange will animate and engage in discussions and activities about how to best make these Action Lesson Plans effective. Those interested in curriculum development, community-based arts practice and cultural arts for community development and sustainability, should participate in this Learning Exchange.

1:15-2:45 PM Cross Sector Connections & Opportunities

Kara McDonagh, Program Specialist, Washington, DC

Discussion and activities that focus on creating an opportunity to reflect on the benefits and challenges of cross sector work including an exploration of possible fertile ground for artist involvement in ongoing youth development, education and justice related initiatives.

3:00-4:30 PM Racial Matters 

Nora Howell, MFA in Community Arts Candidate, MICA

This workshop will introduce methods of utilizing art to instigate a conversation about race. Through interactive activities and discussion, this session will addresses how to talk about the impact of whiteness in both white and non-white contexts; the dynamics of a white instructor within a predominately non-white setting leading a conversation about race; and creating a safe space where participants feel that can be honest and forthright. Workshop attendees will leave with ideas about how they might approach the topic of race within their own diverse communities.

3:00-4:30 PM Social Engagement through Art and Design in Baltimore

Buck Jabaily, Director, Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance

Baltimore is a city with both tremendous social problems and challenges, and great cultural assets. Baltimore is, and has been, a place where community arts, art and social justice, and social engagement through art and design, have been practiced in various forms for decades. With a constellation of non-profits in Baltimore representing various communities, the opportunities for collaboration and partnership are vast. However, given all of these conditions, the community working in social engagement through art and design is somewhat diffuse. What can be done to strengthen, support, and uplift this community, and to identify common goals to make Baltimore an even greater city.

4:45 PM Closing Ritual

5:15-5:30 PM Shuttles take attendees back to Peabody Hotel.