Arts for Social Change: Bridging the Silos

• In Event: Performance as a Social Context for Transformative Educational Praxis

Abstract

Around the world, arts for social change practitioners are impacting the lives of individuals and whole communities, creating new forms of dialogue, insight and positive change. With the use of specialized methods in performance, visual and media arts, these arts practices enable us to imagine and pursue the changes we wish to see in our own lives and in the world around us, and to learn in transformative ways. This work takes place not only within education, but also in many other social contexts, often cross-cultural and inter-generational (e.g., health and medicine, community development, conflict resolution, business innovation, the justice system and human rights work). Making art creates a transformative form of cultural democracy in which engagement, innovation and hope is created through the lens of the imagination.

Effective arts for social change work demands the use of a range of specific knowledge and skills that go well beyond competence in the arts. Because of its interdisciplinary nature, the field offers great potential for new dialogue and creativity across academic and other educational and professional sectors. There is rapid growth in arts-based community development, facilitation, animation and research; however, there are few opportunities in post-secondary settings to learn about the field, its history, the ideas that inform it, and current local and global practices.

Students, scholars, community-based learners and professionals from the private and public sectors express the need for learning in a range of areas including community and economic development; facilitation, dialogue and other communications approaches; ethical considerations; research and evaluation methods; and partnerships/business development in social innovation agendas.

After more than 30 years of international work in the field, Judith Marcuse Projects (JMP), in partnership with Simon Fraser University, has established the International Centre of Arts for Social Change (ICASC) as a direct response to the diverse needs of individuals and organizations already working in or interested to learn about this rapidly-expanding field. ICASC offers concentrated learning, research, networking, knowledge exchange and capacity-building resources.
ICASC has created a two-year, six-course, interdisciplinary program in arts for social change that involves six university faculties as well as professionals from the community. Drawing upon the work of Paulo Friere, Augusto Boal, Arlene Goldbard, Liz Lerman and others, it brings together both credit and non-credit learners, with dialogue and experiential learning as primary forms of pedagogy.
This session proposes to describe experiences in the field and the research that led to the creation of this program.

Author

• Judith Marcuse, Simon Fraser University