Crafting Change Online Conversations
The US is considered the world’s leader in incarceration, with currently two million people in the nation’s prisons and jails; a 500% increase over the last 40 years. (Sentencing Project). Mass incarceration also disproportionately affects young people of color, as Black youth are five times more likely to be incarcerated than white youth (2017, EJI). Yet mass incarceration and its interconnected human rights violations is also a worldwide problem.
Most recently, community-based organizations have turned to arts-based programming as a way to address the punitive nature of the incarceration system, which is designed to strip individuals of their identities and human rights. This session will discuss how art can be used as a tool of self-expression to address and process human rights violations experienced by incarcerated youth. The session will also provide concrete examples and best practices of how prison art works as a form of resistance against prison life and towards amplifying human rights, rehabilitation, self-expression, and ultimately, advocating for liberation and abolition.
This session will be led by Marissa Gutiérrez-Vicario.
Thursday, November 18th at 8:00pm Eastern Time - rsvp here
Creative Youth Development (CYD) is a recent term for a longstanding theory of practice that integrates creative skill-building, inquiry, and expression with positive youth development principles, fueling young people’s imaginations and building critical learning and life skills.
For our next Continuing the Conversation, we'll share connections between our work and the Creative Youth Development framework that centers the values of Racial Equity, Youth Leadership, and Collective Action.
Indi McCasey (they/them) believes in the power of intergenerational, creative collaboration to foster social change and racial justice. Indi is a white, queer, community catalyst who has spent over 15 years working at the intersection of arts, education, and community health with the organizations Destiny Arts Center, Streetside Stories, Urbano Project, and Wise Fool New Mexico. Along with India Davis, they co-founded Topsy-Turvy Queer Circus, highlighting queer and trans* performing artists of color as part of the National Queer Arts Festival in San Francisco. Indi is a member of the Creative Youth Development (CYD) National Partnership and works to align school districts and community arts organizations around the CYD values of youth leadership, racial equity, and collective action. They hold an Ed.M from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and currently serve as the Executive Director of the Arts Education Alliance of the Bay Area.
may 12th AT 8PM EASTERN TIME - RSVP HERE
Our past informs our present. As educators, we bring with us our own schooling experiences that we both draw from and must move beyond. Reflections about our own experiences inform what we notice and how we interact as teachers now, consciously and unconsciously. How can we work toward questioning and examining the learning spaces that we create and inhabit? In this conversation we will reflect on our own experiences as learners and explore and discuss different areas to help us address ableism in our educational practices and move toward spaces that deeply value the minds, bodies, and intersectional identities of all students. This conversation will be a time to look inward, into our pasts and our present, to uncover biases and apply learning related social justice to build a more inclusive, equitable, and joyful future. There will be more questions in this session than answers and we hope these questions will inspire continual growth and reflection in your practice. This session is adapted to be a live, interactive session from a recorded presentation at the Berklee Institute for Arts Education and Special Needs' ABLE Assembly.
april 27th AT 8PM EASTERN TIME - RSVP HERE
“Balancing on Philly Street” by Alyssa Liles-Amponsah
Continuing the Conversation
“Movements are born of critical connections rather than critical mass.”
- Grace Lee Boggs
In June of 2020, Continuing the Conversation launched our monthly Crafting Change conversations as a way to foster discussion about an ever-changing world, in which we strive for justice and equity while simultaneously navigating unexpected challenges in our educational spaces. To that end, we host discussions which explore both social change in arts education and the adaptations we routinely experience in our arts education practice as we encounter them.
Information on these gatherings will be e-mailed from the CtC account. Please click here to subscribe if you haven’t already.
Previous Events
“Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.
Arundhati Roy, “ The Pandemic is a Portal”
At this stage of the pandemic we are at the precipice of change looking toward a new phase. What have we learned from this year and how will we bring it forward into this next world. How can we seize this moment to craft the change we want to see?
For the past year we have explored this theme of Crafting Change through the following conversations:
Processing Grief and Injustice Together
Approaching and Navigating Anti-Racism Conversations in Schools
Connecting Disability Art and Justice
Pivoting Our Practice: Starting the School Year on New Ground
Lessons from Learners: Listening to Student Voices
Collecting Ourselves: Artful Reflection
Practicing for Your Practice
Changing Our Minds: Moving from Scarcity to Abundance
On March 10th at 8pm Eastern, we will envision the world we want to see through the portal of the pandemic through collaborative art-making.
RSVP HERE
"The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it
If only we’re brave enough to be it"
Amanda Gorman, The Hill We Climb
How would arts in education thrive if we shifted our mindsets from one of scarcity to one of abundance? What would change if we moved forward without a fight for arts in education's place but a fierce belief in its power? Operating from a place of abundance means there are endless possibilities. As artists we often practice thinking in abundance in our work but as an industry in the arts and in education we tend to see the limitations and the barriers. Scarcity thinking is a tool of white institutionalized culture. Thinking in abundance is the work of justice.
Join us in February as we begin to plant the seeds for a new dawn as we collectively muster the bravery to see the light ahead.
february 11th AT 8PM EASTERN TIME - RSVP HERE
Like many, we resolve to exercise more in the new year... but, as artist/educators, we need to invent the kinds of exercises that truly help us 'practice for our practice.' Join us on January 11th at 8pm ET for an exercise led by Steve Seidel, chair of the Arts in Education program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). Steve will introduce us to one of the exercises he has developed for a course at HGSE built around foundational exercises for artist/educators, exercises designed to help develop reflective and generative practices. After introducing the exercise, we'll have time to practice it together. Join us for this session in our virtual studio/spirit gym/contemplation center/play and exercise Zoom room!
january 11th AT 8PM EASTERN TIME - RSVP HERE
Continuing the Conversation's online gatherings have been happening monthly and center various topics. During the global pandemic they provide a way to gather, share, process and learn. These sessions are responsive to what our community is going through, and we welcome your suggestions for future topics at contact@aieconversation.org.
As our country rejoices in a sense of hard won victory and healing that we are collectively experiencing, we would like to express our gratitude to every American, especially members of the BIPOC community, that made this outcome a reality! While the relief of the Presidential election results has come, the future is still uncertain and the fight for social justice continues. It is our commitment to justice that brought us to this moment and will propel us forward. Join us as we collect ourselves and reflect artfully on what we wish to devote ourselves in order to build a better future. Join us on November 16th at 8pm as we come together as artists to make a dedication through liberatory actions.
At this session we will craft altars - real and figurative - to the future we wish to see. Unaffiliated with any religious connotation, altar-making is an artistic practice. Altars often serve as places for quiet reflection, recalibration, and grounding. Through this practice we will create a visual focus of our intentions, affirmations, hopes, and energy. Our aim is to catalyze inspiration and refocus our hopes through important symbols. Altars can be anywhere or anything. We hope you will engage in this visioning process with us as we craft the change we wish to see.
november 16th AT 8PM EASTERN TIME - RSVP HERE
“Without community, there is no liberation,” - Audre Lorde
Join us on October 19th 8pm-9:30pm Eastern Time for our next Crafting Change Conversation; Lessons from Learners: Listening to Student Voices. Students from different levels/areas of education - from elementary school to pre-service teachers - will speak about their experience in a school year like we have never had before. We will provide a productive space to share how they're learning and growing from the important challenges, new discoveries, and opportunities for growth in this new school climate.
October 19th AT 8PM EASTERN TIME - RSVP HERE
For this month’s conversation, we invite educators from across the field to discuss the start of this strange new school year and how it has impacted and shifted their practice. After a brief sharing from a few educators in the large group, we will break out into smaller groups organized around role identities and provide prompts for a conversation about the struggles and successes that we are all moving through as we learn and grow together during this school year.
September 21st at 8pm Eastern Time - RSVP here
Referencing Disabled artists' work, we'll discuss modes of creative access and culture formats that transfer to Justice work in and out of the classroom.
Jerron Herman is an interdisciplinary artist creating through dance, text, and visual storytelling. He's based in New York City. To learn more about Jerron’s work, click here.
Change does not happen and in one conversation and, as activist and author Grace Lee Boggs advised, “Movements are born of critical connections rather than critical mass.” So CtC will come together monthly for deep, intimate conversation to learn from and through the change we experience and to build critical connections with others working passionately across the arts in education field.
August 17th at 8pm Eastern Time - RSVP Here
facilitated by
DR. Jalene Tamerat (Dean of the Charles Sposato Graduate School of Education)
& Sheggai Tamerat (high school english teacher, boston public schools)
The Continuing the Conversation (CtC) Arts In Education community would like to take this time to reach out in solidarity and support of everyone feeling the heavy impact of both the Covid-19 pandemic and the recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless other slain African Americans.
As artists and educators we know that we have all experienced these challenges in unique ways, and that we all have intersectional identities through which we process these events. In an effort to support our robust diverse community, we would like to offer a session on how schools are approaching and navigating anti-racism conversations.
We believe in the power of community and hope to provide a virtual resting place to simply share. This is open to our CtC community and beyond. Our community is stronger and better when more voices are heard and included. Please share this far and wide.
July 15th at 8pm Eastern Time - RSVP Here
facilitated by Alyssa Liles-Amponsah (HGSE AiE ‘12)
The Continuing the Conversation (CtC) Arts In Education community would like to take this time to reach out in solidarity and support of everyone feeling the heavy impact of both the Covid-19 pandemic and the recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless other slain African Americans. As artists and educators we know that we have all experienced these challenges in unique ways, and that we all have intersectional identities through which we process these events. In an effort to support our robust diverse community, we would like to offer a workshop, Processing Grief and Injustice Together. CtC would like to hold space for everyone who is suffering and trying to process these difficult issues. We believe in the power of community and hope to provide a virtual resting place to simply share. This is open to our CtC community and beyond. Our community is stronger and better when more voices are heard and included. Please share this far and wide.