ARTS-EXT 390D / LLAMS 24
Creative Community Leadership teaches art-centered activities that contribute to the sustained advancement of human dignity, health, and/or productivity within a community. This course teaches how to use the arts and the creative process as a tool for social change, as well as the skills to practice effective creative community collaboration and partnership development. In this course you will: explore the structure and dynamics of social and cultural ecosystems and strategies for working effectively within them; develop an awareness of how race, rank, and privilege affect community cultural development; and acquire and practice adaptive leadership and inquiry-based learning skills as keys to successful work in change-constant environments.
Issues from Black Lives Matter, DAPL and Climate Change unrest, and COVID-19 disruptions have exposed a need for new support systems (training, research, advocacy, funding, networks, etc.,) to advance the further development of the expanding and diversifying Creative Community field. Research has shown the most effective community arts partnerships are painstakingly developed over time. These exemplars have also taught us that working across sectors in fast-changing communities is complicated and messy. As such, fostering agile, assertive cross-sector leadership will be an essential component of effective community arts infrastructure. This course will provide leadership training to support cultural practice as an overarching resource for advancing collaborative, creative problem solving and innovation across multiple community sectors.
Collaborations provoke a wide range of new and intriguing questions about the role of the arts in society and the future of community cultural leadership. How do the arts contribute to safe communities? How can cross-sector arts partnerships help planners, police, health care workers, community organizers, and the like be more effective in their service to their communities? And, what is the argument that the arts community must make to advance the integration of cultural resources into the heart of community life?