UMass Amherst Arts Extension Service to Host Creative Women Leading Climate Action

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AMHERST, Mass – The UMass Amherst Arts Extension Service and partners host the Creative Women Leading Climate Action (CWLCA), a virtual symposium and event series highlighting artists and arts professionals creatively responding to climate change.

The CWLCA symposium offers a series of free virtual events from Sept. 30 through Oct. 15, including a mixture of public offerings that are open to all and registration-required symposium events that are open to women and nonbinary people to create a safe space in which to share. Pre-registration is required for the symposium that includes events, workshops, and panel discussions. Zoom links will be provided upon registration. Full information and registration details can be found on the Creative Women Leading Climate Action website, including a listing of all events.

Creative Women Leading Climate Action symposium envisions building an intergenerational network with a shared goal of creative climate action. This series of remote events highlights the work that artists and arts professionals are doing to respond to climate change and provides opportunities for students to learn from arts leaders and forge their own network as they pursue leadership in arts and activism fields. Dee Boyle-Clapp, director of the Arts Extension Service said, “We welcome this opportunity to focus on the most important issue of our time and to provide a means for students and the general public to come together to experience new works created specifically for this event, as well as opportunities to learn, share, and discover ways to get involved from those who are on the front lines of creating change.”

Partnerships across the UMass campus including faculty, staff, and students, have joined together to present the CWLCA to engage people in dialogues about climate action. Terre Parker, Program coordinator of the Arts Extension Service and organizer of the CWLCA symposium said, "I am so excited to share the work of all of the artists highlighted in Creative Women Leading Climate Action. These women and nonbinary people are leading their communities through extraordinarily difficult times. Their work offers respite, connection, and hope."

Lauren Bouvier, Arts Entrepreneurship Initiative intern and UMass Amherst student studying psychology and event planning, is part of the organizing team for the virtual symposium. She explains, “Students will have the opportunity to learn how to evolve to be leaders in climate change activism, even if remote, with a supportive collective empowering each individual.”

Creative Women Leading Climate Action is presented by the UMass Arts Extension Service, Augusta Savage Gallery, Women of Color Leadership Network, College of Humanities and Fine Arts Advising and Career Center, Department of History Feinberg Family Distinguished Lecture Series, Department of Theater, and UMass Amherst Center at Springfield. CWLCA is made possible by support from Women for UMass Amherst, UMass Sustainability Innovation and Engagement Fund, Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Arts Extension Service’s Arts Entrepreneurship Initiative.

The keynote event is co-sponsored by the Feinberg Family Distinguished Lecture Series, made possible thanks to the generosity of UMass Amherst history department alumnus Kenneth R. Feinberg ’67 and associates. The Feinberg Series is co-sponsored by the Five College Native American and Indigenous Studies, CMASS, and more than three dozen community and university and partners.

The Arts Extension Service (AES) is a nationally recognized arts service organization that provides consultation and training for arts professionals in the field and arts management courses on the UMass campus and online. Working to serve the arts through education, research, and publications, AES has been the nation's leading provider of professional arts management education since 1973. AES is a division of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts, University of Massachusetts Amherst.