Practice for Change
Critical Community Engagement at Cornish College of the Arts
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Katherine Greenland
The purpose of this project was to experience and experiment, develop and facilitate a critical community engagement effort between three entities: Cornish College of the Arts, a nonprofit organization called The Eureka Institute, and the City of Sandpoint in Idaho. Methods were quantitative and qualitative, centering around the theme of affordable housing and place-making. The Eureka Institute hosted 20 Cornish students at their 42-acre retreat center in Idaho to design several pop-up wellness clinics as built hypothetical visual models which were then given to Eureka's board to support its mission of life-long learning and leadership. Additionally, students researched affordable housing and place-making by working with the City of Sandpoint and collaborating on a case study for human-centered design to establish a site plan for living, education, recreation, and trade. Cornish students interviewed the Mayor of Sandpoint and city staff to learn about critical issues that the city faces. Interview research was combined with classroom theory of integrated living systems design toward site planning for a sustainable and affordable future. Through immersion, discourse, experimentation, and discovery, traditional approaches to problem-solving become permeable to artistry and innovative design practice, and vice versa, resulting in unexpected and contextually grounded concepts for 21st-century place-making.
Art as a Catalyst for Change: A Performance Ethnography of Social Practice Art
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Maria Lisa Flemington
How has participating in socially engaged work and social practice art informed individual and community narratives? This research aims to identify the capacity of social practice art to inform and generate narratives. By exploring the individual experiences derived from the social practice art process, a greater understanding of the social impact social practice art can have on participants and contributors could be derived. This study will employ mode of address, social space, and critical pedagogy as theoretical frameworks and theories to consider the various experiences of social practice art participants and contributors. In addition, considering these insights through the theoretical frameworks and utilizing performance ethnography methods to explore the impact of social practice art. This research explores the transdisciplinary aspects of social practice art to act as a catalyst for change by examining the social impact on project contributors. This study may reveal the importance of diverse individual and community narratives spanning disciplines, institutions, and communities. Additionally, advocate for the importance of social practice art in that it responds to societal issues, as well as a broad range of topics that are relevant to human existence and coexistence.
Does Service Learning with a Culturally Specific Arts Organization Impact Students' Perceptions of People Different from Themselves?
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Antonio C. Cuyler
Research has shown that service learning with a culturally specific arts organization has assisted graduate Arts Administration students’ acquisition of specific social justice competencies. However, it is unclear how this approach to learning impacts students’ perceptions of social groups different from them. Furthermore, it is not known if graduate Arts Administration students from privileged social groups benefit more from this education than those from unprivileged social groups. Therefore, this paper will investigate two research questions. First, does service learning with a culturally specific arts organization negatively, positively, or neither negatively or positively impact graduate Arts Administration students’ perceptions of groups different from them? In addition, do graduate Arts Administrations students from privileged social groups benefit more from social justice education than those from unprivileged social groups?
