Imagining America Conference Links

**New Programs I have learned about while at the Imagining America conference,  Convergence Zones: Public Cultures and Translocal Practices, in Seattle, WA

The Public Square  (Chicago) By building bridges between theory and practice, The Public Square encourages the use of ideas as tools to improve people’s lives. These programs promote participatory democracy and create space for public conversations. Knowledge is power, yet much crucial knowledge still circulates only in small, isolated communities. 

RW121 Emerson Medellín - a bi-lingual, bi-national project among 100 students working across 5 First-Year Research Writing classes at Emerson College and MIT in Boston and 5 library parks (Parques Bibliotecas) and the Universidad Nacional in Medellín, Colombia.

Make Art / Stop AIDS
part of Art and Global HealthCenter at UCLA
(nod to Douglas Crimp- In 1987  edited a special AIDS-issue of October, entitled AIDS: Cultural Analysis/Cultural Activism. In his introduction to the edition Crimp argued for "cultural practices actively participating in the struggle against AIDS and its cultural consequences.")
 

Through Positive Eyes throughpositiveeyes.org
Through Positive Eyes tells the story of HIV/AIDS at the end of the third decade of the epidemic, when potent antiretroviral medication has been devised, but when treatment access is far from universal. (Los Angeles, Mexico City, Johannesburg, Rio de Janeiro)t

 The Art of Regional Change  (UC DAVIS) brings together scholars, students, artists, and community groups to collaborate on media arts projects that strengthen communities, generate engaged scholarship and inform regional decision-making

Marga, Inc - A Firm, Founded by David Maurrasse, Committed to Developing Communication between Communities and Institutes
— Anchor Institutions Task Force  - network to promote the role of anchor institutions in community engagement

Children's Urban Geographies (Univ. of Buffalo)

Notes on Community Engagement

Fragments of NOTES/THOUGHTS from the Imagining America conference, Convergence Zones: Public Cultures and Translocal Practices, Seattle, WA, 9.23-9.25.10

You can be global while being local.

Nancy Cantor, Chancellor - Scholarship in Action @ Syracuse U
institutional responsibility and engagement
promoting scholarship and community simultaneously
Say YES to education program providing tuition to Syracuse city high school students

Caryn McTighe Musil - American Association of Colleges and Universities
Our {universities and colleges) welfare tied to community's welfare
Civic learning spiral - braided elements with public action
 only 1% of community-based work is political according to the AAC studies.

If you have to come to help me....

"If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."

Lila Watson, part of an Australian Aboriginal Group, is given credit for this quote, but when interviewed she “was quite clear… that she was not comfortable being credited for something that had been born of a collective process” northlandposter.com
(reference came from this blog)

The Public School New York & Triple Canopy

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL NEW YORK is a school with no curriculum. It's GLOBAL
At the moment, it operates as follows: first, classes are proposed by the public (I want to learn this or I want to teach this); then, people have the opportunity to sign up for the classes (I also want to learn that); finally, when enough people have expressed interest, the school finds a teacher and offers the class to those who signed up.
THE PUBLIC SCHOOL is not accredited, it does not give out degrees, and it has no affiliation with the public school system. It is a framework that supports autodidactic activities, operating under the assumption that everything is in everything.
LOCAL
THE PUBLIC SCHOOL project was initiated in New York by common room and Telic Arts Exchange as The Public School (for Architecture) and operated with support from the Van Alen Institute between September and December 2009.

TRIPLE CANOPY works collectively with writers, artists, researchers and other collaborators on projects that deal critically with culture and politics, and the ways people engage them, both online and in the world at large. more

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL NEW YORK and TRIPLE CANOPY are based at 177 Livingston Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201. Light Industry (a venue for film and electronic art in Brooklyn) also shares the storefront at 177 Livingston. map

Teaching for the First Time

"I found that even with an exciting subject to teach (photography), it is not a simple thing to engage students, and that there has to be a well developed plan to hook them in on the first class."

Have Them Sit Down: The Civilians' Method

The Civilians were founded in 2001. Our work often combines aspects of journalism with a creative process. We like to engage directly with the real world through interviews, community residencies and other experiences in order to create new theater from creative inquiries into the most vital questions of the present. read more of NPR story

Visual Citizenship

Community Collaborations' books and website will be included in an exhibition on Visual Citizenship that is part of the 2 day conference Visual Citizenship: Belonging through the Lens of Human Rights and Humanitarian Action at Institute of Public Knowledge, April 23-24. Other Photography and Imaging Alumni and Faculty will part of the exhibition and conference.

Born into Brothels

from the BBC: Born into a brothel in the Indian city of Calcutta, Avijit Halder's life has undergone a dramatic transformation.

The 20-year-old is currently pursuing a degree at one of the top film schools in the US. It all started with the filming of an Oscar-winning documentary, Born into Brothels, which dealt with the lives of the children of Indian sex workers.
Avijit Halder was one of eight children of sex workers who featured in the 2004 documentary film, co-directed by Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman. read rest of article

Kids with Cameras foundation