Here’s the second post chronicling EmcArts’ Community Innovation Labs program, from conception to design through piloting. This post documents our three Innovation Team meetings, which explored questions about artistic practice and community partnerships, surfaced assumptions and innovation strategies, and helped us develop a new Labs framework and design.
Here’s the origin story and inspiration behind EmcArts’ new Community Innovation Labs program, which will pilot in two U.S communities in 2015. Community Innovation Labs is a new approach to solving tough social challenges by bringing together a diverse, cross-sector group of stakeholders, and deeply integrating artists and artistic experiences into rigorously designed and facilitated change processes.
By opening the doors of their costume and prop shop to the local community, Center Theatre Group developed new partnerships and explored new ways to connect the craft of theatre with daily lives.
The City of Roanoke’s “Parks and Arts” program commissions visual art activities and performances that reinvigorate local city parks and connect residents with art experiences in their own neighborhoods.
The Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation (JCNI) and the San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture developed a land use plan in the Diamond Neighborhoods that aims to unify a diverse community around art and empower residents by involving them directly in the plan’s visioning process.
The Wallkill River School, a nonprofit artists’ cooperative based in Montgomery, has been working on an initiative to develop programs that would mutually benefit farmers and artists.
Groundswell engaged local youth, artists, and community members in a series of community mural-making projects to identify local traffic and safety issues.
In this podcast, Karina Mangu-Ward, Michael Boberg, and Ellen Muse-Lindeman explore the sociological and civic impact of “cultural clusters” in cities, towns and neighborhoods.
In this podcast, Richard Evans, Caron Atlas, and Frances Lucerna explore how to strengthen communities through cultural initiatives.
Shakespeare Festival St. Louis gave the entire canon to its residents with only one rule: make the play happen any way you see fit.
Lanesboro Arts Center is reimagining the future of rural America and the role that the arts can play in its sustainability by transforming an entire small town into an arts campus.
McColl Center for Visual Art’s community engagement model highlights the value of artist-led ecosystem interventions that foster inter-generational relationships, create stronger communities and elevate the value of artists as catalysts for change.
The All My Relations Arts Gallery has created a destination and anchor in the south Minneapolis American Indian community that continues to generate innovative ideas and strategies for a more vibrant future.
What happens when artists from multiple disciplines come together in an unprecedented fashion to bring art to the people?
Pillsbury House + Theatre is exploring how artists and artistic practice can infiltrate social service in a way that makes radical organizational restructuring easier, collaboration and collective impact successful, and neighborhoods better places to live (without displacing the people who live there).