A reception at Arizona State University's Art Museum's, March 1, 2008, honors Mrs. Jessie Smith of Kingston, Canada, as she reveals her selections from the Museum collection. Smith's show is part of a Museum residency by artist Josh Greene, "Some Parts May Be Greater than the Whole," which, in turn, is part of the Museum's Social Studies initiative exhibition series in which it turns over a gallery to an artist to explore a social interactive approach. Greene met Smith when she visited the Museum with a Canadian seniors tour group and he invited her to mount a show. Said Smith, "I have tried to learn to appreciate the value of art following a History of Art course in college in the 1940s! Life and travel have exposed me to international galleries and, as of a week ago, Josh Greene." [LINK]

Visitors to Highways Performance Space's exhibition "Right in Public" will take a field trip to a traffic island on March 9, courtesy of Islands of L.A., an ongoing artwork conceived by artist Ari Kletzky that is turning traffic islands into "territories of art to create community, promote intellectual discussions in public and explore the use and availability of public space." The Highways "activity-experiment" in Santa Monica, Calif., is part of "Who Owns Public Space," an Islands project that began on February 2 on a traffic island in L.A.'s Echo Park with Kletzky handing out mini-postcards asking the community that question. A few days later, he took the project to Newtown’s Hugely Tiny Festival in Pasadena with a mini-traffic-island float. On March 28, Kletky leads a salon at Farmlab in downtown L.A. A diary and slideshow are on the Web. [LINK]

Mexican culture, language and theater process will be the topics of a community discussion in Atlanta, Georgia, as part of a play presentation in Spanish at 7 Stages Theatre. Hispanic community leaders and members, including Maria Carrion of Emory University and Veronica Luque-Noquez of the Hispanic Girl Scouts of Northeast Georgia, will lead the unique discussion on March 2, 2008. It's related to the presentation of "Las Chicas del 3.5 Floppies," a play (in Spanish with English supertitles) by young Mexican playwright Luis Enrique Gutierrez Ortiz Monasterio about the human repercussions of globalization and poverty. The program is part of 7 Stages' Spanish-language series. "Las Chicas del 3.5 Floppies" premiered in Mexico City in 2004 as part of Dramafest, a collaboration between British and Mexican playwrights. [LINK]

Picturing America is a new initiative from the National Endowment for the Humanities offering access to images for classrooms and library use. NEH describes this as an opportunity to "gain a deeper appreciation of our country’s history and character through the study and understanding of its art. ... Collectively, the masterpieces in Picturing America, used in conjunction with the Teachers Resource Book and program Web site, help students experience the humanity of history and enhance the teaching and understanding of America’s past." Applications (due April 15, 2008) will be accepted from all K-12 public, private, parochial and charter schools and home-school consortia and public libraries in the U.S. and its territories. Successful applicants receive 20 laminated reproductions and a Teachers Resource Book. Images were selected by NEH program staff, under the direction of art historian and NEH Chairman Bruce Cole. [LINK]

There are two new additions to the CANuniversity collection of syllabi from university community-arts courses, both on the subject of art and social change. Tom Tresser contributed the syllabus for "The Artist as Activist" (Loyola University, Chicago). The class explores community organizing around issues of culture and creativity and examines the work of social-change leaders who use the arts as their primary role of intervention. Mindy Nierenberg contributed the syllabus for "Art, Activism, and Community: Social Change through the Visual Arts" (Tufts University, Massachusetts). Through slide lectures and guest artists, students learn and engage in dialogue about contemporary artists that are addressing issues of the environment, racial and cultural identity, human rights, healthcare and social justice. Innovative community-based art organizations will also be studied, with guest lecturers from local Boston organizations who have developed nationally recognized models. [LINK]

The Open Society Institute is offering a grant to photographers who propose creative ways to distribute completed bodies of work and use photography as an advocacy tool. The 2008 OSI Documentary Photography Project will award grants of $5,000 to $30,000 to documentary photographers who have already completed a significant body of work on issues of social justice to collaborate with a partner organization and design an innovative distribution strategy that targets specific communities and advocates for social change. The partner must engage with the photographer to accomplish these goals—and not just fund or publish the project. Preference will be given to work that coincides with the issues and geographical areas that concern OSI. This is not a grant to make new photographs; it's important to read guidelines carefully and review past winners. Deadline: June 20, 2008. [LINK]

CAN is proud to present another story by John Sullivan on his Forum Theatre work for environmental justice, accompanied by project videos by Bryan Parras/T.e.j.a.s. "Behind the Fence: Forum Theatre on Lupus, Lead Poisoning & Environmental Justice" is a new story by theater artist John Sullivan, who co-directs the Public Forum & Toxics Assistance division of the NIEHS Community Outreach and Education Core at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Texas. It tells the inspiring story of a performance project in Buffalo, N.Y., that documents a community's activism in cleaning up a SuperFund site in their neighborhood. “Behind the Fence” was a Community Environmental Forum Theatre project hosted by Ujima Theatre, October 26-28, 2007, and employing the techniques of Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed. The text, slide show and videos walk readers through the history and process of the project -- wholly owned, as Sullivan says in his video introduction, by the community that accomplished it. [LINK]

Sojourn Theatre will host "Healthcare, Culture and Belief," a public conversation in Portland, Ore., March 3, 2008, accompanying its latest production, "Throwing Bones." Continuing its tradition of creating community dialogue, Sojourn will bring together a doctor from a hospital, a naturopathic expert from a natural healing clinic and a traditional healer to have a conversation with each other and an audience of healthcare workers and citizens from around Portland. Written by Sojourn Artistic Director Michael Rohd and directed by new Sojourn Associate Artist (and CAN writer) Maureen Towey, "Throwing Bones" is a piece about healthcare and mortality in South Africa and America, based on interviews with healers and their incurable patients. Towey gathered much of the material while she was a Fulbright Scholar in South Africa in 2006. "Throwing Bones" is set for March 28-April 13 at Concordia University Nursing Skills Lab. [LINK]

This year's "Performing the World 5" conference will be co-hosted in New York by the All Stars Project, known for its performance-based, out-of-school youth-developmental programs. Performing the World describes itself as "an international community of people who recognize performance as a powerful developmental activity for social-cultural transformation." Co-sponsored by the East Side Institute for Group and Short Term Psychotherapy, the fifth PTW conference, October 2-5, 2008, will "showcase innovative practice and scholarship and provide a rich context for learning and performing together." Workshops and performances will be based out of the All Stars’ performance and development center on 42nd Street near Times Square, and hosted by young New Yorkers there and at theaters, schools and other venues throughout Manhattan and other boroughs. Proposals for "examinations/explorations of the shift from a cognitive to a performative approach to understanding" are due April 1. [LINK]

Two environmental-education groups have been working with artists in Canada on the environmental effects of mining in that country. MiningWatch Canada has an interesting story on the Web about its intersection with the Canary Institute and Myths and MIrrors Community Arts in Sudbury, an old copper-nickel mining town in Ontario. They're working together on “Conversations with the Earth," a project involving youth and young parents in participatory research and public dialogue events in which people share their stories of the land in and around Sudbury, how mining and pollution have touched their lives and their environment. It's led to collective creation of public artworks, videos, zines, a mural on the outside of the project's new building, a cob-built "Earth Castle and "The Fate of the Earth," a series of puppet shows created by whole families. [LINK]

There are three new additions to the CANuniversity collection of syllabi from university community-arts courses. Tom Borrup contributed two syllabi from his courses at Saint Mary's University of Minnesota. "Arts and Community Development" explores vitality in geographic communities and the unique role played by culture. "Cultural Studies" examines the role of the arts and culture in global societies. Amy Sarno and Darren Kelly contributed the syllabus from "Do You See What I'm Saying' at Beloit College, Wisconsin, fall 2007, that had students exploring the site of Fairbanks Flats, the only known community housing built exclusively for African-American workers in the state. Students joined community members in mapping exercises and story exchanges to develop a form of reminiscence theater that will be used as the groundwork for a larger education-and-outreach program for the Fairbanks Flats Revitalization Group. [LINK]

Just added to CAN's Places To Study database is a Master of Advanced Professional Studies diploma (MAPS) in Expressive Arts and Social Change in Switzerland. The European Graduate School is a post-graduate university for professionals. Study takes place in the town of Saas Fee in the Swiss Alps (State of Wallis, Switzerland) each summer within an arts-based community setting. The degree program continues over two summer sessions of 23 days each in residency at EGS to be completed in consecutive years. In addition to courses, students participate in community events -- lectures, performances, excursions -- with students training as arts therapists, educators, coaches and consultants. Students also engage in a field project, either in international settings or in their home countries, between the first and the second summer sessions. [LINK]

Our newest addition to CAN Blognet is New Village Commons from New Village Press in Oakland, Calif., publisher of so many great community-arts books. Through an automatic feed to CAN Blognet, NVP Publisher Lynne Elizabeth blogs about renewing our cities, building communities and repairing neighborhoods. We also suggest a visit to NVP's Web site, where the Village Commons is a place for their authors and potential authors to share news, opinions and shorter works in between their books. There's a calendar of events, video/audio posts and New Village Online, a monthly magazine, the February issue of which will explore "A Festival of Democracy." March will address the topic of mapping community-based arts for urban planning, with contributions from urban-planning researchers who are discovering the power of grassroots arts to develop neighborhood health and wealth. [LINK]

Katherine Weider's new documentary, "Acts of Art: The Prison Creative Arts Project," premieres during PCAP's 13th Annual Exhibition of Art by Michigan Prisoners, March 25-April 9, 2008. The film features art from inside Michigan prisons and stories from the activists and artists who make it visible to the outside world. The April 6 screening is followed by a panel discussion with formerly incarcerated artists. This year's Ann Arbor exhibition shows some 300 artworks by 200 artists. Educational events include lectures by Judith Tannenbaum, author of "Disguised as a Poem: My Years Teaching at San Quentin"; Luis Rodriguez, author of "Always Running: La Vida Loca"; and Shawnna Demmons, African-American queer activist from the California Coalition for Women Prisoners; plus artist Ashley Lucas' solo performance, "Doin’ Time: Through the Visiting Glass," and her open dialogue, "Staying Connected: Families of the Incarcerated." [LINK]

Alameda County, Calif, is really serious about arts-integration strategies "to create outstanding classrooms for every child, in every school, every day." For starters they created a functional Alliance for Arts Learning Leadership, a countywide network of school-district and arts-organization professionals that holds quarterly forums, promotes a countywide advocacy campaign and presents student artwork through the annual showcase "Art IS Education" and two year-round galleries. Out of the Alliance's Strategic Arts Plan 2005-2008 came several dynamic projects, including the Arts Learning Anchor School Initiative, identifying 32 sites in three county school districts as "leadership models for arts learning." On March 7-8, the Alliance will host "Dreams Come True," a conference in Berkeley and Emeryville. "Inquiry-based, classroom-centered and focused on quality arts integration," it will demonstrate progress in the Anchor Schools, featuring 20 workshops, an arts-integration roundtable and galleries of student work. [LINK]

Oliver Sacks will give the keynote at a symposium on arts and healthcare at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, March 7, 2008. MoMA, Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the Society for Arts in Healthcare host the symposium, “The Value and Importance of Art in Health Care." Sacks, a neurologist and author of "Awakenings" and "Musicophilia: Tales of Music and The Brain" will speak on “Creativity and the Brain.” Symposium topics include model programs initiated by healthcare organizations and cultural institutions worldwide; perspectives of artists and physicians; current research in the field; and the financial aspects of exhibiting art in healing environments. Two presymposium workshops will be held on March 6: “How to Start a Visual Art Program in a Health Care Setting” and “Making Art Accessible to People with Dementia.” [LINK]

Today CAN brings you two new related stories on activist performance and its possibilities for social change. "[How] Does Activist Performance Work", by scholar Sonja Arsham Kuftinec, reports on a particularly engaging seminar she co-organized on the relationship between art, activism and effect (at the American Society for Theatre Research conference in Phoenix, Ariz., in November 2007). Reflecting on the discussion, she suggests activist performance can be more than a precondition for social change: It can actually be the site of change itself. Today CAn also brings you an accompanying essay, delivered at the seminar, by ethnographer Rachel Chaves. Her story about zAmya Theater Project, a Minneapolis coalition of homeless and housed performers, shows how the company creates social change "in intimate territory" through complex interaction among the actors and their audiences. [LINK]

Sojourn Theatre's summer institute, July 27-August 2, 2008, is themed "Devising Civic Theatre: Performance, Social Practice & Dialogue." "Civic theatre," says director Michael Rohd, "aims to bring an adventurous theatricality to a focused interrogation of contemporary issues by offering spaces for civic engagement throughout the process of developing new performance -- it's a porous series of events combining research, participatory activity, and studio (artist-focused) sessions that allow, invite and demand community members and community expertise into the dramaturgy before and after production in a variety of ways." The institute is also part of Sojourn’s research/rehearsal for its summer site-specific production "BUILT***," about challenges to U.S. infrastructure, sustainability and equity as its population dramatically increases beyond estimated housing capacity in the coming years. The public conversations will examine issues of "ethics and responsibility, hope and vision." [LINK]

"Creative Construct: Building for Culture and Creativity" is an international symposium in Ottawa, Ont., Canada, April 28-May 1, 2008, Sponsored by the Centre of Expertise on Culture and Communities at Simon Fraser University and the City of Ottawa, the event "aims to help transform the way our community planners, educators and elected leaders think about our cultural future." Speakers include representatives of some of "the world’s most exciting new cultural facility initiatives," say the sponsors, including Dave Peebles of Birmingham’s Custard Factory, who will share the story of how a 19th-Century custard factory became a micro-environment for creative entrepreneurs; Sir Ken Robinson, who contends that we are educating children out of their creativity; and representatives of the Cultural District of Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, now becoming an international cultural destination. [LINK]

Two North Carolina artists are constructing an ongoing calendar of the Iraq War and inviting all artists to send artworks (four inches square) to be installed on it. "The calendar format," say East Carolina University art faculty members Catherine Billingsley and Jodi Hollnagel-Jubran, "allows us a way to measure the full extent of the war and gives us a visual sense of its continuing scope." They add, "We intend for the project to be POSITIVE in nature ... Please keep the focus on PROMOTING PEACE rather than on decrying war." The first exhibit of the calendar, made of wood, was in November 2007 at ECU's Mendenhall Gallery. The calendar so far, submission instructions and listings of contributing artists are on the Countdown Web site. The calendar stops when the war stops. Meanwhile, they hope you'll participate. [LINK]

Neil Young has a pessimistic message: Music has lost its power to change the world, says AP's Geir Moulson (2/8/08). "I think that the time when music could change the world is past," the musician said at the Berlin film festival, where he showed his new tour movie, "CSNY Deja Vu," featuring songs from his "Living with War" album. "I think it would be very naive to think that in this day and age. I think the world today is a different place, and that it's time for science and physics and spirituality to make a difference in this world and to try to save the planet." In spite of that, Young said he told his felllow tour members: "I don't want to sing any ... pretty songs; we can only sing about war and politics and the human condition." [LINK]

Jumblies Theatre in Toronto is offering "Arts 4 All Essentials," February 25-March 3, 2008, an intensive course on the principals, practices and underpinnings of community arts. They describe the course as "Everything (or many things!) you need to know to launch your own project." The five day course will offer presentations, discussions, guest speakers, participatory activities, documentary videos and resources to take home. Topics to be covered include definitions, principles and practices; project basics and start-up; budgets and grant-writing; research/evaluation/documentation; creative process explorations; aesthetics and ethics; and community play and Jumblies history. The course will be repeated in fall 2008. Jumblies sets up multi-year residencies in urban neighborhoods and creates art with and about that community. Founded by Ruth Howard in 2001, it's based in the Community Play Movement introduced in Canada in 1980 by Dale Hamilton. [LINK]

CAN writer Judith Tannenbaum's blog has been added to the CAN Blognet. Tannenbaum is author of "Disguised As A Poem: My Years Teaching Poetry at San Quentin" (Northeastern U. Press, 2000) and editor of "Jump Write In!: Creative Writing Exercises for Diverse Communities, Grades 6-12" (Jossey-Bass, 2005). She's a writer and teacher whose work has focused on community arts and issues of cultural democracy. She currently serves as training coordinator for San Francisco’s WritersCorps program. An authority on prison arts and the teaching artist, Tannenbaum has her own Web site (http://www.judithtannenbaum.com), but she's blogging on the very interesting Red Room, "the official home of the world’s greatest writers," an online social network with author-generated content. CAN BlogNet currently features 14 different blogs, all relayed electronically to the CAN site through rss feeds. The page updates four times a day and CAN has no control over that content. [LINK]

Community activists, artists, scholars and emerging leaders will gather in New York City February 13-18, 2008, in a dialogue about unity among African descendants. The Third Annual Re-Defining African American "What’s At Stake?" Conference is sponsored by the Caribbean Cultural Center/African Diaspora Institute along with the Global African Latino & Caribbean Initiative and Hunter College. Two panels at Hunter will examine "the global need to develop thinking, terminology, programs and actions that will unite African descendents" to explore common ground and find common solution to issues negatively impacting their communities. The schedule also includes a CCC/ADI screening of "When the Spirits Dance Mambo?" and two panel discussions at Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center: "Iconic Tenants and Ironic Dictates" and "Say It Loud...Black Identity and Liberation in the Obama Era." [LINK]

Cornerstone Theater’s fifth Institute Summer Residency will take place in Piru, a small town in the Santa Clara River valley (pop. 1200) in Ventura County, California. Over four weeks in the summer of 2008 -- July 10-August 10 — students, faculty and guest artists will take up residence in Piru to put on a play with, about and for the residents of the community. The play will be written by Cornerstone Ensemble member Page Leong and directed by Artistic Director Michael John Garces. Application deadline is March 15. Cornerstone is also offering a two-day Institute Intensive, February 23-24, at its home base in the downtown Arts District of Los Angeles. It's a crash course in Cornerstone's collaborative methodology, with hands-on exercises for choosing and engaging communities, story gathering, script adaptation, auditions, casting and design. [LINK]

President Bush's FY 2009 budget calls for a $16.3m cut to the NEA, $200m cut to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and elimination of arts education funding. That would cut to $128.4 million the $144.7 million Congress approved for the NEA and would cut in half the $400 million allocated by Congress for CPB. Robert L. Lynch of Americans for the Arts called the cuts “senseless” and asked Congress to restore the NEA to its 1992 financing level of $176 million, said Elizabeth Jensen in the N.Y. Times (2/6/08). The proposed cuts for public broadcasting come just as local public television station executives are set to descend on Washington next week for a day of lobbying. They will be asking not just for the cut funds to be reinstated but also for an increase, which they eventually got last year. [LINK]

"Averting Our Gaze: The Imagery of Torture" is a keynote lecture at the 45th national conference of the Society for Photographic Education, Denver, Colo., March 13-16, 2008. The conference theme is "Agents of Change: Art and Advocacy." The keynote is by Susan L. Burke, lead lawyer in a lawsuit by the families of Iraqis tortured and killed by Blackwater mercenaries in the prison at Abu Ghraib. When she travels to the Mideast to interview the Iraqi victims, she brings with her photographers and artists in an attempt to let others capture the essential humanity of the victims. She will focus on the power of photographic imagery to shape and change world views. Other invited speakers will re-evaluate the influential exhibition "New Topographics," and talk on the role of the social documentary in the 21st Century. [LINK]

CAN writer Mari Gardner's new film "Violence Next Door: Growing Up in the Favela and the Hood" is part of "¡VIVA BRASIL!," a sister-city celebration for Baltimore and Brazil this month. In Gardner's documentary, youth from sister cities Baltimore and Rio de Janeiro use video cameras to expose the violence and corruption in their communities and break free from negative stereotypes. Teens in the two cities point video cameras at themselves, their communities and their families giving a glimpse into their lives as they battle for survival. A panel discussion follows the February 22 screening with Baltimore youth, Gardner and Ray Cook, director of On Our Shoulders. The film is a project of Gardner's organization, Rio/Baltimore Youth X-CHANGE. "¡VIVA BRASIL!" at Baltimore's Creative Alliance, includes a samba fiesta and a capoeira circle. [LINK]

The Reinvestment Fund has collaborated with the University of Pennsylvania's Social Impact of the Arts Project on a report about the role of the arts in revitalizing cities, "Creativity and Neighborhood Development: Strategies for Community Investment," which calls for investing in community-based creative activity to enhance its place-making role and potential, and offers investment ideas for three specific areas: creativity, development and knowledge. The project includes several briefs, including "From Creative Economy to Creative Society," which uses a social-policy lens to look at the potential and the positive and negative impacts of "the creative economy" for urban neighborhoods, and suggests a new model: "a neighborhood-based creative economy." Other briefs: "Cultivating “Natural” Cultural Districts," "Migrants, Communities and Culture" and "Crane Arts: Financing Artists’ Workspace." The Reinvestment Fund is a community-development financial organization that invests in the mid-Atlantic region. [LINK]