The Collaboration Among Youth, Organizers and Artists

Youth, Organizers and Artists: In collaborations, what does each bring to the table? How and why should we connect these three distinct groups?

Through my work with young people, I want to challenge the received opinion of how art functions in society. I want the youth to understand the power of art from an early age and begin practicing art as a tool to communicate their ideas to the world. The cooperative endeavors of artists, organizers and young people can catalyze social change. This happens because these groups encompass a diverse range of skills, perspectives and approaches. Given time, many such collaborations can develop a generation of creative, civic-minded youth leaders who will grow into adult agents of change.

Youth bring new ideas, fresh energy, unique perspectives, honest opinions, raw creativity and real experience with the most pressing social issues. Organizers bring tactics for building consensus, access to political and business leaders, logical/linear ways of thinking, historical examples of how real change can happen, strong will to follow through on specific goals and an understanding of power and how to use it. An organizer’s job is to coordinate people around a community’s own self-interest. Artists bring creative solutions, new insights, tangible mediums for communicating, circular/nonlinear forms of thought, inspiration, vision and sensitivity to environments and people. The community artist uses art to build relationships, lift up community voice and provide insight into important social-justice issues that affect communities.

Collaboration among the three groups is not easy because of the distinct backgrounds, language, philosophies, methods and agendas of each group. With the right programming and organizational structure, the three groups can collaborate very effectively to reach their shared goals – goals that none could reach on their own.

Case Study: The Art Form of Performance Integrates Youth Voice into Organizing

My work in the Masters of Art in Community Arts (MACA) at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) program helped me explore a new format for applying my artistic sensibilities to my desire to teach young people and empower them with a vision for creating change in the community. MACA connected me, through a yearlong residency, to two nonprofit organizations in the city called Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development (BUILD) and Child First Authority (CFA).

BUILD is a broad-based community power organization, rooted in Baltimore City’s neighborhoods and churches. CF is an afterschool program created by BUILD to help organize parents and address the needs of their children in the public schools.
Through interactions with these organizations, I learned what being an activist or political organizer could mean to me as an artist.

Performance: As the young people and I created more videos, music, poetry and speeches, I wanted a way for us to be able to connect all of the different art mediums and share our work with a large audience. Through my guidance, the youth had been able to insert themselves into organizers’ action meetings and other related events. I felt it was time for the youth to create their own event that would bring the adult organizers and other nonprofit organizations into “our world.”

At the same time, fellow MACA student and colleague Julia DiBussolo, and I were hearing similar stories of violence within the city schools. Julia’s MACA residency was in southwest Baltimore at Bon Secours of Maryland Foundation (BSMF) and Operation Reach Out Southwest (SW). She was working with young adults who were trying to get their GED (General Education Development Tests) degrees and jobs. We decided to bring these two groups together and see what type of exchange was possible.

The young adults from southwest Baltimore shared their insights about violence with the youth from Kids With A Statement, Child First Authority’s peer-to-peer education project. Both groups agreed that the two most important topics that people needed to hear about were gang violence and school dropouts. Julia and I did the necessary organizing to secure a stage at MICA for a collaborative performance that would be led by the young people and address issues of violence in Baltimore. We gathered adult support from our partner organizations: MICA, BSMF, Child First Authority and BUILD. We didn’t want this to be just another high-school talent show or play that cried out for sympathy. We wanted this to be high-level artistic and activist collaboration among ourselves as community artists, the youth from Lemmel Middle School, young adults from SW, artists, after-school providers, city officials and other Baltimore citizens that were concerned about issues of violence in our city. Julia and I created the following mission statement for the performance:

Everyday our youth are confronted with violence in their schools and in their neighborhoods, but have no way of expressing what they see, think and feel. As community artists, we value the experiences and insights of our young people and their ability to problem-solve through creative means. The purpose of this performance is to model an arts-based way for youth to take charge of their own education. We believe that dialogue between various ages of youth and adults is necessary if we want to understand the implications of violence. Our mission for this performance is to showcase art as a tool for communicating and problem-solving issues of youth violence in Baltimore.

Julia and I spent the next couple of months rehearsing with the young people, making promotional materials, organizing support from our partner organizations and strategically inviting our audience. We also created our own artwork to contribute to the performance at MICA. The youth (with assistance from Julia and myself) presented a compelling performance called “Why We Bang…” on July 12, 2007, to an audience of about 85. People of all ages came from all over Baltimore. The performance lasted about 45 minutes. The sequence of the performance flowed through a variety of mediums including dance, video, sound, projection, monologues and scripted acts written by the youth. The final scene shows the youth at a school dance where the opposing gang members get in a fight over a girl and one of the boys gets killed. This dramatic ending was followed by 45 minutes of engaging dialogue among the cast and the audience members. The format for the dialogue was inspired by the writing of Augusto Boal in “Theatre of the Oppressed”. Boal teaches that interactive theater happens when “the actors develop it to the point at which the main problem reaches a crisis and needs a solution. Then the actors stop the performance and ask the audience to offer solutions” (132). The discussion had three main components – each led by the youth:

1. You, the audience, have observed the following scenes about gang violence. What do you think could have prevented this final scene (the death of a young man who was in a gang)?
2. This is not just something that we are play-acting on stage. Gang violence is very real in our lives. Listen to a few of our stories. Do any of you have stories of gang violence that you would like to share?
3. Now that you have heard our stories and understand how real this problem is in Baltimore, how can we work together to come up with solutions to issues of gang violence?

The dialogue among the youth and adults was rich and honest. They each had a chance to voice their opinions and ideas about violence. Many of them left their contact info with us because they wanted to follow up and take further action. This collaboration empowered each participant (youth, organizers and artists) because they had become equal, vital parts of a greater whole. Organizers brought the media and powerful people to the dialogue to help plan next steps. The youth created an engaging performance that told compelling stories about real situations and they offered critical insight during the discussion. The community artists facilitated the entire art-making process, co-directed the performance and shared their unique perspectives through their own artwork. The youth and their communities were empowered by the process of art making. Performance is yet another way to organize people. Through this artistic medium the youth, community artists, organizers and community members began the process of developing creative strategies addressing pressing social problems.

This essay is part of the Community Arts Convening & Research Project, 2008, funded by a Nathan Cummings Foundation grant to the Maryland Institute College of Art. The essay was reviewed and selected by the project's Editorial Board: Ron Bechet, Xavier University of Louisiana; Lori Hager, University of Oregon; Marina Gutierrez, Cooper Union; Ken Krafchek, Maryland Institute College of Art; Sonia Mañjon, California College of the Arts; Amalia Mesa-Bains, California State University Monterey Bay; Paul Teruel, Columbia College Chicago; and Stephani Woodson, Arizona State University.

Whitney Frazier received her Masters of Art in Community Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2007. She became a Community Arts Coordinator with Child First Authority, an organization that provides after-school programs for Baltimore City Public Schools. Frazier develops and implements social-justice and arts-based programming for older youth. She received her BFA in Painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2006.

Original CAN/API publication: September 2008