Mapping the Landscape of Arts for Change

Pam Korza co-directs Animating Democracy, a program of Americans for the Arts that inspires, informs, promotes, and connects arts and culture as potent contributors to community, civic, and social change.  She co-wrote Civic Dialogue, Arts & Culture: Findings from Animating Democracy, and the Arts & Civic Engagement Tool Kit. She co-edited Critical Perspectives: Writings on Art & Civic Dialogue, as well as the five-book Case Studies from Animating Democracy.  She has consulted and offered workshops and presentations on the principles and practices of arts and civic engagement for artists, cultural organizations, funders, and at cross-sector gatherings across the country as well as at colleges and universities.  In 2008, Pam participated in a professional exchange with public art professionals in Beijing, Shanghai, and Harbin, China and as a keynote speaker about community arts at an international conference in Shanghai.  In 2010, she was one of three international keynote speakers at a conference on Local Regeneration and Community Arts in Seoul, South Korea.  Pam serves as a National Advisory Board member for Imagining America, a consortium of colleges and universities that supports public scholarship and practice to strengthen the public role and democratic purposes of the humanities, arts, and design through mutually beneficial campus-community partnerships. Pam previously worked with the Arts Extension Service (AES) at the University of Massachusetts, a national service organization that promotes community development through the arts. While at AES, she coordinated the National Public Art Policy Project in cooperation with the National Endowment for the Arts, which culminated in the publication Going Public: A field guide to developments in art in public places, a publication she co-wrote and edited. She also directed the New England Film & Video Festival.

Barbara Schaffer Bacon co-directs Animating Democracy, a program of Americans for the Arts that inspires, informs, promotes, and connects arts and culture as potent contributors to community, civic, and social change.  Currently she is also serving as interim vice president for Americans for the Arts Local Arts Advancement programs. Barbara has written, edited, and contributed to many publications including Civic Dialogue, Arts & Culture: Findings from Animating Democracy; Case Studies from Animating Democracy; Animating Democracy: The Artistic Imagination as a Force for Civic Dialogue.  She has served as a primary instructor for the Fundamentals and Advanced Local Arts Management seminars and was a contributor to Fundamentals of Local Arts Management and The Cultural Planning Work Kit. A consultant in program design and evaluation, Barbara has served as an adviser for state and national arts agencies and private foundations. She has delivered presentations and workshops nationally and internationally in Canada, Australia, and England. Barbara previously served as executive director of the Arts Extension Service at the University of Massachusetts. She is president of the Arts Extension Institute, Inc. Barbara served for 14 years on the Belchertown, MA school committee.  She was recently appointed by the Governor Deval Patrick to serve as a member of the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

William Cleveland is a pioneer in the community arts movement and one of its most poetic documenters. His books Art In Other Places and Making Exact Change and Art and Upheaval: Artists at work on the Worlds Frontlines are considered seminal works in the field of arts-based community development. Activist, teacher, lecturer and musician, he also directs the Center for the Study of Art and Community. Established in 1991, CSA&C works to build new working relationships between the arts and the broader community specializing in the development and assessment of arts-based community partnerships, and training for artists, and their community and institutional partners. The Center works with artists and arts organizations, schools, human service and criminal justice agencies, local and state government and the business and philanthropic organizations. Mr. Cleveland’s 30-year history, producing arts programs in cultural, educational and community also includes his leadership of the Walker Art Center’s Education and Community Programs Department, California’s Arts-In-Corrections Program and the California State Summer School for the Arts.  He has also been an Assistant Director of the California Department of Corrections and worked as a youth services counselor and resident artist under the auspices of the Department of Labor’s Comprehensive Employment and Development Program.  His most recent book Between Grace and Fear: The Role of the Arts in a Time of Change written with Patricia Shifferd was published in 2010. His new CD, Songlines, based, in part, on stories from Art and Upheaval, was just released.

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