Chattanooga has been chosen as the location for a new workshop series designed for artists in Chattanooga called “Artists as Change Agents within Complexity”. The program is facilitated by EmcArts, a national arts service organization that works alongside individuals, organizations and communities as they tackle their most complex challenges.
In this series, which consists of four whole-day sessions, local artists will develop their artistic practice as a central methodology for systemic change in their local community. The first sessions will be Aug. 11-12, and the second sessions will be Sept. 29-30. EmcArts will choose 10 artists to participate in the program through an application process, with applications due on July 9.
Through its research, EmcArts has identified a core set of five capabilities that are vital to making real, long-lasting change in complex situations, and which are also inherent to many artistic processes, said officials. The workshops will orient artists to the five capabilities, and explore the use each artist can make of them in a community context.
“Our aim is to facilitate an exchange and dialogue with local artists in order to find and develop the meeting points between their existing practices and these complexity-related capabilities,” says EmcArts Senior Program Manager Liz Dreyer.
In the Workshop Series, artists and EmcArts faculty will together explore how the five capabilities can be developed and consolidated among champions of change in local communities, as assets they can carry forward with them in their work. Each artist who participates in the program will receive a $250 stipend for each day (total $1,000).
Local nonprofits The Chattery and Chattanooga WorkSpace have teamed up to help facilitate and organize the workshop series in partnership with EmcArts. Funding for the program is provided by the Kresge Foundation and the Lyndhurst Foundation.
For more information and to apply for participation in the program, please visit bit.ly/emcarts.