Cultural Agents Initiative

The mission of Cultural Agents is to promote the arts and humanities as social resources. We foster creativity and scholarship that measurably contribute to the education and development of communities worldwide. Identifying creative agents of change, reflecting on best practices, and inspiring their replication, we show that creativity sustains healthy democracies by developing the moral imagination and resourcefulness in citizens.

Based at Harvard University, Cultural Agents brings together artists, educators, and community leaders in innovative collaborations that revitalize civic life both locally and internationally. Our activities feature workshops, conferences, TV programs, performances, exhibitions, and scholarly publications.

News

Paper Picker Press with Colombian Hip Hop Familia Ayara

     - Hip Hop to promote literature
     - Extension of the Graffiti Tour Canvas approved
     - Forums on the colombian Hip Hop industry
     - Youth alliances to build peace

...read more about the program in the Ayara Newsletter.

Cartonera Conference
Madison, WI
October 2009

Cultural Diplomacy in Africa: A Forum for Young Leaders
Berlin, 17th – 21st August, 2009

The program for the Weeklong Seminar will consist of lectures, seminars, workshops, and cultural activities in and around Berlin. The participants will meet with leading figures from the political, diplomatic, academic and civil society spheres to discuss the relationship in question and consider how it can be supported through organised cultural exchange. Speakers at previous Weeklong Seminars include representatives from the German Foreign Office, the Egyptian Embassy in Berlin, the DAAD, KfW Development Bank, the Embassy of Lesotho in Berlin, the European Commission, and the German Council on Foreign Relations.

Article - "Twice Blessed: Bilingual babies are precocious decision-makers"

UPCOMING PAPER PICKER PRESS TRAINING WORKSHOPS

June 2009
IBA - Inquilinos Boricuas en Accion

Puerto Rico, Universidad del Este, Cabo Rojo
Sponsored by Fundacion Chana y Samuel Levis

For more details, please visit our calendar.

Article on Cultural Agents, El Tiempo - Bogota, Colombia

Youth Arts for Social Change, Spring 2009
Doris Sommer, PhD
Ira Jewell Williams, Jr.
Spring Term Course, Harvard University

This course is for educators and future educators who wish to work collaboratively with local artists and one another to integrate a range of creative practices into conventional and unconventional public school settings, including after school programs. It features a series of six, hands-on sessions led by local artists representing a variety of genres, including theater, dance, music, the visual arts, documentary photography, and film. Students experience how to transform classrooms into sites of creative agency in ways that integrate the arts throughout the disciplines. Participants form collaborative teams to construct final projects..

Cultural Agents in Collaboration with United Nations Safer Cities Project

Thanks to the successful regional meeting for Safer Cities, a project of UN-HABITAT, held in Medellin, Colombia in September 2008, and the follow-up conversations during the Fourth World Urban Forum in Nanjing China in November 2008, Cultural Agents and participants of the Safer Cities project are poised to produce the much needed module on art for the project's manual directed to youth leaders. We have already made recommendations for the general manual in order to feature the importance of "art works" in the youth manual. The "works" in the module does double duty both as a noun for creative objects or events and as a verb to signal the salutary effects of art in shaping social practices and social change. We hope to continue contributing to these developments through the next WUF, planned for 2010 in Brazil.