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

AIC Launch Event: New Ideas, Conversations, and Projects

Friday, 9 October 2009
1- 4 P.M.
Lecture Hall, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University, 485 Broadway, Cambridge, MA

Guest Speakers:
Claudine Brown, Director, Arts and Culture Program, Nathan Cummings Foundation; Mel Chin, Artist; Ann Hamilton, Artist and Professor of Art, Ohio State University; Dava Newman, Director, MIT Technology and Policy Program, and Professor of Aeronautics, Astronautics and Engineering Systems, and other speakers TBA

August 31, 2009, Arts on Earth Call for Work
Arts on Earth is seeking scholarly and creative work in any form that can be circulated electronically and illuminates some aspect of the relationship between arts and bodies. Work sought includes but is not limited to performing arts, visual and design arts, language arts, network and broadcast media arts, and scholarly work. Click here for more information

August 17, 2009, New Generation of PPP Facilitators at Amiga Cartonera: Paper Picker Press - Second Year in Chalco, Mexico
from the Mano Amiga School, Chalco, Mexico

July 27, 2009, Climate Control Through Art
by Sara Kaufman

July 23, 2009, The Hip-Hop Archive Survey
All readers are invited to participate in "The Justice/Just-Us Survery" by the Hip-Hop Archive.

NPi Speakers Panel and Community Dialogue: "Building Communities Online and Offline"
City Year Headquarters
287 Columbus Avenue
Boston, MA 02116
Thursday, August 6th, 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM
(please arrive by 6:10pm)

The New Prosperity Initiative (NPi) will host a speakers panel and community dialogue, "Building Communities Online and Offline" on Thursday, August 6th, 2009. NPi dialogues are an opportunity to hear first-hand stories of community activism from local leaders and to discuss innovative projects happening in the greater Boston area. This event is free and open to the public.

The New Prosperity Initiative (NPi) is a Boston-based media organization that pairs storytelling with new media to publicize the efforts of people and organizations doing socially innovative work to end poverty and build prosperity. NPi stories take the shape of interviews, photo essays, videos, and podcasts and are distributed both in print and online.

July 9, 2009, "Humanists as cultural agents"
Article by Doris Sommer

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

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.