Profiles - Artists, Organizations, and Projects

In 2008, ten years after Tamms CMAX Prison opened, human rights advocates started a program to help those incarcerated there to cope with the long-term and inhumane conditions. Tamms Year 10 is a project created by human rights activists that allows the public to get insight into the negative effects of extended solitary confinement, and how it directly correlates with the inability for inmates to react to rehabilitation tactics and creates poor mental health. Tamms Poerty and the Photo Request from Solidarity are both projects that use the arts to help connect those in confinement with the

The Teaching Artist Academy is a new project of the Orchestra Engagement Lab. In the first year of the Lab, we guided ten orchestras to create ambitious new community engagement projects in their home areas, in relation to a co-commission of a new orchestral work. This year we are adding a five day intensive Academy to train musicians in ways to design and lead ambitious community engagement projects. The project is led by Eric Booth and a team of experienced Teaching Artists.

"The theater is a call to not lose goodness and in addition to pointing out the causes of what happens, it also shows us that it is possible to change…" (Luis de Tavira).  Furthermore theater is born in the popular neighborhoods and cannot belong only to a section of the more privileged society.

Tectonic Theater Project is an award-winning company dedicated to developing innovative works that explore theatrical language and form, fostering an artistic dialogue with its audiences on the social, political, and human issues that affect us all. In service to this goal, Tectonic supports readings, workshops, and full theatrical productions, as well as training for students around the country in its play-making techniques. Tectonic has focused on creating groundbreaking productions constructed from detailed review of interviews, letters, journals, and historical documents.

Telling Stories creates theatre from the life experiences of youth in the foster care system. Playwright Project developed the program in partnership with the LEAP (Leadership Empowers All Possibilities) Board of the San Diego Foster Youth Initiative, a group of young adults involved in advocating for changes to the system. The LEAP Board named the program after a sentiment frequently expressed by foster youth: “We go through many trials and tribulations and when we talk about what has happened to us, the response is ‘You’re lying. That didn’t happen.

Ten Days for Oppositional Architecture was a 10-day public event consisting of lectures, discussions, presentations, film screenings, and a range of participatory events, bringing together architects, activists, geographers, planners, economists, and the general public. The project was conceptualized by the biannual journal on architecture and politics An Architectur and was commissioned and hosted by Performa and Storefront for Art and Architecture.

The Tenure Team Initiative (TTI) is one of the consortium's most important initiatives to date, and seeks to articulate and support the adventurous work of publicly engaged scholars and artists. Led by National Co-chairs, Nancy Cantor (Chancellor and President of Syracuse University) and Steven D. Lavine (President of the California Institute of the Arts), team members seek to develop a broad understanding of the university’s public mission and its impact on changing scholarly and creative practices in the cultural disciplines.

The Terraced Cascade, which was commissioned by the Scottsdale Public Art Program and the City of Scottsdale Municipal Services Department, is an environmental artwork and theater garden that draws inspiration from water and manmade inscriptions on the desert. Expressed as both miniature watershed and abstraction of the human body, it provides a means for communtiy members to imagine their place within the larger Indian Bend Wash - a waterhshed with alternating conditions of drought and flooding.

I want to facilitate art-making that changes lives and builds community. I believe that quality of life is enhanced by making things, not consuming them. I want to prioritize /privilege women’s stories to examine and strengthen matrifocal aspects of cultural bonds. I want to share the outcomes with my own cultural world to encourage the possibility of enhancing matrifocal aspects of our world communities.