1st Edition
Democracy as Creative Practice Weaving a Culture of Civic Life
Democracy as Creative Practice: Weaving a Culture of Civic Life offers arts-based solutions to the threats to democracies around the world, practices that can foster more just and equitable societies. Chapter authors are artists, activists, curators, and teachers applying creative and cultural practices in deliberate efforts to build democratic ways of working and interacting in their communities in a range of countries including the US, Australia, Portugal, Nepal, the UK, and Canada. The book demonstrates how creativity is integrated in place-based actions, aesthetic strategies, learning environments, and civic processes. As long-time champions and observers of community-based creative and cultural practices, editors Tom Borrup and Andrew Zitcer elucidate work that not only responds to socio-political conditions but advances practice. They call on artists, funders, cultural organizations, community groups, educational institutions, government, and others to engage in and support this work that fosters a culture of democracy. This book is intended for undergraduate and graduate students in the humanities and social sciences, activists, funders, and artists who seek to understand and effect change on local and global scales to preserve, extend, and improve practices of democracy.
Introduction
Part One: Place-based Actions
Introduction to Place-based Actions: Following the Thread of Place-based Actions
Jeremy Liu and John K.C. Liu
1. Repurposing agricultural infrastructure to build cultures of democracy in rural communities: A case study from north-west Victoria
D’Arcy Molan, with Katya Johanson, Emily Potter
2. Lake Street Arts! – Creative Democracy in Practice
Meena Natarajan
3. How ‘creative recovery’ stimulates a culture of democracy: Case studies of post-disaster creativity in rural Australia
Anna Kennedy-Borissow
4. Democracy as Demonstration: A Lifelong, Dreamed of, Home
Kirsten Kaschock and Rachel Wenrick
Part Two: Aesthetic Strategies
Introduction to Aesthetic Strategies - Remaking Worlds and Ourselves: Aesthetic Strategies for a Culture of Democracy
Diane Ragsdale and Shannon Litzenberger
5. Co-Creating Democracy: Aesthetics in Action
Andrea Assaf
6. Braiding Comedy in Precarious Times: The Possibilities and Pitfalls of Research Creation in the Settler Colonial University
Heather McLean
7. Mediating Provisional Communities: The Production and Management of Collaborative Arts Projects
Rui Goncalves Cepeda
Part Three: Learning Environments
Introduction to Learning Environments - Learning and Practice: Democracy in Action
8. Reflections on Doing Visual Politics: Photography, collaboration, and creative practice as civil action
Alan Hill, Kelly Hussey-Smith, Marnie Badham, Shehab Uddin, and Sagar Chhetri
9. All the Relatives: Animating Stories of Democratic Participation Through Speaking Out
Maria Asp and Sonja Kuftinec
10. The Ray of Hope Project and Women Composers Festival: Reframing Narratives
Alika Hope and Penny Brandt
11. The Power of Storytelling: Practicing a Culture of Democracy with Young Students
Kiyoko Motoyama Sims
Part Four: Civic Processes
Introduction to Civic Processes – Get With It: A Play of Civic Processes
Roberto Bedoya
12. Democracy is in the Making: Just Act’s Model for Rehumanizing Community Engagement
Lisa Jo Epstein
13. Creating Our Next LA: Art Animating Powerful Congregation-Based Campaigns for Justice
Karen Mack with Elizabeth Cho
14. Warm Cookies of the Revolution: A Case Study of Democratic Culture through the Framework of Civic Health
Vincent Russell
15. Civic Artists Reimagining Democracy
Johanna K. Taylor, Amanda Lovelee, & Mallory Rukhsana Nezam
16. “The most optimistic way I have of envisioning our collective future”
Bronwyn Mauldin and Artists 4 Democracy
Editors’ Summary and Conclusion
Biography
Tom Borrup is Senior Lecturer and Director of Graduate Studies for the Arts and Cultural Leadership and Civic Engagement Programs at the University of Minnesota and a community and cultural planning consultant.
Andrew Zitcer is an associate professor at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA, USA where he directs the Urban Strategy graduate program.
"Borrup and Zitcer strike a timely proposition for the critical role of creative practices to advance cultures of democracy. In the face of current forces that threaten the foundations of democracies around the world, Democracy as a Creative Practice assembles fresh, inspiring, and instructive stories by frontline creative practitioners responding to these threats in a range of rural, urban, educational, municipal, and community settings and contexts. Field thought leaders introduce thematically organized essays layering in illuminating theory and reflections that lend depth and new insights and reverberate throughout the book."
Pam Korza and Barbara Schaffer Bacon, former Co-directors, Animating Democracy, a program of Americans for the Arts
