Last week I had the pleasure of sitting in on a conference
call with folks from the National Endowment for the Arts (Yosi Sergant) , The White House Office of
Public Engagement (Buffy Wicks) and the United We Serve team (Nel
Abernathy) among many others. The call was hosted by Michael Skolnik, Political Director to Russell Simmons and Editor for the politics section of GlobalGrind.
I just saw a super post here about the call from JD Lasica who writes frequently for socialbrite.
The topic was the role that artists can play in
shaping communities with particular focus on plans for 9/11, a new National Day
of Service and Remembrance.
The idea is to find ways that artists can help spread the message of service and also highlight the service work that artists already perform in communities nationwide.
United We Serve
The United We Serve (UWS) project began June
22 and runs through September 11.
The hope is to encourage people to volunteer in their local communities,
not just for a day, but in a sustained, collaborative and focused effort to
promote service as a way of life for all Americans. The challenge is to translate participation in electoral
politics into engagement with governing.
UWS sees service as a way to do this. The United We Serve project is a
way to see what’s going on in our local community and connect with local non-profits, local city
officials, women’s groups, unions, you name it. The key is sustained relationships to deal with issues. Nel
Abernathy talked about using many of the same tools that were used in the
presidential campaign, noting that when asked and you give people tools, they
will participate. Now UWS is
asking people to do what they are doing, but more effectively, and at the same
time to recognize that what they are doing is not isolated but part of a larger
community.
The focus of the project was narrowed down to four main
issues people are facing:
- Healthcare
- Energy and Environment
- Education
- Community renewal
Artists as thought leaders
Because artists are often thought leaders and help direct
people to “what’s cool and what’s not”, they have a unique opportunity to help
support this project.
One of the goals of the group is to create a stronger
community among artists, continuing to do things we are passionate about, and
encourage people to participate at the local level.
How artists can participate:
The arts community is so powerful in telling stories. Art
grabs people who don’t necessarily read the local paper. Do what we do.
Participation means whatever you want it to mean.
In the same way that the Obama political campaign was
successful by providing tools and letting people do their own thing, The UWS
campaign is asking people to do the same thing. “We do our local thing, but in a
national context”.
3 Things we can do
- Look at serve.gov
- Look for projects to do
- Post your projects
- Tell stories
- Document
- Take photos
- Take videos
- Post blogs
- “This is a community that knows how to make a stink”
- Encourage others to get engaged
- Pick something from one of the 4 key areas and bring your artistic creativity and utilities to the table.
Some Ideas
Thomas Bates from Rock the Vote, talked about an example
project with Cody Hudson in Chicago focusing on the environment.
They are engaging young people to collect ‘garbage’, and create
something of a community monument of public art out of the found materials.
I think it would be great for the Mighty United Artists to find a way to showcase the art that everyone is doing that relates to this. A new section on the serve.gov site???
Interesting in being more involved with this artistic
community?
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