Every effort is being made to convey ownership of this year’s convening structure and process to participants prior to and during the actual convening -- a scenario (hopefully) assuring long-term sustainable success of the Project.

Attendees are asked to review the following plan and proposed work session descriptions – and sign up ASAP! The sooner participants join a session, the greater their voice in its design and the more fruitful the convening experience.

1. Text authors and general attendees are invited to scan the accepted texts on the MICA Project Website at www.mica.edu/communityartsconvening and look for authors and attendees with whom they would like to form a convening work session group. The structure of each session is to be designed and implemented via consensus by the participants of each individual session group.
2. Work session groups may utilize all or part of Monday, April 20, 9:00 AM-5:00 PM and Tuesday, April 21, 9:00 AM to as late as 5:00 PM.
3. The Project pays for a coordinator, facilitator and a documenter culled from each of six work session groups having at least 5 authors and 5 non-authors.
4. These work sessions are considered their own living texts documenting participant experiences while pointing towards ongoing post-convening dialogues and partnerships.
5. The Project journal is designed around chapters based on these work sessions groups with participants of each writing their own chapter introductions and conclusions.
6. Each author selected to participate in the Project will have his/her individual text published online via CAN -- the form and content of these texts unaffected by chapter groupings or related introductions and conclusions.
7. Work session members are asked to mentor each other as writing coaches.

Session Updates as of March 31, 2009

Proposed Session #1

Coordinator
Jamie Haft
jmhaft@syr.edu

Monday AM	In-Session
Monday PM	In-Session
Tuesday AM	In-Session
Tuesday PM	No Session (Open)

Proposed Session Title

Knowledge Production and Critical Discourse in the Art and Social Justice Field, 1981 to 2009

Proposed Topic

The state of knowledge production and critical discourse in the art and social justice field after twenty-eight years of right wing policy opposed the democratization of art and culture.

Proposed Format

“We will begin by unpacking the assumptions in the session’s historical narrative that the past twenty-eight years of right wing policy opposed the democratization of art and culture. Drawing on the knowledge in the room through personal stories, participants will test the hypothesis that a major damaging effect of this right wing policy on the art and social justice field has been erosion of the field-wide critical discourse and of knowledge production. The session will develop action-oriented strategies, including how colleges and universities can become more effective centers for the democratization of art and culture. The group’s stories and analysis will be audio recorded for use by convening participants and the field.”

Time Frame

In order to minimize competition with other convening sessions, this session could be one day, if that day would have at least six hours and no more than twenty participants. (Because of the session’s participatory format, more time is required for more participants.)

Current Members

• Jamie Haft
• Dudley Cocke
• Julia Di Bussolo
• Stephanie Woodson
• Kate Collins
• Prudence Brown
• Brandi Rose
• Christina Ralls
• Megan Carney
• Phyllis Johnson

Proposed Session #2

Coordinator
Grady Hillman
gradyh@prodigy.net

Monday AM	In-Session
Monday PM	In-Session
Tuesday AM	In-Session
Tuesday PM	No Session (Open)

Proposed Session Title

To be determined by work session group members.

Proposed Topic

“…putting together a panel on international community arts engagement and multi-culturalism within the current context (or issues) of globalism. I’m particularly interested in international community arts models and working with international/multi-cultural artists and communities in the U.S. I see this panel as both dealing with the pragmatic and theoretical concerns while having the capacity to take the Convening across the “borders”."

"Many of the papers submitted to the Convening frame themselves in social justice concerns, opposition to Western hegemonic cultural practice, and a deeper more sensitive attention to the cultures we as practitioners, scholars, and students are engaging. It is my own perception that an examination of multi-culturally attentive practice within our borders within a global context would give many of us the opportunity to truly "think outside the box" and locate ourselves within a planetary context. My hope would be that this group could lay a foundation for international exchange as well as a better exchange with our own native and new immigrant populations."

Proposed Format

Open forum dialogue with focus and work session outcomes to be determined collectively around the workshop topic.

Current Members

• Grady Hillman
• Johanna Poethig
• Claire Schwadron
• Ashley Minner
• Cinder Hypki
• Bill Cleveland
• Linda Burnham
• Billy Yalowitz
• Yvette Vandermolen

Proposed Session #3

Coordinators
Nicole Garneau
ngarneau@colum.edu
Sanjit Sethi
ssethi@cca.edu

Monday AM	In-Session
Monday PM	In-Session
Tuesday AM	In-Session
Tuesday PM	No Session (Open)

Proposed Session Title

Confronting Failure

Proposed Topic

This session will shine a light on failures in community cultural development work. We wish to examine what we see as a great reluctance to expose the inherent vulnerabilities of a program, center, or organization. We intend to use the convening to create an expansive conversation where these failures, both on the micro and macro level can be candidly discussed. By using the convening as a point of departure to cultivate larger conversations, we wish to create a structure of inherent safety where individuals can, without fear, share and listen to these failures in order to create more determined strategies that can be used to explicitly address the varied territory of failure. Brave and honest conversations about failure are an untapped resource. Our vision is to create an open-sourced framework within which individuals, groups, and communities can be supported in repairing projects gone wrong within their own arenas.

Proposed Format

9:00-10:30 AM Monday: “Safety Net”
“Safety Net” is an open session in which all conference participants are invited to share stories of failure in community arts projects. This will be facilitated, NON-RECORDED session in which confidentiality is valued and members of the group are invited to support each other in their honest assessments of projects gone wrong. Anyone at the Community Arts Convening and Research Project is invited to attend “Safety Net” in the morning and then go to other work sessions.

11:00 AM-5:00 PM Monday: Confronting Failure Panel and Discussion
This session will consist of several formal presentations of papers that are useful in exploring themes of failure in community arts projects. The panel will be followed by a facilitated discussion.

9:00 AM-12:00 Noon Tuesday: “Safety Net”
“Safety Net” is an open session in which all conference participants are invited to share stories of failure in community arts projects. This will be facilitated, NON-RECORDED session in which confidentiality is valued and members of the group are invited to support each other in their honest assessments of projects gone wrong. Anyone at the Community Arts Convening and Research Project is invited to attend “Safety Net” in the morning and then go to other work sessions.

OPTIONAL Next Steps: Weaving our own Safety Net

This session will consist of an exploration of models and proposals for creating more safety, honesty, and accountability within our field with regard to issues of failure. What would need to happen in the field in order to create a community “safety net?” How do we build a healthy ecology in the community arts/academic community arts field that allows for moments when we trip and fall? This work session will work toward bringing together ideas from previous discussions into a text representing the work of the session.

Current Members

• Marina Gutierrez
• Nicole Garneau
• Sanjit Sethi

Proposed Session #4

Coordinator
Carol Webster
webstercm@yahoo.com

Monday AM	In-Session
Monday PM	In-Session
Tuesday AM	In-Session
Tuesday PM	No Session (Open)

Work Session Name

How Dare You Pretend Speak For Me and My Community?

Work Session Design

In this work session artists, community practitioners, and interested persons are invited to explore and respond to critical questions surrounding the field of Community Arts Activism. Questions such as whose voice and experiences are valued, who defines the landscape of the field, what methods and strategies are in place and /or need to be created/developed to nurture, support and affirm home-grown Community Arts Activists, how can communities sustain established programs/organizations, nurture spaces for new initiatives, and resist the hegemony that missionize and/or pathologize their cultures and communities? In short this work session critically addresses questions surrounding cultural policy, cultural equity, cultural rights and social justice.

Structure

The structure of the work session will be designed by the participants with the goal of inclusiveness with regards to the variety of ways in which artists give voice to their experiences, thoughts and ideas.

What Frames The Group

Individuals are invited to participate in this group based on their concerns about cultural safety, violence, equity, rights, policy and social justice.

Pre-Conference Exchange

The plan is to engage in pre-conference exchanges/discussions via email and telephone in order to clarify and address work session housekeeping and other practical questions before the conference such that at the conference we can ‘get right to work’ so to speak.

Current Members

• Carol Webster
• Marta Vega
• Sophia Chakos-Leiby
• Stephanie Johnson
• Lila Staples
• Laura Cohen
• Yvette Vandermolen
• Becky Slogeris

Proposed Session #5

Coordinators
Jay Moss
production@eastbaycenter.org
Jordan Simmons
jordan@eastbaycenter.org

Monday AM	In-Session
Monday PM	In-Session
Tuesday AM	No Session (Open)
Tuesday PM	No Session (Open)

Proposed Session Title

My Iron Triangle

Proposed Topic & Format

Workshop Session One: Extending the intro from the group’s "keynote" presentation. More details of personal perspectives and stories by community members, dialogue with proposed authors around their texts (we have a list of 4-6 papers), and an introduction to the Iron Triangle Legacy Project.

Workshop Session Two: Could be a working design session, “Building the Iron Triangle Legacy Project.” Discussion of ideas that are on the table for a real time, in motion project to "tell the story" of our neighborhood, so often told by others.

Current Members

So far, all are from the Iron Triangle Neighborhood. We welcome interested participants from the general convening.

• Jordan Simmons, East Bay Center for the Performing Arts
• Jay Moss, East Bay Center for the Performing Arts
• Doris Mason, Community Organizer
• Tequela Starks, Youth Organizer
• Carolina Garcia, Youth Organizer
• Marilyn Harrison, Community Organizer
• Antonio Medrano, Education
• Richard Boyd, Community Organizer
• Anthony Allen, Community Organizer
• Marshall Hooper, East Bay Center Diploma Student
• Pinkie Young, East Bay Center Diploma Student
• Tomy Wilkerson, Youth Organizer

Proposed Session #6

Coordinator
Kathie de Nobriga
kdenobriga@mindspring.com

Monday AM	Unknown
Monday PM	Unknown
Tuesday AM	Unknown
Tuesday PM	Unknown

One of the practitioner's challenges in working with communities-at-risk is the fear that we are addressing the symptoms of society dis-ease, but doing little or nothing to address underlying root causes. While it's true that self-empowerment, personal expression, or community cohesion and development are important elements of positive social change, these elements gain momentum and strength when linked to strategic policy development. What opportunities are there for the community artist to connect with activists and organizers who are looking to make change on a systemic level? How would our work change if we were more conscious and deliberate about connecting with those trying to shift power on a political or institutional level? What examples can we learn from?

Current Members

• Kathie de Nobriga