Learn how an arts advocacy project can engage audiences, foster social justice issues, and create opportunities for community service. Showcases 3 model projects and provides 3 tips for producing your own. Presented at the 6th Annual President's Interfaith & Community Service Campus Challenge, 2016

1. ENGAGE
Your Community in
Social Issues through
ARTS ADVOCACY

2. The arts can be used to build peace
by creating understanding and
focusing on our shared humanity.

3. As community leaders
and facilitators of social
innovation, we can use
arts advocacy projects to
bring diverse groups
together and work to
create lasting change.
Dr. Esmilda
Abreu
Kirsten
Richert
Orville
Morales
Who we are:

4. Here is what this deck will share:
• What is arts advocacy?
• Why use the arts to advocate for change?
• What are examples of arts advocacy?
• How can you do an arts advocacy project in
your community?
• What are tips for creating a successful
project?
• Where can you learn more?

5. What is arts advocacy?

6. Arts Advocacy is a strategy for
fostering social engagement and
volunteerism by connecting public
art platforms to social justice and
peace initiatives. It is a powerful
tool for doing positive interfaith
and community peacebuilding.

7. Why use the arts to advocate for change?

8. 3 Principles of Arts Advocacy
1. Art is engaging, attracts attention, and can
be moving even through brief experiences.
2. Art can make it feel safe for people learn
about difficult social justice topics.
3. Art provides a prompt for community
discussion about an issue that can lead to
commitments to change efforts.

9. There are three core spheres
to consider when creating an
arts advocacy initiative.

10. 3 Spheres of Arts Advocacy
Arts

11. 3 Spheres of Arts Advocacy
Arts
Social
Issues

12. 3 Spheres of Arts Advocacy
Arts
Community
Social
Issues

13. 3 Spheres of Arts Advocacy
Arts
Community
Social
Issues
This overlap creates an
opportunity for the
Arts Advocacy project

14. Arts advocacy
projects can provide
important benefits
to people working in
each of the three
spheres.
Arts
Community
Social
Issues

15. Benefits to Arts Partners
Arts
1. Provides meaningful subject matter that
inspires creativity, attracts audiences, and
captures public attention
Potential Arts Partners
• Professional artists
• Nonprofit arts organizations
• Businesses in the arts
• Museums, galleries, art venues
• People who love to make art

16. Benefits to Social Issues Partners
Social
Issues
2. Offers engaging public forum for doing
education and advocacy work on a key social
justice issue
Potential Social Issues Partners
• Nonprofit agencies
• Social service providers
• Cause-focused groups
• Political organizations
• People who want to do
something about an issue

17. Benefits to Community Partners
Community
3. Creates a specific opportunity for increasing
participation, community service, and
volunteerism for the good of the community
Potential Community Partners
• Community leaders
• Faith-based organizations
• Interfaith groups
• Foundations, corporations, donors
• Schools, businesses, centers
• People who care about their
community

18. What are examples of art advocacy?

19. 3 Examples of Arts Advocacy
1. Swan Peace Animodule
– Art as a focus for community response
2. Red Sand Project
– Art activism to educate about an issue
3. Real Beauty: Uncovered
– Education through art to create personal insights
and new community norms

20. Swan Peace Animodule
Interfaith Vigil after Orlando Shooting

21. This vigil was held in
response to the tragic mass
shooting in Orlando.
Interfaith leaders called for
supporting love not hate
and creating more inclusive
communities. Read more.

22. Together, the crowd gathered
around the Swan Peace
Animodule—a sculpture
symbolizing love—to create a
moving community response to the
tragic incident.
Participants posted their
thoughts, wishes, and
commitments for the future.

23. Candles were lit and people contemplated the swan in silence. At the end,
everyone sang—moving from pain to hope, from despair to resolve.

24. Red Sand Project
Art Against Human Trafficking

25. Red Sand Project is participatory
artwork that encourages people to
pour grains of red sand into cracks to
focus on the problem of human
trafficking and modern day slavery.

26. Individuals, groups,
and organizations
have created their
own artwork on
sidewalks and then
posted their photos
on social media.
This has been a
powerful way to get
people involved,
create discussion,
and inspire future
actions.

27. Sidewalk interventions have taken place in all 50 U.S. states as well as in more
than 70 countries around the world—by schools, campuses, hotels, and in
public places—raising awareness about this social issue. See one example.

28. Real Beauty: Uncovered
Body Image Media Literacy Program

29. Real Beauty: Uncovered is a movement that promotes the understanding
that beauty comes from within. In a world where touched-up and altered
images in the media distort our perceptions, Real Beauty: Uncovered
challenges you to accept yourself for who you really are.

30. Photographer Dani Allen
interviews participants to
uncover their own
concepts about beauty,
body image, and self
worth. This experience is
captured in a single black
and white photo with a
moving personal quote.

31. Participants talk about their
experiences together, actively
shaping their own expressions of
beauty and value, defining
themselves in positive ways, and
learning to overcome challenges to
their worth by practicing acceptance
and authenticity.
This project ends in a
culminating activity open to
the community in which
everyone’s photographs are
revealed. This is an
opportunity for the whole
community to discuss new
insights and make
commitments for the future.

32. How can you do an arts advocacy project
in your community?

33. Step 1: Engage in Experience

34. Step 2: Create Art Display

35. Step 3: Host Forum & Share

36. What are tips for creating
a successful project?

37. 3 Tips on Arts Advocacy
1. Select a specific issue of urgent or critical
importance to your community.
2. Ensure appropriate treatment of the issue
by consulting and partnering with
community and interfaith thought leaders.
3. Facilitate the community forum to deepen
your project’s impact. Encourage
commitment to future actions on the issue.

38. 3 Ways to Engage the Community
1. Reach out to partner with key community
leaders and ask them to get their
constituents directly involved.
2. Promote attendance at experiential activity,
art display, and community forum in live,
print, and social media platforms.
3. Post art advocacy results in community
spaces, especially insights and commitments
to future actions, and revisit them in
worship services and community meetings.

39. 3 Phases to Remember
1. Encourage “eyeballs to eyeballs”
interaction—live personal contact is best.
2. Provide context for your audience—give
them a reason that the project is important.
3. Always follow up!!!—do what you promise
and stay in touch.

40. Where can you learn more?

41. Explore more about these projects
and their creators:
–baratfoundation.org
–redsandproject.com
–realbeautyuncovered.com

42. Go deeper by using this great
resource for leading sensitive
community forums and group
discussions:
–The Art of Focused
Conversations,
R. Brian Stanfield

43. Contact Us
• Dr. Esmilda Abreu
– Montclair State University
– NJ Coalition Against Human Trafficking
– abreue@mail.montclair.edu
• Kirsten Richert
– NeuroLink Institute
– Richert Innovation Consulting
– kirsten@kriconsulting.com
• Orville Morales
– Montclair State University
– Congressman Pascrell, U.S. House of Representatives
– orvillemorales@gmail.com

44. Engage Your Community in Social
Justice through Arts Advocacy
Dr. Esmilda Abreu, Kirsten Richert, Orville Morales
Presented at PICSCC Panel: Global Arts and Cultural
Education as a Tool for Interfaith Peacebuilding,
September 22, 2016