What does it take to build an effective and productive partnership across fields and areas of experience? CPCP's Catalyst Initiative invites project teams comprised of an artist and a civic partner to work together as part of a multi-community cohort seeding a national conversation

1. Center for Performance and Civic Practice
The Center for Performance and Civic Practice
(CPCP) is a national resource for artists and
communities working together to build civic
health, equity and capacity.

2. We believe –
artists have the tools to partner with
communities to address urgent needs
and make change where people live,
work, learn & play.

3. • How do artists and arts organizations develop
cross-sector partnerships and for what reasons?
• How do artists translate our role, our work and
our assets in non-arts contexts?​
• What process tools do artists possess that can
allow us to broaden the way we and our non-
arts partners conceptualize arts-based activity,
interventions and collaborations?
CORE QUESTIONS

4. Articulating a spectrum of art-making ​
in relation to an engaged practice —

5. Studio Practice: Artists make their own work and
engage with publics as an audience.
Articulating a spectrum of art-making ​
in relation to an engaged practice —

6. Studio Practice: Artists make their own work and
engage with publics as an audience.
Social Practice: Artists work with publics on an artist-
led vision in ways that may include research, process,
and/or content with an intention of social impact
outside traditional audience experience.
Articulating a spectrum of art-making ​
in relation to an engaged practice —

7. Studio Practice: Artists make their own work and
engage with publics as an audience.
Social Practice: Artists work with publics on an artist-
led vision in ways that may include research, process,
and/or content with an intention of social impact
outside traditional audience experience.
Civic Practice: Artists co-design project with publics;
the spoken intention is to serve a public partner’s self-
defined need. The impulse of what to make comes out
of the relationship, not an artist-driven proposal.
Articulating a spectrum of art-making ​
in relation to an engaged practice —

8. What does the word engagement
mean to you?

9. • Building new audiences
• Making certain our organizations survive
• Deepening audience experience of our programming
Common Engagement Goals

10. • Engage our communities by partnering
• Connect to our communities by listening
• Define our art as object and event and process
and tool
• Imagine our work as exchange, not just
presentation
• Become a community resource, not just a space
for the dissemination of culture
Other Goals

11. What does listening mean –
in your practice,
in your organization,
in your life?

12. Catalyst Initiative
California
Nikiko Masumoto, Mary Kimball, and the Center for Land-Based Learning

13. Catalyst Initiative
California
Nikiko Masumoto, Mary Kimball, and the Center for Land-Based Learning

14. Catalyst Initiative
Kentucky
Mark Kidd, Valerie Horn, and the Cowan Community Action Group

15. Catalyst Initiative
Kentucky
Mark Kidd, Valerie Horn, and the Cowan Community Action Group

16. Catalyst Initiative
Kentucky
Mark Kidd, Valerie Horn, and the Cowan Community Action Group

22. What values around collaboration
do you bring into your work?

23. Where do those values come from?

24. What experiences brought
you to those values and/or
nourish you as you hold onto those
values in your work and life?

25. // What values around collaboration
do you bring into your work?
// Where do those values come from?
// What experiences brought
you to those values and/or
nourish you as you hold onto those
values in your work and life?

26. What role do cross-sector partnerships
play in your practice or organization?

27. What role do cross-sector partnerships
play in your practice or organization?
What is an example of an impactful
community or arts partnership from
your experience?

28. // What role do cross-sector
partnerships play in your practice or
organization?
// What is an example of an impactful
community or arts partnership from
your experience?
// What aspects of the partnership did
you find successful?

29. If you could design a small grant
program ($5,000 - $15,000 grants) to
support art, community development,
and/or social justice in your community,
who and what
would you make sure to include
in the design of grant?
Why?

30. How do we design listening and
partnership development into our
programs and work?

31. CENTER
FOR
PERFORMANCE
+ CIVIC
PRACTICE
•••
thecpcp.org
rebecca@thecpcp.org
sojourntheatre.org