Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life

Posted by Imagining America on August 31, 2015

America Will Be!
The Art and Power of “Weaving Our We”
Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life
15th Annual National Conference
September 30 – October 3, 2015
Hosted by UMBC

Co-Sponsored by MICA: Maryland Institute College of Art & Morgan State University
Baltimore, MD

The members of Imagining America advance a vision of the world in which publicly engaged artists, designers, scholars, and culture workers play critical roles in enacting the promise and ideals of a democratic society. Together, we explore the power of shared identity — of understanding who we are and what we stand for, and therefore, what we are called to do.

The purpose of this conference is to facilitate bold, creative and effective work that enables people to build and sustain the relationships that will link our stories, fulfill the democratic purposes of higher education, and address our collective challenges.

Proposed sessions should be as interactive as possible, and provide opportunities for sharing and co-creating practical and theoretical frameworks that guide our understanding of engaged art, scholarship, and design. Those proposing sessions should note that over the past several years, significant energy and interest within the consortium has been focused on:

The Bold Power of Arts, Humanities, and Design

• How, precisely, can and do the arts, humanities, and design impact the quality of life?
• How do we create expansive learning experiences which blend community and cultural work with academic work?
• How can arts, humanities and design — on their own and in relationship with other fields and communities — animate, elevate and extend the power of democratic public work and create the aesthetic disruptions that allow a space for new ways of thinking and being in relationship?
• How can we achieve a productive synthesis between our practices of cultural critique and counternarratives, and other, directly participatory, entrepreneurial and hopeful ways of engaging?

http://imaginingamerica.org/convenings/2015-national-conference/