| Notes from the Director
June 2018 Dear friends of Peacebuilding and the Arts at Brandeis University,
Greetings! We are sending out a special edition of Peacebuilding and the Arts Now (PBA Now) to alert you about two upcoming events that are part of our IMPACT initiative.
If you are new to the PBA Now e-newsletter, welcome! We plan to use this channel to share updates on IMPACT: Imagining Together Platform for Arts, Culture and Conflict Transformation.
IMPACT, a collaboration with the Baker Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies at Juniata College and Maseno University in Kisumu, Kenya, is in the process of developing the design for an infrastructure for the arts, culture and conflict transformation field. We are gathering ideas from artists, cultural workers, peacebuilding scholar/practitioners, policy-makers and funders about the needs of the field, suggestions for how a supportive structure should be designed, and recommendations for its priority activities.
As part of this process, we are participating in a webinar hosted by DME for Peace, a project of Search for Common Ground, on Thursday, June 7, 2018,
10 a.m. ET. The webinar will focus on strengthening the field of arts, culture and conflict transformation through monitoring and evaluation. It will be just 45 minutes long, and we hope that readers of PBA Now will consider joining and contributing your thoughts.
You can register here: http://www.dmeforpeace.org/me-thursday-talks/5334/
Also, IMPACT has joined up with Peace Direct, a UK-based peacebuilding foundation, to convene two online learning exchanges exploring key questions from the arts, culture and conflict transformation field, and ways to strengthen the field. The first exchange, for people based in peacebuilding organizations, was held on May 21 – 23. We will soon be posting summaries of this exchange on IMPACT’s web pages.
The next learning exchange will take place on June 27 – 29, to be co-convened by Dijana Milosevic of Dah Teatar in Belgrade, and Carmen Oleachea, of Crear Vale la Pena, in Buenos Aires. If you are an artist, or work in an arts-based setting, contact Armine Avetisyan arminkav@brandeis.edu to register your interest. We will issue invitations in the coming weeks, seeking participants from diverse regions of the world, engaging communities through different art forms, and addressing different peacebuilding challenges.
A description of the June 7 webinar, focused on monitoring and evaluation for arts-based peacebuilding, is below.
Warm wishes,
Cindy
Cynthia E. Cohen, Ph.D., Director
Program in Peacebuilding and the Arts
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DME for Peace: A Project of Search for Common Ground:
Strengthening the field of arts, culture and conflict transformation through M&E
Thursday, June 7, 2018, 10 a.m. ET
Register here: http://www.dmeforpeace.org/me-thursday-talks/5334/
Excellent work at the nexus of arts, culture and conflict transformation – excellent in aesthetic, ethical, and sociopolitical terms – is being done the world over. The field of arts, culture and conflict transformation contributes to creating more just, more vibrant, and less violent communities. However, the field could effect even more transformative change if all the players – artists and peacebuilders, local and global, donors and policymakers, practitioners and researchers – had more opportunities to learn from each other and to influence policy.
Join us to hear about IMPACT: Imagining Together Platform for Arts, Culture and Conflict Transformation, a planning initiative of Brandeis University’s program in Peacebuilding and the Arts in partnership with the Baker Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies at Juniata College, and Maseno University (Kenya) that is working towards such transformative change. IMPACT is developing ideas for an infrastructure that will leverage university-based programs and cultural institutions to support practice, policymaking, research and teaching in the field of arts, culture and conflict transformation.
Jack Farrell, DME for Peace Project Manager, will interview Kitche Magak (Maseno University) and invite input from webinar participants on two questions:
• What comprises excellence in arts, culture and conflict transformation?
• Are there recognized assessment and evaluation approaches designed to account for both aesthetic and socio-political effects?
Join us to learn about IMPACT and contribute your ideas.
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