In April 2002, Holler to the Hood began a collaboration among traditional Appalachian musicians and hip-hop musicians. The purpose is to bring two traditions together for a unique exchange and artistic exploration of two distinctly rooted traditions. The musicians initially engaged in the project were Dirk Powell, Rich Kirby, and DanjaMowf.
Profiles - Projects
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Portland, ME
home land security was a community arts performance project in response to September 11th created and directed by Marty Pottenger and commissioned by the Center for Cultural Exchange in Portland, ME. The goal of home land security was to collaboratively create an artistic response to a continuing crisis and to address with intelligence, nuance, and humanity concerns that are shared in the national arena. These are not new questions, but our responses will determine the direction of the United States for generations to come.
Chicago, IL
HoopsHIGH is an after-school program in which students develop skills in sports broadcasting. Throughout the school year and summer, participants travel to a variety of high schools to produce full broadcast coverage of sporting events, including basketball, football, soccer, volleyball, and track and field. Participants do it all — operate cameras, announce the play-by-play, conduct sideline interviews, direct shots, and set-up and strike the equipment — for each shoot.
San Francisco, CA
Hotel Voices is a story of housing and inequity. The Revolutionary Theatre project co-written, co-directed and acted by writers, artists and poets currently living, surviving and sometimes thriving in Single Room Occupancy Hotels aka poor people housing in the Bay Area. Our cast of revolutionary poverty scholars are available to perform this powerful 55-minute production at your school, organization, hotel or shelter. Contact POOR at (415) 863-6306 or email deeandtiny@poormagazine.org to book the production.
st louis, MO
How Do I Get Home? How Much Does It Cost? This is the title of the hand-made book produced in 1999 by what was to become the community collabARTive. In 13 years, many transitions have been made, many different answers to these questions observed and documented. This production is our collective dream come to light on a stage. It represents the big picture of ‘community art’ i.e. this is how we connect with YOU so that the US and THEM becomes the WE. It includes so many individual stories of disappointment and denial, discovery and renewal, gifts gotten and given.
New Orleans, LA
I Wish This Was is an interactive public art project that invites residents to provide civic input on-site. Fill-in-the-blank stickers are posted on vacant storefronts and beyond as a low-barrier tool for people to have a voice in shaping the future of their community.
Indy East Art Peace
Indianapolis, IN
Indy East Art Peace aims to use community engagement and creative placemaking to positively impact public safety on Indianapolis' Near Eastside, specifically, the Rural Street corridor between 16th St. and E. Washington St. The partners in the initiative are the Arts Council of Indianapolis and Near East Area Renewal (NEAR), with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department and the Marion County Prosecutor's Office.
Innovative Cultural Advocacy Fellowship
New York, NY
The Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, founded the Innovative Cultural Advocay Fellowship in 2014 with the goal of training mid-career professionals of color for public leadership and management of cultural institutions and nonprofit arts organizations in New York City and across the nation. A noted pioneering initiative in arts advocacy and cultural equity, the ICA Fellowship has been an impetus for radical change in New York City.
Medford, MA
The Institute for Art and Civic Engagement, a program of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA) in Boston in partnership with Tisch College and the Museum of Fine Arts, serves as a catalyst for the development of creative ideas, programs, research and action.
St. Paul, MN
Irrigate is an artist-led creative placemaking initiative spanning the six miles of the Central Corridor Light Rail line in Saint Paul during the years of its construction. This is a unique opportunity that brings together huge infrastructure development, a high concentration of resident artists on both ends of the corridor, a diverse ethnic and cultural mix among the neighborhoods, and a city with a strong track record of artist community engagement. This artist-led community and economic development approach emphasizes cross-sector collaboration with local private and non-profit sectors.
New York, NY
Artist Jeremy Deller’s It Is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq was a multifaceted artistic project, consisting of exhibitions, a road trip, and conversations, involving a multitude of organizations, participants and visitors. The goal of the project was to encourage conversation about the war and about the country of Iraq, and to establish US contact with, and awareness about, Iraqi civilians. It Is What It Is took place over the course of nine months and was hosted by prime organizations across the United States.
It Takes a Village
Baltimore, MD
It Takes a Village is an auxiliary workshop developed for the Village Learning Place’s LINK After School Program. Poetry in Community and the Village Learning Place share the common goal of supporting, educating, and mentoring the youth enrolled in LINK.
LINK (Let’s Invest in Neighborhood Kids) is an initiative offering programs and services to strengthen the entire community. LINK After School provides elementary school students with free, challenging, dynamic programming and nutritious snacks every weekday throughout the school year.
Phoenix, AZ
It’s Not Just Black and White gave voice to the multiple constituents who are involved with the corrections, incarceration, and the criminal justice system. Artist Gregory Sale used the iconic black and white striped prison uniforms in Maricopa County, Arizona as a metaphor for the highly complex issue of mass incarceration; the intent of the project was to explore and expose the many and often conflicting viewpoints, perspectives, and values that are generated from serious considerations of justice and public safety.
Berkeley, CA
Jotalogues: Talking Taboo in the LGBTQAI-U is a theater/performance piece written and performed by Adelina Anthony & D'Lo and directed by Mark Valdez. Steeped in witty language and physical humor, Jotalogues tackles our multiple intersections from a pan-ethnic, pan-generational, and pan-sexual viewpoint. As our communities continue to face deep crisis, Jotalogues gives voice to the most marginalized—and it’s not your typical queers. In this show, Adelina and D’Lo, create zany characters to explore the effects of non-regulated human impact and destruction on our planet.
Los Angeles, CA
In its Justice Cycle Project, Cornerstone Theater Company created a series of six original community-based productions that examined the complex ways laws shape and disrupt communities in Los Angeles. Immediately following each performance, audience members were invited to join in dialogue with Los Angeles’s civic and cultural leaders to discuss urgent issues of justice in the city and beyond. The four-year project began with Los Illegals, a bilingual play by Michael John Garcés that explored the issue of undocumented immigration.
Knoxville, TN
In 2013, the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra received a Getty Education and Community Investment Grant through the League of American Orchestras to further expand its KSO Music & Wellness program primarily at the University of Tennessee Medical Center’s Cancer Institute. The program, which currently provides live musical performances for patients, visitors and staff, aims to enhance the healing process and benefit patients, visitors and staff in various healthcare settings.
Austin, TX
Light / The Holocaust & Humanity Project is a multi-arts initiative, with an original ballet by Stephen Mills of Ballet Austin at its core. The somber and thought-provoking ballet serves as a vehicle for evoking the events of the Holocaust and celebrates the legacy of its survivors. The project in its entirety is a multi-dimensional arts and education collaboration that aims to generate civic dialogue on prejudice and hatred, and to provoke public commitment to action against bigotry in any form.
Hartford, CT
As part of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art’s Artist Residency program, MATRIX 164 artist Jan Tichy partnered with The Amistad Center for Art & Culture’s Teen Advisory Group (TAG) to produce a series of light - based public art works that highlight the teens’ perspectives on social issues and the history and culture of Hartford’s North End. The works were installed on May 20, 2012 and will remain as long as the batteries and materials are intact.
Lima, OH
In January 2008, a tragic shooting in Lima, Ohio resurfaced racial tensions in the community. Lima City Schools enlisted Allen County Common Threads, a locally based volunteer group promoting arts-based civic dialogue, and Sojourn Theatre Company to implement an immediate arts-based project to help Lima Senior High School students process the tragedy. Sojourn interviewed students and wrote, performed, and recorded theatrical monologues expressing student perspectives on the incident and the racial tensions it exposed.