**New Programs I have learned about while at the Imagining America conference, Convergence Zones: Public Cultures and Translocal Practices, in Seattle, WA
The Public Square (Chicago) By building bridges between theory and practice, The Public Square encourages the use of ideas as tools to improve people’s lives. These programs promote participatory democracy and create space for public conversations. Knowledge is power, yet much crucial knowledge still circulates only in small, isolated communities.
RW121 Emerson Medellín – a bi-lingual, bi-national project among 100 students working across 5 First-Year Research Writing classes at Emerson College and MIT in Boston and 5 library parks (Parques Bibliotecas) and the Universidad Nacional in Medellín, Colombia.
Make Art / Stop AIDS
part of Art and Global HealthCenter at UCLA
(nod to Douglas Crimp- In 1987 edited a special AIDS-issue of October, entitled AIDS: Cultural Analysis/Cultural Activism. In his introduction to the edition Crimp argued for “cultural practices actively participating in the struggle against AIDS and its cultural consequences.”)
Through Positive Eyes throughpositiveeyes.org
Through Positive Eyes tells the story of HIV/AIDS at the end of the third decade of the epidemic, when potent antiretroviral medication has been devised, but when treatment access is far from universal. (Los Angeles, Mexico City, Johannesburg, Rio de Janeiro)t
The Art of Regional Change (UC DAVIS) brings together scholars, students, artists, and community groups to collaborate on media arts projects that strengthen communities, generate engaged scholarship and inform regional decision-making
Marga, Inc – A Firm, Founded by David Maurrasse, Committed to Developing Communication between Communities and Institutes
— Anchor Institutions Task Force – network to promote the role of anchor institutions in community engagement
Children’s Urban Geographies (Univ. of Buffalo)