Summer 2023 Artichoke Ambassadors Mentorship Program
Company:
Artichoke Dance Company
BROOKLYN — Artichoke Dance Company announces the Summer 2023 Artichoke Ambassadors, an eco-arts mentorship and training program, occurring June 12-17, 2023.
Artichoke Dance Company’s Summer 2023 Ambassador program will be held June 12-17 10am-6pm ET daily at the Mercury Store, a theater complex in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn. It will feature climate activism and training, environmental justice education, eco-arts creation, collaboration with peers, and mentorship in project development merging arts and activism. This is the first in-person intensive of the program, which to date only been offered online.
Artichoke Ambassadors is an eco-arts activism program designed for emerging artists that aligns environmentally conscious art making with climate and environmental action. This educational and mentorship program guides art makers to become creatively active in combating climate change both in their creative processes, project development, and implementation and sharing of their work.
“We started this program because people asked for it,” reflects Lynn Neuman, Artichoke Dance Company’s director. “We’ve been integrating activism into our work for over a decade, involving participants and audiences in both creation, advocacy and change making. Plastic pollution has been one of our platforms and for years we targeted plastic bags, collecting them from communities, creating costumes from them, dancing in them and garnering petition signatures at all of our performances and workshops until the legislation finally passed in New York State. That’s just one example of how we go about this work.”
The curriculum is designed to encourage growth in the professional field of eco-arts activism. The program is co-facilitated by Neuman and program co-creator Campbell Ives. Guest presenters include eco-artists, scientists, and climate activists and organizers who provide education, training and project development advice. Participants learn and develop skills in capacity building, project development, partnership creation, leadership, and community building that act as a tool to leverage the arts as a catalyst for creating change. Throughout the program, participants design a project in any artistic medium(s) addressing an environmental subject of their choosing, with the option of collaborating with other members of the program. Participants leave the program with a blueprint to implement their own project in their own communities.
“The effects of climate are being felt now and the window for implementing solutions is closing,” states Neuman. “This program is designed to go beyond using arts as a tool for awareness raising and messaging to also include initiating real change in communities and policies, leveraging audiences and constituents as activists and participants. This program not only provides tools and training, through it we are also creating a growing network of people and organizations doing this type of work who can call on each other for ideas and support.”
Artichoke Dance Company is thrilled to be able to host an in-person community of arts activists this summer. The Gowanus neighborhood serves as a lens through which to explore and examine situating this work. The Gowanus Canal, one of the most toxic bodies of water in the nation, is New York City’s first named Superfund site by the Environmental Protection Agency due to decades of pollution. The canal is currently being remediated and the neighborhood is undergoing a rezoning, which will alter the fabric and make up of the area drastically. “We’ve been working in and around Gowanus for almost 10 years, producing interactive experiences, performances and festivals, and advocating for environmental justice and equity in the remediation and rezoning.” states Neuman. During the Ambassador intensive, participants will experience Artichoke Dance Company’s Immersive Performance Tour of Gowanus, giving them an example of how eco-arts activism plays out on the ground and placing context on their learning.
To date, Ambassador’s program has shown promising results. Past participants report increased capacity for project development, a deeper understanding of environmental issues, and increased confidence implementing activism into their work. A past participant reports, “[This intensive] provided great readings and resources that gave me a lot of information and expanded my perception and understanding of what environmental justice really looks like… Plus a connection to the artists I met in the program and movement activities that were completely new for me were extremely powerful and rewarding!”
For more information regarding Artichoke Ambassadors, please contact Lindsey Jennings info@artichokedance.org or 217-242-3547.
