BONUS: The Nouvella – Using Fiction to Tell the Truth About Art and Social Change

The recorded conference presentation you are about to hear includes a made up game show, a scene from a novella about artists working in a fictional prison, and a visit to a fake town in the midst of a harsh reckoning around issues of race, justice, othering, and belonging. (A Reprise of Episode 27) Welcome to a Bonus edition of Change the Story Change the World —- as we pay a visit to the 16th Annual Art in Society Conference. Bill Cleveland: Hi I’m Bill Cleveland, the host of Change the Story / Change the World. This week we are going to do something a bit different. A few episodes back we shared a conversation with writer Jan Cohen Cruz to commemorate the New Village Press publication of Meeting the Moment by her and artist activist Rad Periera. This week’s bonus episode is indirectly related to another soon to be published New Village volume called the Book of Judith, "an homage to the life of poet, writer, and teaching artist Judith Tannenbaum and her impact on incarcerated and marginalized students."Judith, who passed away in 2019, taught me a lot about both art making, and the imagination. In my own teaching her lessons have been a constant presence, often manifesting through the stories she shared in her work. This was the case In June of 2021 when I participated in an international conference convened by the Art in Society Research Network. My part in this online conference was a presentation about using story-based strategies for community arts training. My approach was to share few stories, including one of Judith’s about how using stories can help prepare artists for work in real life communities and social institutions. So, the recorded conference presentation you are about to hear includes a game show, a scene from Judith’s novella about artists working in prison, and a visit to a fake town in the midst of a harsh reckoning around issues of race, justice, othering, and belonging. Welcome to a special edition of change the story Change the World —- as we pay a visit to the 16th Annual Art in Society Conference. Hi: I’m Bill Cleveland. I am speaking to you from, Alameda CA, near Oakland which is the traditional land of the Ohlone people and home our county’s new VP Kamala Harris. I run the Center for the Study of Art & Community. Our name is a mouthful to be sure but we have a pretty simple mission. Which is basically, helping to Create new community art partnerships in service to building caring, capable & equitable communities and then telling the stories that rise up. Over the past couple of decades, the Center has done that by conducting research, providing cross-sector community arts training, and producing studies, articles books and a podcast on arts-based community development and social change efforts all over the world. Enough about us. I’d like to begin this presentation by inviting you to participate in one of our fabulous Quiz shows. The show is actually a little game called TRUTH OR NO. The object of the game is to spark your imaginations and have a bit of fun. To do this you will need write a few things down, Yeah, I know you thought this conference would be just sitting and watching, but please, indulge me here. I’ll give you 30 seconds to grab a pencil and paper. OK now lets start. The game goes like this: In a little bit I am going to share 4 really short-stories that may or may not be true. Your job is to identify the ones that are false. Before I start t you will need to write 1 through 4 on a piece of paper. Now after each little story I tell write T for those you think are true and N for No for the fabrications. This will happen very fast. So here we go. Space Out: Way back in the 20th century the US Space Program felt they needed more public support. So, they decided to engage artists to help them to draw more positive attention to their efforts. This NASA arts program

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