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 started with a bang – hiring Oh Superman, Laurie Anderson and Pop artist, Robert Rauschenberg as resident artists to make art celebrating the exploration of the cosmos. CRACKED: Once upon a time A group of neighbors found themselves with a crack house problem. They responded by engaging law enforcement, zoning officials, and the city council, all to no avail. In their desperation they turned to a group of artists from the community. These artists went crazy, whipping out a mural that was so powerful that within 24 hours of its completion the dope peddlers had totally fled the scene, never to return. MAXED OUT: If you are incarcerated in SuperMax prison you spend 90% of your life locked in an 8x10 cell and will breath fresh air only 60 minutes a week. A woman artist who felt that this was a terrilble thing decided to use her art to shut down her state’s supermax. After she created her work the governor of her state decided it was time to shut down the state’s, 700 bed supermax prison and now its gone. TREES, WOLVES, & DEMOCRACY: There was once an artist who planted trees, slept with wolves and decided to change the world. To do this he and some fellow artists created an artwork that resulted in the election of thousands of progressive candidates to local and national elective offices in dozens of countries around the world. Four pretty crazy, improbable stories. So, how did you vote. If you get them all right you have won am an all-expenses paid trip to a place called St. Francis Maryland, which I’ll tell you about in a moment. Here’s the lowdown on the 4 stories.NASA: Yes, Laurie and Robert were employed by a NASA arts program that goes back to the 60’sCRACK HOUSE This is true too. In Atlanta mural artist Normando Ismay and a mural crew turned a crack house into a Massive multicolored 4-sided billboard advertising the best drugs at Deep Discounts. For some reason, customers stopped showing up. SUPERMAX: What can I say, this one seems like a stretch, but its true too. In 2008 Laurie Jo Reynolds, a videographer who calls herself a legislative artist launched TAMMS ten year, an arts project to expose the inhumane conditions at an Illinois’ supermax prison specifically designed for sensory deprivation and solitary confinement. In 2013 Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn announced its closure. ART and ELECTION: Number 4. There’s no way for this one, but what can I say. The green party was established as something called a social sculpture by a group of artists led by Joseph Beuys. This game was a quick and silly way to introduce some history that has helped define what has variously been called community arts, or arts-based community development, or more recently creative placemaking and social practice. In it, we used a fictional game show to tell some hard to believe, but true stories. Along the way, some of you may have encountered some degree of skepticism about the power of the human imagination to provoke change. When we train artists and their community partners for creative collaborations, we use games like these with multiple rounds to have fun, and get out of their heads, and into a place where they can exercise their imaginations, individually and, most importantly together. This workshop is about how stories can help us access some of the most difficult lessons about art making in service to community learning, building, healing, and mobilizing. In Truth or NO the story was a game that I made up that you, hopefully played along with. Playing is the key here, because PLAY, is basically life practice. This is true for all the creatures in the animal kingdom, including us. When we are young a lot of our play is physical testing and problem solving. As we get older it migrates more and more into realm of thinking and what we call adult learning. As community arts trainers we are trying provide a memorable learning experience that can help our students respectfully engage often complex and ambiguous institutional and community systems and cultures. NORTHCOAST CORRECTIONAL FACILITY Another of our most effective training resources are stories about fictional neighborhoods or agencies that we use to tell the real story of what it’s like to navigate them as creative change agents. In these narratives’ artists, and community members, administrators and staff explore the conundrums and contradictions, the heartaches and little victories that creative partners dance with every day in these “other places.”The example of this I’m going to share was created during time I ran California’s Arts-in-Corrections program. Its called The Nouvella, which is a work of fiction by writer/teaching artist/activist Judith Tannenbaum that was used to train artists getting ready to teach one of California’s 32 correctional facilities. At the time A_I_C was the largest arts residency program in the world, with over 1000 artists and 25,000 students. As I am sure you have noted, it has also provided the title of this workshop. North Coast Correctional Facility (Unit 3, Third Tier) NCCF is on indefinite lockdown following an inmate stabbing. Because of this, writing instructor Susan Robertson is working with her students through the bars of their cells. She approaches Mitch Reiser’s cell."Hello, Susan. Coming this way?" Mitch Reiser's voice broke into Susan's thoughts on violence and its effect on the mind and soul. She walked past a few cells to where Mitch was housed. "Are you psychic or what? How did you know it was me?" Susan asked, always on her guard with Mitch. She was never able to be herself with Mitch around. And Mitch was always around. There were so many silent ways in which Mitch made sure he was there, always there. "I am psychic where you're concerned, but this time I have to give credit where credit is due." Mitch pointed to the small mirror that he could adjust to...