Arts and Social Change
A New Framework for Assessing Aesthetics
Monday, October 30, 10:00am – 11:30am
Organized by Lulani Arquette, President/CEO, Native Arts and Cultures Foundation.
Moderated by Pam Korza, Co-director, Animating Democracy, Americans for the Arts. Presented by Moira Brennan, Executive Director, The MAP Fund, Inc.; and Sage Crump, Culture Strategist/Creative Producer, Complex Movements.
What makes “arts for change” excellent? The new Aesthetic Perspectives framework, developed by artists and allies in Animating Democracy’s Evaluation Learning Lab, describes eleven attributes of excellence that contribute to artistic potency and social and civic effectiveness. The Native Arts and Cultures Foundation (NACF) will discuss how it applied the “aesthetic-appreciative” framework along with Indigenous principles to evaluate Native artist-driven social impact projects supported by its Community Inspiration Program. The artist collective Complex Movements will share how artists used the framework’s attributes and inquiry questions to look critically at creative choices and outcomes of a multimedia installation/workshop exploring connections between complex science and justice movements. MAP Fund will describe its use of the framework to evaluate its application guidelines. Participants will receive the framework, the funder companion, and NACF’s evaluation report.