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By the lights of mid-July, all of us having endured a spring and early summer of downbeat news in the form of brutal weather, a sordid trial and a miserable economy, the wedding of...
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To date, Knight Foundation's Random Acts of Culture™ program has performed 360 random acts throughout Knight Foundation's eight resident communities of Akron, Charlotte, Detroit, Macon, Miami, Philadelphia, San Jose and St Paul. Yet, the program's reach extends well beyond these city borders. This week, the New Jersey-based Geraldine R. Dodge... -
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MIT Center for Civic Media, working with the Community Foundation of Greater South Wood County, is launching the first phase of the Sameboat project. The goal of Sameboat is to take important community information and push it out to everyday places that people commonly frequent. The signs will make it easier for community members to find out about free and low-cost events and services in the area. ”The first phase involves a fairly inexpensive digital signage network that goes into community spots where people already gather,” says Rick Borovoy, research scientist at MIT. Here's a short video explaining the project. The sign content is community-sourced from local partners hosting services and events. Examples include: free student breakfasts at participating schools during the summer; area Farmers’ Markets; Wisconsin Rapids Zoo hours; free dinners at the Neighborhood Table; basic skills workshop at the Jobs Center, and food pantry screening hours at North Central Community Action Program. “Our community wants to make sure people are aware of local services and events being offered,” adds Kurt Heuer, Chief of Police at Wisconsin Rapids Police Department. “People should... -
ArticleThe tag line on the website Between the Bars, a blogging platform for the outside world to communicate with prisoners, is a simple request that packs so much punch: Leave a comment….we’ll pass it on. Behind the scenes, Between the Bars is an intense—and difficult to scale—operation. Five core volunteers open mail, yes, that old form of communication printed on paper and sent in an envelope, coming from prisoners who participate in the program. They scan and publish the letters to their website, where the rest of the world can take a look and choose whether or not to respond. Charlie DeTar is the MIT graduate student who co-founded the effort, a project of the Knight-funded Center for Civic Media, and has since kept it going. He calls it addicting to witness the connections that happen between a very marginalized part of our population and the outside world. He hopes some good can come from raising awareness of the failures in our criminal system that result in broken lives rather than ones that are rehabilitated. “You start realizing that the person who’s been put in prison is somebody who could be doing so much more for society, so much more for themselves and be harmed so much less by some other means of dealing with criminality. That’s the thing we want to influence. We want to..."
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In January 2009, when the Minnesota Museum of American Art announced it would indefinitely close its doors, art lovers felt the loss of the downtown institution keenly. Of course, we wondered what would... -
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By Park Square Theatre Park Square is increasing our investment in the artistic product we are putting on stage. It is exciting, and we feel the investment is resulting in some of the best theatrical productions in our 35 years. Our audiences deeply value our work and are supporting the... -
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Sometimes, works of art are so attractive, so compelling, that you just have to move closer and hope they are as complex as they are good looking. Throughout the last year, Dimensions Variable, a Knight Arts Challenge finalist for 2011, has delivered... -
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By Cleveland International Film Festival Staff With the record-setting 35th Cleveland International Film Festival in the books, the staff have turned their attention to the 36th Cleveland International Film Festival (CIFF). While logistical planning, fundraising efforts, and community outreach partnerships are underway here in Cleveland, half a world away Artistic... -
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With the record-setting 35th Cleveland International Film Festival in the books, the staff have turned their attention to the 36th Cleveland International Film Festival (CIFF). While logistical planning, fundraising efforts, and community outreach partnerships are underway here in Cleveland, half a world away Artistic Director, Bill Guentzler, is in Karlovy... -
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Artist Mat Tomezsko recently undertook a project in collaboration with the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program and the Manayunk Development Corporation to reflect the historical and contemporary feel of Manayunk through a series of street art paintings. Many of these pieces line Main Street in this North Philly area... -
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I recently dropped in on artist Greg Holm at Firehouse Engine Company #4, the decommissioned Corktown firehouse that’s the site of an exciting, ambitious music/sound art event taking place this Friday night. (The performance is the first installment of “FireHouse Detroit,” a five-part art installation that Holm is directing. Read... -
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This spring, the Pig Iron Theatre Company received a $150,000 Knight Arts Challenge grant to strengthen Philadelphia's contemporary performing arts scene by launching a two-year training program for actors and directors in the Crane Old School space in the Fishtown area. This week, the Philadelphia Inquirer profiled the project and... -
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By Nichole Canuso, Nichole Canuso Dance Company Nichole Canuso was awarded a $50,000 grant as part of the Knight Arts Challenge Philadelphia to broaden people’s understanding of art and dance by turning the audience into a participant in an aural and visual performance journey called The Garden. Canuso recently returned... -
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Have you visited the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture? Its current magnificent location on 551 S. Tryon St. opened in 2009. The Gantt Center, a Knight Arts Grantee, has a long history in our city, but this museum — part of the Levine Center for the... -
ArticleIn Lowell, Massachusetts, a chance encounter between a city representative and a media expert has resulted in almost 175 citizens getting together to plan a greener future for their city. And it’s all thanks to – online gaming? Oh, and community values too. While looking for a fresh way to engage local residents in making her community more environmentally and economically sustainable, Allegra Williams of Lowell’s Department of Planning and Development stumbled onto a multiplayer game used to revamp Boston’s Chinatown neighborhood. She liked the game’s interactive approach, so she reached out to Eric Gordon, the project’s developer, to see if he had any ideas. Gordon, Director of Engagement Game Lab and Associate Professor at Emerson College, happened to be in search of a community in which to implement his latest experiment, Community PlanIt, an online game designed to engage citizens in values-based planning. The project had recently won support from Knight’s Technology for Engagement initiative, which funds projects that leverage technology to help residents take action to strengthen their communities....