One of the main raison d’êtres of ICASC’s  FUTURES/forward community-engaged art mentorship program is to build the capacity of community-engaged arts to fuel change in all areas of social justice, especially climate justice.

In 2020/21 we partnered with several environmental organizations by placing a FUTURES/forward mentee as an artist-in-residence to co-create a community-engaged arts project. Climate Action Network Canada (CAN-Rac), Ecology Action Centre (EAC) and the Conservation Council of New Brunswick (CCNB) are 3 of those organizations. They decided that their participatory arts projects were so successful that they wanted to share it with others; so, Louise Comeau of CCNB organized this webinar to bring environmentalists and artists together to share in the experience of the inspiring and powerful process of collective creation. 

Watch the video recording of the webinar to hear about our emotional journey, meet the artists and project partners, and experience some of the music, visual arts and stories that emerged.

This one-hour webinar featured four 10-minute conversations between project partners and artist participants, as well as an overview of the program. FUTURES/forward’s Judith Marcuse and Laura Barron talked about how the program works. Louise Comeau (CCNB), Danielle Smith (From Harm to Harmony participant), Teika Newton (CAN-Rac), Tanya Kalmanovitch (FUTURES/forward artist-in-residence at CAN-Rac), and Joanna Bull (EAC, Yasmine Hassen was EAC’s FUTURES/forward artist-in-residence) shared their  stories and revelations about the benefits of bringing community-engaged art making to their environmental work.

Looking for more information?

• ‘From Harm to Harmony’ video series highlighting some of the artists and artwork to come from this project.
• Learn more about the ‘From to Harm to Harmony’ Art Exhibition, including detailed artist profiles and artwork.
• Learn more about the host organizations, Conservation Council of New Brunswick, Climate Action Network Canada, and the Ecology Action Centre.

ICASC is very grateful to the Conservation Council of New Brunswick, Climate Action Network, Ecology Action Centre, our FUTURES/forward artist-in-residence/mentees, Juliana Bedoya, Tanya Kalmanovitch, Yasmine Hassen, their mentors, Seanna Connell, Judith Marcuse, Rup Sidhu, and the wonderful project participants who all contributed to the success of these community-engaged arts projects, all while building community/relationships in the process of making beautiful art.