Case Example – Arts & Criminal Justice

Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) is the groundbreaking theater program taught in five of New York's state correctional facilities including Sing Sing, Fishkill, Woodbourne, Green Haven, and Bedford Hills (women's prison). Founded in 1996 by Katherine Vockins, RTA has been instrumental in giving men and women a means of changing their life direction--all through the power of theater. Today, theater professionals volunteer their time and talent to teach acting, stage craft, music, art, and dance--and to mount full-scale performances with the prisoners playing the male roles and female actresses playing female roles (in male prisons, opposite in female prisons). At Sing Sing, over 250 outside guests attend performances twice a year. The process of theater changes lives, and the proof is in the many men who credit RTA with changing their direction and preparing them for life after prison. RTA is a 501C3 not for profit foundation and is supported by contributions from individuals. http://www.p-c-i.org/rta.php.

Case Example – RURAL STUDIO:     Arts & Affordable Housing & Community Facilities.  Also, Arts &
Human Development and Reclamation
Workforce Retraining
Civic Pride and Participation
Education
Scientific and Technological Breakthroughs, Advances & Development
Community Organizing

Rural Studio, a program developed through the Architecture Department at Auburn University in Alabama, enables each participating student to put their educational values to work as citizens of a community. The Rural Studio works in some of the poorest counties in the US, providing safe, clean, affordable, economically-sustainable and user-friendly buildings to local residents. The Rural Studio seeks solutions to local needs within the community's own context. Abstract ideas based upon knowledge and study are transformed into workable solutions forged by real human contact, personal realization, and a gained appreciation for the culture.
www.cadc.auburn.edu/soa/rural-studio/home.htm

The Rural Studio has worked on churches and other public buildings, parks, and homes. (For a full list of projects, see www.cadc.auburn.edu/soa/rural-studio/projectstype.htm. One current, multi-year project, the 20K House Project, is developing designs for homes that can be built cheaply, attractively, and sustainably. The first 20K house (2004-2005), currently occupied by Elizabeth Phillips, was designed by four non-architecture students and one architecture student. It is a clear exposition of what can be achieved for $10,000 in materials, and reflects the Rural Studio philosophy of designing for the occupant, rather than according to pre-determined design principles. The big hit is the porch, which can be moved to a desirable location along the front façade prior to completion, depending on the aspect/orientation of the building. The house achieved approximately 780 square feet of conditioned space and is the largest 20K house that the Rural Studio has managed to build so far for approximately $10,000 in materials.

Case Example – 3 Rivers 2nd Nature (3R2N) Arts & Reversing Environmental Degradation and Promoting Environmental Sustainability, Community Organizing

The 3 Rivers 2nd Nature project was directed by artists/researchers Tim Collins and Reiko Goto. The project addressed the meaning, form, and function of public space and nature in Allegheny County, PA, U.S.A. This is the region that encompasses the former steel industry capital of the United States, Pittsburgh PA.  3 Rivers 2nd Nature focused upon the three major rivers; the Allegheny, the Monongahela, and the Ohio Rivers, as well as the streams and subwatersheds. This five-year project revisited questions of nature and post-industrial public space, first addressed on the Nine Mile Run Greenway Project. The focus of the work is research to benefit the public realm, applied as strategic knowledge with accompanying outreach programs intended to enable creative public advocacy and change.
The 3 Rivers 2nd Nature conducted integrative analysis and instrumental planning based upon the rigorous field studies that began in the year 2000. The work effort focused upon partnerships to accomplish interdisciplinary analysis, spatial mapping, and concept design within and among specific communities. The work culminated with an ecological design plan and a water quality policy report that analyzed alternatives for ongoing water quality sampling. http://3r2n.cfa.cmu.edu/
The final report is available at
http://3r2n.cfa.cmu.edu/policy/landUse/index.htm

Common Ground  – Arts & Economic Development and Community Sustainability; Civic Pride and Participation; Reversing Environmental Degradation and Promoting Environmental Sustainability; Community Organizing

Case Example – Common Ground, a British non-profit internationally recognized for playing a unique role in the arts and environmental fields, is distinguished by the linking of nature with culture, focusing upon the positive investment people can make in their own localities, and championing popular democratic involvement. Common Ground inspires celebration as a starting point for action to improve the quality of people’s everyday places. They offer ideas, information and inspiration through publications and projects such as Field Days, Parish Maps, Flora Britannica, Apple Day, Community Orchards, Tree Dressing Day, Confluence and the campaign for LOCAL DISTINCTIVENESS. www.commonground.org.uk

Apple Day: On October the 21st every year, an annual celebration of apple, orchards and local distinctiveness. Initiated by Common Ground in 1990 it has since been celebrated each year by people organizing hundreds of local events. Why not join in? www.commonground.org.uk/appleday/index.html

Parish Maps: Everywhere means something to someone. You don't have to own it, or even see it everyday, for a place, and its stories to be important to you. The combination of commonplace histories and ordinary nature makes places what they are. Things do not have to be spectacular, rare or endangered for people to value them and want them about their everyday lives. Wherever you are, it is the detail and overlays which have meaning to you and which give your area its own local distinctiveness. Making a Parish Map can help people to come together to chart the things that they value locally, to make their voice heard amongst professionals and developers, to inform and assert their need for nature and culture on their own terms, and to begin to take action and some control in shaping the future of their place. www.commonground.org.uk/parishmaps/m-index.html

Case Example – Confluence: a national project with a local focus, a three year project to help and encourage people to create new music for the River Stour. Confluence offered participatory music projects, workshops, courses, concerts and events for people living in the catchments area, from Somerset and Wiltshire, where the Stour rises, through Dorset to the sea at Christchurch.
www.commonground.org.uk/confluence/c-index.html