Community development through art: A combination of sensitivity and resistance
Through creativity and collective work, cultural organizations and artists have promoted transformations of community environments.
By Flamboyan Arts Fund
Text by Rosalía Ortiz Luquis
"Danza con Andanza", community programFlamboyan Arts Fund
Through creativity and collective work, cultural organizations and artists have promoted transformations of community environments with culture as the guiding thread of these developments.
In this paradigm, creativity is a factor of social inclusion and community development, which generates community dynamization through artistic proposals, new discourses and the discovery of experiences that were kept invisible.
In a society increasingly fragmented by its inequalities, artistic and cultural initiatives seek to reverse this situation through art as a tool for social change.
These initiatives are committed to active participation and the democratization of the arts, thus fostering critical spaces where residents can express their concerns, aspirations and proposals for change.
Workshops on art, music and dance, social theater, interventions in urban spaces, museums accessible to the community... are some of the proposals that organizations carry out today with the intention of creating networks and ties that solidify community environments, promote social development and cultural and serve as a sounding board for the diversity of voices found in our society.
DanzaÉ participantsFlamboyan Arts Fund
Among the organizations that have developed and operate steady and significant projects in inclusive arts education in geo-demographically diverse contexts are San Juan based Danzactiva, Mauro Ballet and Andanza, which combine their work as dance companies and schools with scholarship programs and community projects; music education organizations the San Sebastián Music Band Community and Casa Histórica de la Música Cayeyana, both on countryside cities of Puerto Rico; organizations based in the island municipality of Culebra like Fundación de Culebra and Mujeres de Islas, which offer unique projects to audiences traditionally relegated by lack of local cultural offer and limited opportunities to visit and attend museums or events held at traditional cultural centers in metro areas.
Participants of the music education program of the Casa Historica de la Musica CayeyanaFlamboyan Arts Fund
Similar unique offer and impact can be seen in the work of community libraries like the Jane Stern Library in Dorado; and the community outreach programs of museums like the Puerto Rico Contemporary Art Museum and the Museum of Art and Design of Miramar.
Children and youth from El Gandul prepare signs for their community together with an artist-in-residence from the Miramar Museum of Art and Design.Flamboyan Arts Fund
Museo de Arte y Diseño de Miramar (MADMI)
Andanza
DanzActiva
Casa Histórica de la Música Cayeyana
