Through a 2023 Minnesota Arts Board Creative Support for Organizations, Lyricality Artists learned antiracist trauma-sensitive facilitation and emergent strategy to build their capacity to sustainably and authentically reach and engage their Central MN audiences/communities.
Artists were empowered and supported to remain connected with hundreds of Central Minnesotans and to offer opportunities for safe, brave, creative, community building opportunities. By engaging community members with poetry and art, we opened hearts to strangers/strangeness and helped people listen and respond to a wide-spread yearning for justice.
Artists Supported to Engage Their Communities
Worked with organizations serving the needs of Central MN American Africans to build community through the intersections of poetry/story/art, neurodivergence, and mental health.
Worked with local Assisted Living Communities and Central MN Council on Aging to explore the intersections of artistic processes and the processing of loss and grief, especially with those who are living with dementia, or are care partners to those who live with dementia.
Focused on building community through the "poetry of place" at the Minnesota Street Market Food and Arts Co-op in St. Joseph, MN.
Brought collaborative communal poetry to support English language learning and community connection for recent adult immigrants.
Acknowledgements
This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
