Connecting Communities Residencies
Past Projects
Nana Projects
M.I.K.E.
Since its beginnings in 1967, the Arts Center has been
known as an innovative, grassroots organization that reaches broad local,
regional, and national constituencies while striving to involve
nontraditional and underserved arts audiences.
In 1997, Hmong and Hispanic leaders from the Sheboygan
community approached the Arts Center. It had become clear that teens/young
adults from both cultural minorities had similar problems: they had minimal
knowledge of their ancestral cultures and were rejecting them, yet they were
not accepted by other minorities or by the mainstream culture, creating a spiritual
and cultural limbo that alienated the youth from their elders and peers of
other ethnic groups.
The Arts Center and five Community Partners developed Connecting
Communities, an ongoing program that brings together superb artists with
targeted constituencies who have had little access to the arts in order to
collaborate on major original works and, in doing so, unite and strengthen the
region. The Partners also determined that, to better integrate the targeted
constituencies into the community and give the public a greater understanding
of the value of diversity, the general public would be invited to participate in
these programs as well.
Commissions have involved a wide range of artists.
Remarkable works have been created. Participants ages 2 1/2 to 90+ have had
extraordinary experiences and have become partners in the thought processes of
artists and other creative people. Many say the experiences have transformed
them, changing the way they think, work with others, view the arts, and live
their lives. The Arts Center and its fifteen Partners (see Community
Partner list) are firm in their resolve to involve only extraordinary emerging
and established artists who are committed to enhancing constituencies’ lives
and understanding of the arts and whose own careers and lives will, in turn, be
impacted by participation in Connecting Communities.
Connecting Communities projects are made possible by vital grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and an anonymous donor. Additional funding and in-kind contributions make the individual
projects possible, a complete list of all funders can be found here.
Our Community Partners: Boys and Girls Club of Sheboygan County, Hispanic
Service Club, Hmong Mutual Assistance Association, Lake Country Academy,
Lakeland College, Lakeshore Technical College, Northern Wisconsin Regional
Council of Carpenters Local 731, Partners for Community Development, Project
Youth, Safe Harbor of Sheboygan County, St. Clement Parish, Sheboygan Area
School District, Sheboygan County Chamber of Commerce, Sheboygan County
HHSD-Wraparound Mentoring Program, and University of Wisconsin-Sheboygan.
For additional information about the program or to
express interest in becoming an artist in residence or a participant, email Amy
Horst, Coordinator, at
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.
Check back for a history of Connecting Communities
projects.
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