Artists & Projects Directory
The America Project
The America Project: A Teaching Method for Collaboration, Creativity and Citizenship is a multi-media guide to arts-based and artist-driven public exploration of the meaning of engaged citizenship. The publication documents The America Project course developed and taught by Sundiata at New School University's Eugene Lang College in 2006-07; a course that combined intellectual inquiry with practical experience in the research and creation of new artistic work. A Teaching Method references syllabi, readers, discussions, projects and papers from that course as well as speeches and writings by Sekou Sundiata on civic engagement and the role of artists in education and in communities.
As Sundiata designed it, The America Project course engages students with world events by exploring the intersection between the academy, the arts and the community. Sundiata engaged different subjects and genres: social change, race and history; poetry, music and theater; the spoken and the written word. The class enabled him to combine his roles as teacher, writer, performer, advisor and mentor and allowed him to bring his active art-making process into the classroom. Central tenets of the methodology include:
- The study of a large idea;
- collaboration across departments and beyond the university;
- an intersection of art, humanities, public engagement and action;
- student work paralleling an artist's own creative process; and
- artistic public manifestations of students' own learning experiences.
The curriculum
guide is intended for university instructors, teaching artists, and
partnerships between universities and community and arts organizations. It includes tools to create an
improvisational and collaborative classroom, and provides models for connecting
students to communities outside the university in ways that help foster
dialogue and civic engagement.
The America Project: A Teaching Method for Collaboration, Creativity and Citizenship is
packaged with two DVDs: a documentary: finding the 51st (dream)
state: Sekou Sundiata's America
Project; and a film of Sundiata's major theatrical performance, the 51st (dream) state.
To obtain a copy, please contact Ann Rosenthal at ann@mappinternational.org