Culture and Social Justice

Barat Foundation - http://www.baratfoundation.org

Official Explanation: Transforming young lives through the arts and innovation.

What’s so cool about it: The Barat Foundation works with thousands of Newark kids creating large public art installations including the Newark Arts Parade, the largest collaborative living art event in the city; and mural projects that involve hundreds of students and volunteers.  The Barat Foundation transforms young lives through art and innovation, providing opportunities for the youth of the city to be creators and active participants in the renaissance of Newark.

CUP (Center for Urban Pedagogy) – http://www.anothercupdevelopment.org/press

Official Explanation: CUP makes educational projects about places and how they change. Our mission is to use design and art to improve public participation in shaping the places where we all live.  Our projects bring together art and design professionals – artists, graphic designers, architects, urban planners – with community-based advocates and researchers – organizers, government officials, academics, service-providers, policymakers.

What’s so cool about it: CUP does amazing projects with kids + artists and the real world of how New York City systems work. They also work with advocates and designers to articulate national and international policy issues. A great organization!
(Keywords: imagination, collaborative, publications, workshops, policy, art resource, teachers)

freeDimensional – http://www.freedimensional.org/

Official Explanation:  fD supports culture in the service of free expression, justice and equality.  

What’s so cool about it:  Artists who become political refugees are given safe havens through artist residencies in the short term, while longer term solutions are worked out.  Their situation is publicized through art exhibitions focused on their particular political situation and issues.
(Keywords:  human rights, visual art, international cooperation)

Living Hero – http://livinghero.com

Official Explanation:  Founded by multidisciplinary artist, Jari Chevalier, this monthly audio interview program is geared to an audience interested in the creative powers that can heal the human psyche and society. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to listen in. The transdisciplinary nature of our programming stimulates a holistic synthesis of understanding from disparate fields of inquiry — from the work of known and unknown specialists and generalists engaged for the greater good.

What’s so cool about it:  The most significant and challenging questions of our time are addressed as guests deliver their most profound and far-reaching messages through dialogue. Our goal is to present cutting-edge research, visionary perspectives, and real-world solutions that inspire listeners to open their minds, take heart, and engage to transform society.

Culture, Economics and Community Development

Arts, Culture and Creative Economy - http://artscultureandcreativeeconomy.blogspot.com/

Official Explanation: Periodic musings on arts, culture and creative economy issues from Gary Steuer, Chief Cultural Officer of the city of Philadelphia.

What’s so cool about it:  Candid insight by one U.S. arts official into his take on the current stae of arts and cultural policy in the United States.
(Keywords:  culture, city government)

Cities X Design - http://trip.citiesxdesign.org/

Official Explanation: A 30-city trans-media research trip across the United States recorded online for later release as film, exhibitions and books.  Through visits, observations, and interviews, Cities X Design will examine, during this time of economic instability and questioning about America’s future, the connections between cities, local culture and people in the United States. It will highlight how investing in design can change perceptions, boost economies and create unique places.

What’s so cool about it: Storytelling via information design and interactive digital media. 
(Keywords: digital storytelling, information design, urban planning)

International Futures Forum - http://www.internationalfuturesforum.com/

Official Explanation: International Futures Forum (IFF) is a non-profit organization established to support a transformative response to complex and confounding challenges and to restore the capacity for effective action in today’s powerful times.

What’s so cool about it: A global, interdisciplinary playing field for people and organizations (government, private, academic, corporate, non-profit, arts, etc) interested in sustainable systems and creating effective methods for change.
(Keywords: research, design and development, governance, learning community)

Metris Arts Consulting - http://www.metrisarts.com/

Official Explanation: Metris Arts Consulting provides data, analysis and planning support to help communities strengthen the arts and help arts activity strengthen communities.

What’s so cool about it:  Metris Arts Consulting's website provides ICSCS users with many relevant reports on the role of arts and culture in community development and placemaking.

Placing Creativity - http://placingcreativity.org/

Official Explanation: Placing Creativity started in 2008. It is a partnership between the Martin Prosperity Institute, the City of Toronto and individuals from academia, government, and the community undertaking various cultural mapping exercises in Toronto. The partnership started with an exploration of cultural mapping that grew into a broader investigation of the underlying interconnections between ‘place’ and ‘creativity’, and through its activities investigates how cultural mapping articulates and supports these interconnections.

What’s so cool about it:  Placing Creativity is actively researching and reporting on the interconnectivity of culture, economy and place.
(Keywords: cultural economy, creative placemaking, cultural mapping)

Social Capital Markets (SOCAP) - www.socialcapitalmarkets.net

Official Explanation: SOCAP is a multi-platform organization dedicated to the flow of capital towards social good. Our event series connects leading global innovators – investors, foundations, institutions and social entrepreneurs – to build this market at the intersection of money and meaning.

What’s so cool about it: Innovative investment investment ideas coupled with social good and community development.
(Keywords: social capital, social justice, economy and culture, money and meaning, social good, capital)

Exploring The Metropolis  - http://exploringthemetropolis.org/

Official Explanation: To foster a vibrant and prolific performing arts community around shared resources of space and talent, to increase stability and growth within the artistic community, and to help broaden public access to the performing arts.

What’s so cool about it: Exploring Metropolis is a comprehensive resource highlighting workspace solutions for the performing arts community of New York.
(Keywords: performing arts, New York, workspace, studio, community, art share, public access)

The Union Square Ventures - http://www.unionsquareventures.com/index.php

Official Explanation: Union Square Ventures is an early stage venture capital fund located in New York City. We focus on web services. We look to back passionate, experienced entrepreneurs who are focused on creating highly scalable services and significant value propositions for their end users.

What’s so cool about it:  The Union Square Ventures focus on entrepreneurial scalable services and backs projects that add value to community. (Keywords: venture capital fund, investment, entrepreneur, New York)

Land Air Project -  http://www.landairprojectresources.com/

Official Explanation: LandAir Project Resources Inc. helps organizations to achieve their real estate business plan goals and maximize their institutional strengths through a full range of integrated real estate, project management and consulting services, including transaction and portfolio analysis and management.  We serve corporations, non-profit organizations, government entities, private developers and property owners.

What’s cool about it: LandAir has many years of experience with New York City arts organizations, advising and facilitating their real estate goals.
(Keywords: real estate development, business plan, strategic planning, management support, creative solutions)

smARTpower -  http://www.bronxmuseum.org/smartpower

Official Explanation: The objective of smARTpower is to support the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs mission to increase mutual understanding between the peoples of the United States and other countries, emphasizing shared social and cultural values. The program will showcase the role of visual artists as vibrant, engaged, and innovative partners in addressing broader social issues important to communities worldwide. International audiences will have opportunities to engage with U.S. artists and learn about our country's cultural history as well as contemporary cultural practices. The U.S. artists will learn about the societies and cultures of the host countries and share their experiences upon return. Participating U.S. artists and foreign communities will strengthen connections between one another and establish lasting relationships through the mutual engagement fostered by the art projects.

What’s cool about it: This is a fantastic new program sponsored by the State Department to make tangible contributions to communities worldwide.

Culture and Environmental Sustainability

Pedal Power NYC - http://www.pedalpowernyc.org/

Official Explanation: Off the Grid Grooves, Electric Humans Unite
Pedal Power NYC is an organization dedicated to capturing and repurposing human power with bicycles.
We provide the bicycles and the crew – you provide the Natural Ass! Let’s be honest, we’d rather power our stage with natural ass than natural gas.
and we’ve developed a live human-powered system that does just that without sacrificing sick sound quality. Founded by Ariel Agai in 2011, Pedal Power NYC helps us imagine new possibilities for our energy use and celebrates
Sustainability Creativity and Human Energy.
We want your Natural Ass to power our amps.

What’s so cool about it: Doing amazing 4 hour pedal-powered concert this Sunday in Union Square Park against all odds. They deserve a lot of awareness and support.
(Keywords: community sustainability, environment, parks, community gardens, maps, community)

Green Maps - http://www.greenmap.org/

Official Explanation: Green Maps seeks to spur inclusive participation. Green Map System empowers communities worldwide to chart their progress toward a sustainable future. With 55 countries involved in our first 15 years, the synergistic Green Map movement has the potential to guide millions to discover their communities from a fresh perspective, engage with local assets and issues, and promote a sustainable global environment.

What’s so cool about it: Green Maps was a pioneer in easy-to-use tools allowing communities to map what matters to them. Over 700 communities around the world are currently participating.
(Keywords: community sustainability, environment, parks, community gardens, maps, community)

Worm Farm Institute - http://www.wormfarminstitute.org/index.html

Official Explanation: Dedicated to integrating culture and agriculture, the Wormfarm Institute is an evolving laboratory of the arts and ecology and fertile ground for creative work. Planting a seed, cultivating, reaping what you sow . . . both farmer and artist have these activities in common. The Wormfarm Institute is a 501(c)(3) non-profit working to build a sustainable future for agriculture and the arts by fostering vital links between people and the land. Generating, supporting and promoting these links between our creative selves, our work and our place on earth are essential for a thriving community.

What’s so cool about it: The Worm Farm Institute looks like a place we want to go - an environment that emphasizes the creativity inherent in 'growing' anything.
(Keywords: cultureshed, agriculture, wormfarm, ecology, farming, art share, cooperative living)

Green Desk - http://www.green-desk.com/

Official Explanation: Green Desk offers affordable environmentally responsible month to month rental office space, virtual offices and meeting rooms in a beautiful historic building in DUMBO and downtown Brooklyn Each fully furnished flexible office space is wired with super high-speed internet access and a phone line. Utilities, copying, scanning, printing, faxing, daily cleaning and fresh organic coffee are all included.

What’s so cool about it: Their accessible approach to sustainable business practice and transportation is has made ‘going green’ a lot more possible for small businesses.
(Keywords: sustainability, environmental awareness, green transportation)

Green Spaces – http://www.greenspaceshome.com/

Official Explanation: Green Spaces seeks to forward sustainability globally through widespread local hubs that cultivate social entrepreneurs and startups. They have coworking spaces in New York and Colorado. 

What’s so cool about it: Green space for entrepreneurial start-ups that provides a community to bounce ideas off of and work collaboratively with.
(Keywords: Ecopreneurs, social change, sustainable office solutions, green community, coworking, passive heating, composting)

iLANDart – http://www.ilandart.org/

Official Explanation: iLAND Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art, Nature and Dance investigates the power of dance, in collaboration with other fields, to illuminate our kinetic understanding of the world. iLAND, a dance research organization with a fundamental commitment to environmental sustainability as it relates to art and the urban context, cultivates cross-disciplinary research among artists, environmentalists, scientists, urban designers and other fields. Founded by choreographer Jennifer Monson.

What’s so cool about it:  iLAND offers a laboratory for experimentation and research by choreographers and other artists, and scientists, into the question of how art melts into science and vice versa. Audiences tend to be participants in the research, and iLANDs work has created sustained public interest and advocacy in some of the wonderful and little known natural pockets of New York City.
(Keywords: laboratory for art, nature, dance, environmental sustainability, urban)

EXIT ART - http://www.exitart.org/about/mission.html

Official Explanation: Exit Art is an interdisciplinary cultural center that presents innovative exhibitions, films and performances that reflect a commitment to contemporary issues and ideas. We support emerging, under-recognized, mid-career and international artists, emphasizing new and experimental forms of expression. We are interested in art that explores environmental, political and cultural issues as a means of initiating or instigating social change. The diversity of Exit Art’s programs reflect the multiplicity of our audience, which includes artists, activists, scholars, scientists, students, cultural critics, educators, collectors, and the New York community at large.

What’s so cool about it: EXIT ART focuses mainly on overtly political visual art, but they also present poetry readings, provide space for forums and events and are altogether committed to the marriage of art and activism. Huge, multifloor space. Great people. 
(Keywords: artists, activists, scholars, scientists, students, cultural critics, educators, collectors, social, political, environmental and cultural issues, exhibition, installation)

Great Art

Nicolas Felton - http://feltron.com

Official Explanation: Nicholas Felton spends much of his time thinking about data, charts and our daily routines. He is the author of several Personal Annual Reports that collate countless measurements into a rich assortment of graphs and maps reflecting the year’s activities. He is the co-founder of Daytum.com, a site for counting and communicating daily data, and frequent designer of information graphics for numerous corporations and publications. His work has been profiled in publications including the Wall Street Journal, Wired and Creative Review.

What’s so cool about it:  Nicholas Felton creates "information art" using lines, graphs and statistics as his vehicle of expression.
(Keywords: numerical narratives, information design, map, graphs, annual report)

Great Art Organizations

Creative Time – http://www.creativetime.org

Official Explanation: Creative Time strives to commission, produce and present the most important, ground-breaking, challenging and exceptional art of our times; art that infiltrates the public realm and engages millions of people in New York City and across the globe. We are guided by a passionate belief in the power of art to create inspiring personal experiences as well as foster social progress. We are thrilled when art breaks into the public realm in surprising ways, reaching people beyond traditional limitations of class, age, race and education.

What’s so cool about it: Creative Time has produced some of the greatest site-specific artworks ever, and facilitates discipline-blurring visual artists in putting known and unknown urban spaces into play for both visitors and local residents. 
(Keywords: public art, site specific, social progress)

Homebase - http://www.homebaseproject.com/

Official Explanation:  HomeBase is an artist-run international art project, which aims to nurture a rich contextual exploration around the archetype of home.  In pursuing this exploration annually, HomeBase seeks to integrate contemporary art into the everyday urban experience and to challenge the role of art as an educational tool for cross-cultural dialog and community cultivation.

What’s so cool about it:  Homebase takes over a building, invites international artists to live there for three weeks and make art about the house/place and finally invites the local community and general public inside for three weeks of “happenings.” 
(Keywords:  international projects, residencies, architecture, community, public art)

WaterShed – http://www.watershed.co.uk/

Official Explanation: Watershed is located in the heart of Bristol UK; promoting creativity, innovation and talent. Venue activities and facilities are featured on this site with online content published at  http://www.dshed.net/hed.net

What’s so cool about it:  WaterShed is an experimental digital media art and film center which not only presents, but facilitates creation by its audiences. 
(keywords: digital media, cinema, screenings, innovative theatre)

Arts Journal - http://www.artsjournal.com/

Official Explanation: A daily email that is a comprehensive list of art, culture and ideas gathered from print and online media sources.

What’s so cool about it: The Arts Journal captures pertinent cultural and arts news, classifieds and editorial from across the country.
(Keywords: arts, culture, ideas, classifieds)

Art Bridge - http://art-bridge.org/

Official Explanation: New York City art neighborhood Chelsea-based non-profit public arts organization that beautifies neighborhoods and communities by transforming overhead construction scaffolding into larger-than-life canvas for the work of local emerging artists.

What’s so cool about it: Art Bridge is transforming the cities construction space into temporary gallery space and in doing so presents the opportunity for emerging artists to show their work!
(Keywords: temporary art space, emerging artists, scaffolding, construction sites, development)

Dance New Amsterdam (DNA) – http://www.dnadance.org

Official Explanation: Dance New Amsterdam (DNA) is Lower Manhattan’s home for contemporary dance. DNA is proud to present and promote artistic excellence in dance performance, education and the creation process. DNA’s mission includes professional-level training, opportunities for creation and the latest in dance performance. In DNA’s studios each week, 170 classes are taught, rehearsals are run, workshops are conducted and choreographers create. DNA is a valuable resource for the aspiring, emerging and established artist, who benefit from artistic residencies, studio and administrative office subsidies, commissions and two performance seasons that offer presentations of new dance works, many of them world premieres.

What’s so cool about it:  DNA offers affordable classes, studio space and performance opportunities to a large network of artists.
(Keywords: performance art, choreography, studio space, dance classes, lower manhattan cultural council)

3-Legged Dog (3LD) - http://www.3leggeddog.org

Official Explanation: The production company, 3-Legged Dog Media and Theater Group, owns and operates 3LD Art & Technology Center. Fostering cutting edge Artwork since 2006, 3LD Art & Technology Center is a community-oriented and artist-run production development studio for emerging and established artists and organizations that create large-scale experimental artworks of all kinds.

What’s so cool about it:  3LD hosts over 500 artists a year through their artists residency program with access to cutting edge video and theatrical equipment 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
(Keywords: media, technology, curate, artists in residency)