From April 2020 – December 2021, Creative Generation was named an ITAC Innovator and focused on developing an infrastructure within the International Teaching Artist Collaborative (ITAC) to address the gap in research and resources produced by and for the field of teaching artistry. The project engaged volunteers in the teaching artist field from a cross-section of countries to collect, validate, and disseminate tools, resources, and creative/scholarly research in a number of capacities. These include retrofitting the existing knowledge shared through the 2019 Think Tanks, building each into a digital learning module; formulating a strategy to catalog, publish and disseminate research and resources shared through the 2018 and 2020 ITAC conferences; and researching and recommending a sustainable and scalable framework for a clearinghouse of new tools and resources created by and for the field of teaching artistry to be located within ITAC’s digital platform. Read more about this project there.
From this work, ITAC hosts monthly Think Tanks, where a Host from a different part of the world shares insights about their work, and in discussion with attendees, digs deep about the ways this could help you develop your own practice. The Think Tanks are edited, archived, and connected to additional resources across the sector.
Check out the latest archives here:
Teaching Artistry through Social Media (January 2023)
Hosted by Claudia García (Colombia)
Are you ready to take your teaching artistry to the next level?
During this session, we reflected on how social platforms, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, can help us connect with audiences, showcase our work, and build a community. Participants also discussed ways to create relevant content that builds connection and encourages collaboration within the teaching artist field.
As the session concluded, it pivoted into the creation of a Working Group to examine social media content ideas and plans that can benefit the global field. The Innovator Working Group would further investigate the topic, share knowledge, and create a tool to holistically advance the field. The objective is to create a user-friendly handbook that can be used by teaching artists worldwide to improve their practices and expand their reach. The project will also aim to innovate new ways of using social media to make education more accessible and interactive—which will be collectively shared with our international community.
Call 2 Action Edition 4: A Youth-Led Think Tank (February 2023)
Hosted by Call 2 Action Participants: Aidan McKinlay (Scotland), Star Mulvenna (Scotland), Anais Adjani (Singapore), Dia H. (Singapore), Remo Santangeli (Scotland), Mia Haden (Scotland), and Lucia Demitri von Pezold (Scotland)
Last year, ITAC Innovators Khairina Khalid (Singapore) and Clara Bloomfield (Scotland) hosted a Think Tank about their Call 2 Action initiative. Today, the young people involved guided participants through ITAC's first primarily youth-led Think Tank, which explored ‘the power-laden relationships’ between young people and adults. Here, the young people shared their experiences as mentors to adults within creative processes.
Call 2 Action, designed and established by Clara Bloomfield and Khairina Khalid, is an online platform that fosters positive relationships, celebrates global citizenship, and fosters creative learning space that promote collaborative art making as a catalyst for change. With support from the 2022-2023 ITAC Innovators program, the latest edition of Call 2 Action ‘Raising the Visibility of Teaching Artistry’ is led entirely by a group of impressive young people from Scotland and Singapore.
Arts in Mainstream Systems for Social Transformation (March 2023)
Hosted by Sangeeta Isvaran (India)
In over two decades of working with mainstream systems of health, education, poverty, social justice, caste and conflict in some of the most marginalised communities across the world, Sangeeta Isvaran has seen how much the arts have to offer to create more just and caring societies. While the arts offer cutting edge, innovative strategies to some of the world’s most difficult issues, she has seen very little appreciation and recognition for the skills we as artists have to offer. She believes teaching artists can and should become a part of different organisational systems, not just artistic ones; we need to show that art forms carry strategies and techniques that can serve society in multiple ways.
This Think Tank provided participants the opportunity to discuss:
Best practices and skills needed by examining case studies;
Strategies for tapping into mainstream systems (e.g., education, police, shelters for refugees, climate crises programs, disaster management programs, financial schemes for poverty reduction); and
How documentation and dissemination embeds teaching artist skills (conflict resolution, social justice, livelihood development, sexual violence, refugee crisis, human rights development) into the mainstream.
Afterwhich, Sangeeta invited participants to join the working group, which would collaborate in the following ways:
Project Development and Exchange: Artists across the world, who work with mainstream systems or wish to gain experience in this domain, will co-create a project and share best practices. There is also an existing, strong team of artists/changemakers in India who could join "buddy groups" with participants, connecting communities across the world for more exciting and intimate co-creation.
Documentation and Evaluation: Together, we will set up a common set of data to be collected and analyzed. We could also reach out to other artists throughout the network to collect basic data on the systems and communities they engage with, thereby creating a data base and network to showcase the range of work happening across the world.
Dissemination and Amplification: Participants will be encouraged to use social media to amplify the dissemination of our work to different audiences. We will also set goals for each artist to reach out to their local ambassadors from the mainstream, as well as local and international journalists/media, to showcase our work and help others replicate it.
Bring working group participants to India at the conclusion of the project to exchange and continue community building. If the working group is able to develop a strong project, participants could collectively use that as a foundation to then apply for funding.