Choosing to Participate / Facing History and Ourselves
Boston Public Library, Copley Square
January 20 – May 20, 2008
This interactive, multi-media exhibition encourages people of all ages to consider the consequences of their everyday choices and to make a difference in their own schools and communities. Through key media sponsors and partnerships with leading corporate, civic, cultural, and educational organizations, Choosing to Participate seeks to engage the greater Boston community in a broad-ranging dialogue about how to build a stonger, more respectful society. Facing History and Ourselves expects over 10,000 middle and high school students to tour the exhibition during its showing at the Boston Public Library.
Our own MSAE alumna and adjunct faculty member, Chandra Ortiz, is part of Choosing to Particpate. Through a partnership between Beacon Academy and Facing History and Ourselves, she developed a ten-week program, Action Arts – Positive Change through Artistic Action,
working with students to deepen their understanding of history, social
justice, and the difficult decisions people make everyday when they are
faced with the challenge of taking a stand in their personal lives and
in their communities. Students created art that illustrates the
connection between the individual, the community, and positive social
action, and the work is now part of the Choosing to Participate
exhibition.
Choosing to Participate includes a whole series of events, lectures, films, and workshops for educators. All are open to the public; most are free.
Find out all about it here.
Sample events:
Feb. 12, 6:00 p.m. Showing of A Glory from the God, a documentary about the power of one woman, Boston minister and pediatrician Gloria White-Hammond, to ignite a movement to change the world. Rabb Lecture Hall, BPL
Feb. 26, 6:00 p.m. " Film as a Tool for Social Change, " f eaturing Patrice O’Neil, Rabb Lecture Hall, BPL
March 15, 9:30-1:30 Liz Lerman Dance Exchange Workshop for Educators, BPL
Also see the websites of Facing History and Ourselves and Chandra Ortiz’s Dieppa Studio .