About
Arts for Social Cohesion

What is ASC?

Arts for Social Cohesion (ASC) strengthens relationships of dignity, safety and mutual regard that in turn increase connection and collaboration across differences.

To cultivate these relationships, ASC combines powerful artistic experience with pedagogy to orchestrate conditions making it psychologically safe, easy and fun for people to: be curious, listen generously, get real and connect emotionally in ways that feel alive. 

Rather than often ineffective general exhortations (You belong! Be kind!), these conditions specifically address peoples’ normally silent beliefs and inferences about themselves, others or social situations. For example, ASC cohesion processes create situations that shift an unvoiced “am I safe with you?” to “because I feel safe with you, I can afford to listen to you, be more curious, and share more of myself.” These altered narratives support choices that self-reinforce such as when, a listener’s genuine interest in a teller’s experience increases the teller’s sense of feeling understood. This encourages greater openness in sharing —  in turn reciprocated with deepened empathy and interest, irrespective of agreement etc. This snowballing often carries over to subsequent interactions. 

The Center for Combating Antisemitism recently identified ASC as one of three "high potential and high impact…strategic community-based projects well-positioned for moving the needle" toward deeper cross-community understanding. ASC was the sole arts-based initiative. 

(Quotes from Center for Combating Antisemitism; Melissa Garlick, Associate Vice President, Center for Combating Antisemitism)  

ASC’s Compass

ASC is guided by three generations of family lifework creating spaces where those societies deemed permissibly excludable would be respected as equals worthy of full regard (e.g., smuggling Jews out of fascist Hungary in WWII; founding Yad LaKashish / Lifeline for the Old striving for Jewish and Arab elders’ dignity, sense of purpose and contribution since 1962). ASC likewise draws on its directors’ experiences lived since childhood, and background in strengthening dimensions of belonging, verified by decades of replicated social psychology studies. 

These show us that:

  • People can afford to be more collaborative, creative and innovative in relationships in which they feel:

    — Valued as people and for their contributions; 

    — Agency (rather than being acted-upon); and 

    — Safety to express perspectives and experiences without fear of punitive repercussions (e.g., Dweck, Cohen, Edmondson);

  • Such relationships form a social infrastructure persisting beyond any single agenda, increasing a community’s capacities to navigate current and unknown future challenges (e.g., Putnam, Industrial Areas Foundation’s relational organizing); 

  • Being moved by a person’s story catalyzes such relationships. Stories help us “human” each other, increasing empathy and elevating shared identities above differences. The curiosity to understand experiences & circumstances underlying someone’s perspectives and choices requires neither agreement nor equivalence (e.g., Aron)

  • Such relationships are their own reward as sources of wellbeing and joy (e.g., Walton)

ASC is Pre-Political

ASC generally does not engage directly with political issues once they have become too hot. That is the work of conflict mediators. Instead, ASC is pre-political — we help build the muscle that people flex to constructively engage together. The stronger this relational foundation becomes BEFORE disagreement and conflict, the greater the group’s capacities to ease the stuckness of conflict through increased imagination, adaptability and healthy cooperation. And the greater the likelihood that the friction will not erupt into crisis or calcify into intractability.