About Arts for Social Cohesion

Arts SoCo is guided by three generations of family lifework efforts to create spaces where people who were considered “less than” would be respected as equals worthy of full regard. For example, Guy’s maternal grandparents smuggled Jews out of fascist Hungary in WWII, then founded a residential humanist home for youth at risk premised on full societal integration. Guy’s paternal grandmother founded Yad LaKashish / Lifeline for the Old striving for elders' dignity, sense of purpose and contribution — whether European, Mediterranean or North African — since 1962. Arts SoCo also draws on its directors’ lived experiences and background in strengthening dimensions of belonging, verified by decades of replicated social psychology studies, showing 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., Industrial Areas Foundation); 

Strengthening these relationships is accelerated by crafting situations, not fixing people. People naturally respond differently to perceptions of the extent of threat vs safety, however subtle or tacit. Such inferences about others, self, and social situations are not fixed. They are often readily amenable to shifts through situation design. (Walton, Cohen)

The arts are uniquely potent for crafting emotional conditions. Artistic experience helps crafts conditions for positive inference shifts: Being moved by a person’s story increases empathy, 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)

Arts SoCo does not provide emergency intervention (e.g., when an issue becomes too hot). That is the work of conflict mediators. Instead, Arts SoCo helps build the muscle that groups flex to constructively engage together.

We work in three main contexts: 

Expanding — helping members of already strong, collaborative groups see more of one another. Further deepening bonds strengthens trust, psychological safety and dignity that, in turn, increase a sense of wellbeing and collaboration. 

Cultivating — helping communities strengthen relationships proactively, preventing inevitable tensions from erupting into crisis. The stronger this relational foundation is, the greater the group’s the greater the group’s capacities to collaborate through friction, channeling disagreement into productive adaptation together. 

Reimagining — helping those so exhausted from the stuckness of us vs. them that they become willing to try something bold: pause, step back from “the issue” and complicate the narrative (!) — beyond the monster masks pinned on each other. What have “they” been through that brings them to see, believe and choose as they do? What matters to them in their lives? What are their hopes and fears? While necessitating neither agreement nor endorsement, understanding more of each other’s complex humanity and underlying values opens possibilities for perceptions about disconnect to loosen, making paths forward together at least conceivable. Subsequent mediation efforts building on this relational foundation are often more effective (2).

Founded in 2024, Arts SoCo builds on two decades of the Guy Mendilow Ensemble's touring and residency experience. The organization also incorporates a two-year piloting phase (as Inquiry Arts) that tested initial methodologies. In bringing on Regie Gibson as Co-Artistic Director, Arts SoCo also draws on his extensive performance and pedagogical expertise since 1998, and on the seven multidisciplinary productions Regie and Guy have co-written and co-directed since 2017. Core cohesion processes were likewise honed for years prior to organizational launch. For example, Regie steadily evolved Ponder to Page across myriad iterations with hundreds of students since 2019 while the Listening Lab extends back to Guy’s organizational consensus facilitation and training leadership since 1997.  

While the founders' previous artistic work generated social benefits, Arts SoCo formed to make group resilience and social cohesion the primary mission, developing and testing methodologies integrating evidence-based applied social psychology with artistic and pedagogical designs.