About Arts for Social Cohesion
Who We Are
Co-led by literary performer, and MA’s inaugural poet laureate, Regie Gibson and composer/educator Guy Mendilow, ASC’s strength lies in synthesizing:
Rigorous artistry honed through decades of touring and directing on leading performing arts stages (e.g., Celebrity Series of Boston, “Promised Land” at Oprah Winfrey’s home, Krannert Performing Arts Center);
Pedagogical expertise (e.g., Professorships at Berklee College of Music, Clark University; Advanced pedagogy degrees, e.g., Longy School of Music; Residency design from the Navajo Reservation and rural Midwest to metropolitan centers since 1996);
Commitment to the vitality of local relationships of dignity, safety and trust to address pressing issues (e.g., toxic polarization) and drive communities’ resilience and creative adaptation in uncertainty and volatility.
Orientation
ASC draws on three generations of Mendilow family lifework creating spaces where people society deemed ‘permissibly excludable’ were 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, led
by convictions that ongoing sense of purpose is vital for wellbeing).
ASC is also informed by its leaders’ personal field experience and study.
This lived experience is reinforced by decades of replicated social psychology studies demonstrating that:
People can afford to be more creative, collaborative and innovative in relationships of dignity, safety and belonging (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 curiousity 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)
Team
ASC’s team of artists, facilitators, writers, composers and theatrical designers is committed to the notion that the arts and artists have vital roles to play in seemingly disparate civic realms.
We draw on practices and perspectives from 3 generations of family initiatives, verified by replicated social psychology studies, showing that — when carefully timed, tailored, and targeted — even seemingly small experiences can catalyze positive feedback loops with surprisingly long-lasting impacts.
ASC increases cohesion through:
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PROCESSES
Helping strengthen relationships within and between communities.
Resilience and the ability to creatively adapt to uncertainty is largely rooted in relationship — relationships in which each of us feels a sense of dignity, recognition, full regard and safety to be who we are, voice our perspectives, have some agency over decisions made.ASC specializes in process (from 90 minutes to 5 months!) that make it easy, fun and safe for people to connect emotionally, share experiences and identities across difference, increase empathy and create a sense of WE.
Such relationships do not mean agreement, permission or equivalence. But they do offer strong, enduring resilience to dangerous reductions of complex people and situations into simplistic binaries, usually a distinct “us” vs monolithic, dehumanized “them.”
To craft maximally moving experiences of one another’s stories, ASC taps our team’s decades of artistic/facilitation expertise on leading performing arts stages (e.g. Krannert Center for the Arts), international climate efforts (e.g. Red Cross-Red Crescent Climate Center, Hague) and explorations of the legacy of slavery (National Endowment for the Arts’s Mere Distinction of Color).
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PRODUCTIONS
Through powerful spoken word, riveting scores and mesmerizing theatrically projected sand animation, ASC’s live, original productions explore real-word tales of choices people make in times of personal or society change, especially unexpected grace in upheaval.
Through emotionally powerful experiences, our performances help people feel connected to what may have previously seemed unrelated or irrelevant.
This helps illuminate what is at stake in the choices people make, in personal, human terms, cultivating celebration of backgrounds and perspectives different from one’s own. -
PEDAGOGY
Including leadership clinics focused on principles and strategies for strengthening cohesion in the workplace for business leaders.
ASC develops professional training for artists seeking to use art as a tool forsocial cohesion, drawing on decades of pedagogical expertise (e.g. Professorships at Berklee College of
Music, Clark University; Residency design from the Navajo Reservation and rural Midwest since 1996).
Studies in organizational psychology suggest that psychological safety — a culture of iteration in which members feel safe candidly expressing ideas, concerns, questions, and admitting to mistakes — is a leading contributor to teams’ abilities to solve problems more creatively and maintain relevance, especially amidst uncertainty.
ASC draws on artistic processes to help current and future leaders refine their skills in advancing such belonging in the workplace.
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CONSULTANCY
Arts for Social Cohesion's proposal and project design consultancy helps nonprofit cultural/arts organizations bring complex visions and missions to life.
ASC helps organizations secure foundational funding through proposals that are rigorous, emotionally resonant and that demonstrate relevance and contribution to the lived experiences of people.
ASC also helps organizations develop logic model frameworks and build tailored grant-pipelines.
ASC applies nuanced listening, artful inquiry and decades of artistic/pedagogical/changemaking expertise to help cultural organizations hone their visions and strategies.
What is Social Cohesion?
Social cohesion is a framework for thriving for groups of people, however small or large.
We understand social cohesion as the ongoing processes of:
Developing group members’ sense of being valued and treated with full regard, well-being, and voluntary social participation, while simultaneously
Ensuring visibility of different perspectives and experiences within the group, however granular, and simultaneously and
Safeguarding group members’ equal rights and opportunities.
Like a fractal, Social Cohesion is a pattern recurring on many scales, from interpersonal levels (a relationship between two friends, a family) to community levels (an organization, a neighborhood, a town) to societal levels (state, region, country, etc). At each level, the principles are the same but the strategies are likely to differ.
The 4C’s Guiding Our Work
Why This Matters
Sustained, deepened inquiry strengthens awareness of our own and of others’ often-tacit assumptions about how we relate to the world and to one another.
Once we have heard someone’s story and understand more about how they have arrived at their beliefs and viewpoints, it becomes more difficult to dismiss/dehumanize them, even when we sharply disagree.
The process is dynamic and multi-directional.