Imagination... 'lights the slow fuse of possibility.'
-Emily Dickinson
Social Imagination, Arts and Education
The Social Imagination, Arts and Education Program supports community-based organizations that help young people develop multiple literacies through engagement with the arts. We believe that encounters with the arts can enable us to break with the habitual, with the wholly conventional and open a space between the way things are and our desire for the way things ought to be. This program also supports media and cultural initiatives that further the programmatic goals of the foundation.
Representative Grants
826 National: For work with Bay Area schools and communities, and for capacity building support to replicate this literary arts model in metro areas across the country.
Cathedral of St. John the Divine: To infuse water and environmental issues into the Cathedral's core programs and events, including support for a multi-media environmental arts exhibition focused on water issues.
Collaboration of Teachers and Artists (CoTA): To support work within San Diego public schools for artist and teacher collaborations using the arts for all aspects of classroom curriculum.
David Brower Center: To promote community engagement in the Center's visual arts program focused on key social, environmental and global issues.
Magnum Foundation: To support a new model for photojournalism and collaborative partnerships to amplify work on social justice issues.
Visual Understandings in Education: for training and implementation of Visual Thinking Strategies, a methodology of aesthetic development in schools and art centers.
Voice of Witness: To support the development of human rights oral history narratives that can be used for teaching, training and advocacy on human rights.
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts: For the Young Artists at Work program and for outreach to diverse communities to engage with this multi-disciplinary contemporary arts organization.