Deadline: 23-Apr-23
The Mekong Cultural Hub (MCH) is calling for applications from community arts practitioners with at least 2 years of experience to join the Learning program: Experiments in Community Collaboration.
The aim of this program is to support existing community arts practitioners to develop their skills and practice in working with communities through arts-based processes.
A total of 8-10 people (‘Fellows’) will be selected to take part in the program, which will take place over six months, from June – November 2023. Each Fellow will come to the program with a specific goal for their own learning, related to something they want to improve or to try out in their community arts practice.
The program is facilitated by Janet Pillai and Wei Meng Foo.
Goal
- The goals of the program are to:
- Support community arts practitioners to develop a reflective practice on their work
- Build peer networks between community arts practitioners in Asia
- Introduce community arts practitioners to materials, case studies and networks that could offer guidance and problem solving related to community arts practice in Asia
- Offer community arts practitioners feedback and recommendations on their practice in relation to a particular community or project
- Offer community arts practitioners a micro-grant to support a hands-on learning experiment within the context of their community arts practice
What are the benefits of joining this program?
- Funding $700
- Expand your networks and community of practice
- Develop your skills
- Have time and space to reflect on your practice and your goals
- Micro-grant to support you to implement a learning experiment
- Networking and exploring Kuala Lumpur during the in-person workshop
Stages
- The program is delivered in the following stages:
- Introduction to Community Arts
- Applied Learning
- Reflection.
Eligibility Criteria
- To be eligible for the program applicants must:
- Be a citizen of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam
- Have at least two years of experience in community arts
- Have an existing, current relationship with a community who you will be able to interact with during the program and who is based in one of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Taiwan, Thailand or Vietnam
- Be resident in the country/ context of that community during the period of the program
- Be available for all listed program dates
- Be comfortable communicating in English.
Details
- More detail about each element of the program is :
- Orientation session
- Format: Online
- Duration: 3 hours
- Date: Saturday 10th June
- At this virtual session you will meet all of the other participants, the Facilitators and the MCH Team. After reviewing the plans for the program, they will spend time learning about the context each participant is coming from, focusing on where and how they work, and what experiences and questions they have about community arts.
- Expert talks
- Format: Online
- Duration: 90 mins
- Date: Saturday 8th July; Saturday 22nd July
- The Facilitators will arrange 2 online talks for the whole group. Each talk will feature one experienced community arts practitioner from Asia, who will speak about their experience, share case studies and lessons learned, and offer advice and reflections on community arts practice.
- Study group sessions
- Format: Online
- Duration: 90 mins
- Date: Sunday 11th June; Sunday 9th July; Sunday 23rd July; and a final session in late
- October, date to be agreed by each group
- The study group sessions will happen via two or three small groups. Each one will be led by one of the Facilitators, who will work with 2-4 participants. The groups will meet after the intro session, and then following each online talk, to discuss questions and reflections based on the content and materials shared, and to relate it back to the participants’ own practices. The final study group session will be for participants to present outcomes and challenges from their experiments.
- Project mapping
- Format: In-person (Kuala Lumpur)
- Duration: 90 mins online workshop + 5 days (3 days workshop + arrival/ departure days)
- Date: Online briefing session for workshop pre-prep and briefing, Saturday 12th August
- In-person workshop, August 30th – September 1st 2023
- During this workshop, the facilitators will support each participant to finalise their questions and learning goals by doing an in-depth mapping of their project(s) and their community. There will also be space for peer exchange, and a program of site visits so that participants can get to know the arts ecosystem in Kuala Lumpur. By the end of the workshop the participants will have started writing up the design of the experiments they will conduct.
- Learning experiments
- Format: In-person
- Duration: Flexible according to participant’s design
- Date: Any time during September-October 2023
- Mid-term one-to-one check-in with Facilitator online, Saturday September 30th
- Following on from the Project Mapping workshop, each participant will write up a proposal for how they will approach their experiment. Once this is signed off by the Facilitators, you can start your activities. Each participant will be awarded a micro-grant of $700 USD to support the costs of conducting their experiment. This can be used to compensate your stakeholders for time to work with you, or other associated costs such as venue rental, refreshments and materials.
- Orientation session
For more information, visit MCH.