Workshop and panel descriptions are now posted on the schedule page!

On April 3-5, 2009 the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University and Massachusetts Campus Compact will be co-sponsoring Convergence: The Intersection of Arts and Activism. This three-day conference will bring together students, faculty, administrators, and working artists to discuss and collaborate through a myriad of mediums. Focusing on visual art, dance, music, theatre, film, and new media to learn, inspire, and take action, the conference will center on connecting those interested in social justice and the arts. The weekend will feature speakers, panel discussions, workshops, performances, gallery shows, and a community art project. We hope that this conference will ignite students, faculty, and visual and performing artists to become more engaged and connected in the emerging field of art and social activism. If you would like to be involved, have questions, comments, or concerns, please e-mail convergenceconference@gmail.com

Download and print the Convergence poster to help promote the conference!

Announcing the Keynote Speakers:

Pam Korza and Chaz Maviyane-Davies

Pam Korza co-directs Animating Democracy, a program of Americans for the Arts that fosters civic engagement through art and culture. She co-wrote with Barbara Schaffer Bacon and Andrea Assaf Civic Dialogue, Arts & Culture: Findings from Animating Democracy, and co-edited Critical Perspectives: Writings on Art & Civic Dialogue, as well as a five-book case study series. She has offered workshops on the principles and practices of arts and civic engagement across the country, recently in a four-city pilot program for local arts agencies funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as at colleges and universities in the U.S. and China.

Pam worked with the Arts Extension Service (AES) at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst for 17 years. There she coordinated the National Public Art Policy Project in cooperation with the Visual Arts Program of the National Endowment for the Arts, which culminated in the book Going Public: A field guide to developments in art in public places, which she co-wrote and edited. She is coeditor and contributing writer to Fundamentals of Local Arts Management, also published by AES. She co-directed the New England Film and Video Festival, a regional independent film festival.

Chaz Maviyane-Davies has been described by the UK's Design magazine as "the guerrilla of graphic design". For more than two decades the award-winning, controversial designer's powerful work has taken on issues of consumerism, health, nutrition, social responsibility, the environment and human rights. He has studied (MA, the Central School of Art and Design in London) and worked in Britain, Japan, Malaysia, the US and Zimbabwe, his country of origin. From 1983 until recently he ran the renowned design studio in Harare, Zimbabwe, The Maviyane-Project.

Due to adverse political conditions in his homeland, Maviyane-Davies moved to the USA in 2001, where he is currently a Professor of Design at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston.

As well as being published in numerous books, international magazines and newspapers, his work has been exhibited extensively and is included in several permanent collections at various galleries.