Anti-Oppression

A conversation about building a community arts program that values difference and individuality between Arthi Sundaresh and Tyler Denmead. Arthi is an artist who is currently serving as an artist mentor.

Tyler Denmead (TD), Executive Director
My hope is that in this conversation that we can begin to map out how our learning community can question and understand issues of oppression. And, for me, that means beginning to understand what oppression is, where it is learned, and how it is practiced both globally - and internally.

Arthi Sundaresh (AS)
Oppression= being put down systematically—that is, in a way that is built in to how things work—in personal and discriminatory ways to hold you back.

TD:
How is it built into how things work?

AS:
I'm thinking about Paulo Freire. He's who comes to mind when I think of the word "oppression" and it being built in to how things work. Freire wrote Pedagogy of the Oppressed and talked about a hegemonic sort of oppression, particularly in terms of education. Dictionary.com says, oppress= "1. To keep down by severe and unjust use of force or authority; 2. A people who were oppressed by tyranny." Hegemony is the kind of influence that some predominant force puts over other people. So hegemonic oppression is something that's built in, and intended maybe to be unquestioned. I think oppression definitely has to do with a power play. Power, of course, can be defined and assumed, created or manipulated in many ways.

TD:
To oppress another requires a position of power? Which, then implies that for it to be overcome, there must be a deep line of questioning within that authority or directed toward that authority?

AS:
Overcoming oppression should involve questioning authority. Sometimes the authority is not necessarily the system or people but maybe the ways or habits of the system and people. You have to question the “what's going on” in order to understand it, accept it, and figure out how to change it.

TD:
I am immediately struck by the relevance of the arts and this community - expressing the spirit, having a voice. New Urban Arts has an approach that challenges authority and power, though is more a place of hugs, rather than raised fists. I wonder what that tension means. Yet, I also wonder, how New Urban Arts might be more intentional about building an anti-oppression practice.

AS:
New Urban Arts is most definitely a place of hugs rather than raised fists. It is a place that aims to support personal growth and creative practice. It thrives on self-expression. So it's important, therefore, to try to identify elements that could potentially limit self-expression or limit people's feelings of being worthwhile or creating worthwhile artwork.

TD:
My third grade art teacher told me that my artwork was not worthwhile. I was making a paper mache fish mobile - and I mixed all of the acrylic paint into a nice muddy brown. That shut me up for a good 15 years. It quieted my creative spirit. And, I feel her opinion was rooted in the socially accepted idea that not everyone has the potential to be an artist, which means, the majority of us do not learn to become creative, independent thinkers. If we educated differently, we would have masses of people that questioned and didn't stand still.

Can we identify elements that potentially limit self-expression?

AS:
Yes. Let's step outside of the studio again and think about what are some things that in general could limit one's self-expression? Like "-ism" sort of things.

AS:
Age-ism

TD:
Sex-ism

AS:
disability-ism

TD:
Race-ism

AS:
homophobia, transphobia

TD:
Redstate-ism

AS:
Red state?

TD:
Geo-political class warfare driven by assumptions about others.

AS:
Classism, I think is one of the big ones it stems to a lot of other fears and issues.

TD:
Yet, seems often the most overlooked.

AS:
Absolutely. Maybe because it's one that's so super embedded in the ways of this culture.

TD:
Freedom and the freedom to be rich are intrinsically linked. Isms and phobias are learned, accepted, practiced, and embedded? How does one become a classist?

AS:
I'm not sure. I think isms and phobias are first accepted, then embedded, then learned and then practiced. I think just living in the United States makes you classist to some extent, but maybe that's a cynical outlook. I think most people are classist whether they’re at one end of the economic spectrum or the other - because our dependence on wealth and thus discrimination and assumptions around it has become a cultural thing.

TD:
There is the belief that being poor is an indication of one's personal character. To be poor means that one is not smart, one cannot take care of oneself, one makes poor decisions, etc - A framework established through the upper-middle class needs to justify their position in the world. Their self-constructed narrative is one of earning and boot-strap-pulling, rather than inheritance and stepping on the backs of others. Earning and boot-strap-pulling is an indication of their goodness.

AS:
Interesting that smartness and goodness becomes a part of wealth. We love to make things moral issues. I think that's how most of these phobias and isms become points of oppression—it’s when they become a part of our culture and it doesn't necessarily matter where you are at in the spectrum.

TD:
Very interesting observation! I think about the students here who I have become close friends with over the years, and whose parents have been supportive of our relationship. And, I hear it through their children that the parents are supportive of the relationship because I'm white. “Hanging out with Tyler is a part of personal advancement...” Or in other ways, find a relationship with a boy that has lighter skin and straighter hair.

AS:
That's tough. Racial difference is a moral issue?

TD:
Or, the difference between students at Central and Classical played out in our studio. Class and race warfare playing out between students everyday because of a school system with a practice that must be fundamentally racist and classist if it is disproportionately advancing white, middle class students.

AS:
So, if we all hold these power structures within us that have become a part of our belief-system (whether or not we choose to act upon them or believe them), then how do we start to break them down in a way that doesn't break people down?

TD:
I think it requires the capacity for each one of us to accept our own prejudice. I find this ironic because our society broadly "accepts" the idea that prejudice is not a value that we should aspire for in our children. This, in turn, places such a negative stigma on the process of trying to understand our own prejudice, though we have little control of the prejudices that we develop as children. We learn the language; we are presented the images of prejudgments. This barrier, this stigma, in some ways prevents the process of self-understanding that is a prerequisite.

AS:
You’re not supposed to be prejudiced. So admitting and accepting one’s own prejudice is problematic. But I think admitting and accepting prejudice is a good first step. And also realizing when and where one uses those prejudices to boost himself up or that puts someone down.

TD:
Good distinction. Understanding the moments, the triggers, that we use... So, the question becomes: how do allow each other to accept and acknowledge each other's prejudice without it being the process of standing before an emotional wrecking ball? Is it accurate to suggest, though, that movements toward "tolerance," "understanding difference," "diversity," have been more about trying to create a world where prejudice doesn't exist?

AS:
Sure, but I think we have to realize that creating a world without prejudice is not possible among human beings. No matter the intention. For me, I often feel oppressed by the predominance and prevalence of a straight culture. Both queer people and straight people engage in this because I’m not talking necessarily about a heterosexual culture, but “straight” implying a closed off-ness to difference within the dominant heterosexual culture. I feel alienated when I feel like I'm in an environment that does not acknowledge difference with regard to gender and sexuality. Sometimes that seems like it shouldn't be such a big deal... Why does it matter who you go to bed with? It shouldn't. But there's a culture that surrounds it, particularly around gender stuff that has to do with much more than who you go to bed with. It relates to sexism, actually, and has to do with gender expectations and “norms.” That alienation sometimes becomes oppression when I feel like I'm discriminated against based on these differences. This situation calls to question the difference between alienation and oppression and how they combine.

TD:
To alienate means that authority relegates others to the margins. Oppression means the authority keeps them there?

AS:
I'm understanding alienation to be more emotional and yes, marginalizing, and oppression here to be more getting folks stuck.

TD:
It seems that the relevant goal is creating communities that encourage and foster self-reflection and across-difference understanding - not eliminating prejudice. What does an environment that does not acknowledge difference with regard to gender and sexuality look like?

AS:
Honestly, I've never been in an environment that really acknowledges gender difference. Gender is too much an assumed basic part of people's identity. But, for example, an environment in which you are asked, "what's your pronoun preference?" begins to acknowledge that gender differences exist and that it might not be what you assume from first look... I remember the first time someone asked my pronoun preference. I was actually dumbfounded. "Uh, ‘she,’ I guess," is what I said. I guess in that moment I never really knew to ask that question or what my response could possibly be...

TD:
I think it's important for people who don't identify as trans- to have a more fluid, dynamic understanding of their own gender. We maintain rigid understandings of who we are and what we should be, which limits self-understanding.... and becoming something else.

AS:
… Which leads to having a more fluid, dynamic understanding of gender in general... Which in turn leads to having a more fluid, dynamic understanding of identity in general if we go by the fact that gender is traditionally something people hold as such a fundamental truth.

TD:
What does it mean for gender to be a fundamental truth?

AS:
In most cases, when you're born, you're assigned male or female. "It's a boy!," or "it's a girl!," right? That biological distinction is made for the most part in the first moments of life. From then on, it becomes a fundamental characteristic around which you are raised (going on a western model, at least). So, it becomes a fundamental truth around identity formation. But when people's gender expression or gender identity doesn't fit with their biological assignment, then things tend to get messy. It really freaks people out. So, if we can culturally begin to accept that this "fundamental characteristic" is not necessarily a fundamental truth, then imagine the extent to which we might be able to accept other forms of difference and build understanding!

TD:
A different world. It would be a different world.

AS:
Yes! SO, okay the studio?

TD:
Right... the studio.

AS:
There's a lot going on here. Lots of people, lots of ideas, lots of identity issues and perspectives.

TD:
Lots of opportunity too.

AS:
The question returns to how, as a studio led by mentors, to we aspire to build understanding across differences? Or build respect across differences?

TD:
Yes. Which means that artist mentors must be led through an authentic process in which they confront their own prejudice, and build connections across difference. It requires facilitation.

AS:
Yes. Without the presumption that they have to change their beliefs or whatever, but that they confront, acknowledge, and aim towards understanding.

TD:
It requires "safety" though I'm confused to what extent. It's going to feel completely unsafe for a long time.

AS:
Feeling unsafe is hard. People would have to understand first why breaching a sense of safety is worth it and if it's worth it to them.

Fitting Somewhere in the World

A conversation about lessons learned during Jennifer Rice's one year as an Americorps VISTA at New Urban Arts. She was a student in our programs for three years, a VISTA for one year, and is now an artist mentor.

TD:
Looking back one year ago, why did you want to do a year of service as an Americorps VISTA at New Urban Arts?

JR:
When I applied, the first thing on my mind was the reason I learned so much here... service-learning. I wanted to work here because I wanted new students to know about service-learning. I also wanted them to know how they are in charge of their learning process when they are here.

TD:
What role did you see yourself playing in helping students know about how they are in charge of their learning process here? Do you feel you were successful in doing that?

JR:
I knew that I would be with the students everyday when they came in to the studio. At that time that was all I knew. I had no idea how exactly I was going to teach them about what service learning means. But the first thing I did was to start building relationships with every single student. I learned about them, their environment, their personalities, when to give them space, when I can be in their face... This was important to me because I wasn't able to talk to them about teaching art until they were comfortable talking about their art...and it took me all year. In my eyes, I found this year successful because I got the students interested in teaching what they know.

TD:
One question that you have identified is very important to me, the balance between building relationships/giving students space and getting in their face. Can you describe moments this year when you were in students' faces? Challenging them? How did they respond? And, when did you know it was the right time to begin challenging them? Examples?

JR:
My first example would be at the beginning of the year, I had my cousins come to the studio because I knew what goes on in their home, their home environment is very closed and our family is very close minded and I just wanted them to leave it for even a couple of hours to be here to learn about creative practice... They hate to be challenged but they let me because they love me. So, their first day I asked them lots of questions and learned about how they like to learn, stuff like that. So I had them join JJ's group because he was running a project his first day and that's what they liked. So that was easy because I had a prior relationship with these students.

Majority of the time, I started my relationships with the students very carefully. I needed to understand what their personalities were like so that I would know how to approach each student. Some students are extremely outgoing and I can talk to them whenever I feel like it.

With one student, I knew I had to be very careful and somewhat reserved. When I first started talking to her she was so shy almost like she didn't want to talk to me. Eventually she was a little more comfortable around the studio, and could start asking her questions like what are you interested in doing today? Our first project was painting a table...we started off with random projects.

Eventually I got her to join mentoring groups with people....and she takes the initiative to tell mentors what she wants to do....sometimes....but she is now comfortable introducing herself to new students...helping around the studio, and joining other mentoring groups on her own. She still needs lots of encouragement, but you have to wait for a day when she wants to learn new things and that's usually a day you take advantage of because she has so many ideas but you have to use that specific day to inspire her to talk about them and bring them to life.

TD:
What are some of the most important lessons you learned this year that you will take with you moving forward?

JR:
I learned a lot about helping people set goals for themselves. I learned about helping people to reflect on their work and look back so they can see how much they have learned. This is important to me because I think that when I can help people set goals and reflect on their work at the end it helps them appreciate the work they do.

TD:
What questions do you have for me?

JR:
How do you think my experiences here in the studio are relevant to the world? How were your experiences relevant to the world? Is the studio the only way we have to help our students?

TD:
I think your change, your growth, is very relevant to the world. It's hard not to look at you now and think of when I first met you. You handled the transition from student to staff person so well, with such maturity. You communicate so well with students, artist mentors, and staff. The change that you have had the courage to bring into your life is quite inspiring. You have become a leader in ways that I never imagined. In terms of my experiences, I hope the changes I have experienced are also relevant and inspiring to others.

JR:
Is new urban arts supposed to fit somewhere in the world?

TD:
Tough question. I think one of the challenges of New Urban Arts is that it doesn't fit. That in many ways, it's trying to carve out a place in the world for itself. Undoubtedly, there are other places like it that have existed long before it, but in other ways, there is nothing else like New Urban Arts. It's hard to describe what it is. Is it an arts studio? A learning community? An after-school program? A web of relationships? An artistic practice or approach? A non-profit organization? It's ambiguous. And, I think, part of the reason that it remains ambiguous is because it changes all the time: physically, who participates, what we produce, etc. And, by remaining ambiguous, there is not one thing that we set out to be or accomplish. I think it keeps us fresh, feeling like we are exploring and taking risks. It can feel lonely though sometimes. Where do you want it to fit?

JR:
Not really sure but I just know I like to use art to train people to think and I'm not sure how that can fit into the world.

TD:
What does train people to think mean? How do you want people to "think?"

JR:
Well I have been reflecting for a couple of weeks now. I haven't written anything down but I know that since I have been here, working on all different kinds of art projects and participating in community service...somehow did train me to think.

I find myself coming up with different ways I can help people or different ways to present art work, or different ways I can get people to talk about their artwork. Everything that people get themselves involved with in the studio makes them think about how they can do stuff more creatively or on some kind of larger scale... At New Urban Arts, people can look around the studio and see how different approaches, ideas and media might be possible for them.

Smart Growth

A conversation between Mary-Kim Arnold, New Urban Arts board member, and Tyler Denmead, about how non-profit organizations might grow in a sustainable way, maintaining their mission-focus and program-effectiveness.

TD:
I have been asking myself what meaningful growth for non-profit organizations might look like. I see two major influences in how we talk about growth. There is an assumption that bigger means "better" and better means economies of scale. The larger an organization is, the more efficient it must be. This doesn’t feel right necessarily, because the non-profit sector isn’t the manufacturing sector, where the idea of economies of scale originates. In the social entrepreneurship arena, it is often asked how the organization is going to scale - even before its practice is even established. There is a fascination with the entrepreneur as a celebrity/leader who is capable of leveraging broad-based change. There is pressure to grow big, but I find it hard to find thoughtful conversations about what big means, and what the implications of becoming big are.

MKA:
Can you articulate what the pressures are and where they come from?

TD:
One pressure is from a fundraising perspective. An organization that is "small" is only important on a local level, therefore this limits access to funding beyond the community where the organization resides. This is troubling in Rhode Island, considering 70% of non-profit organizations have budgets less than $100,000. Another pressure is from an effectiveness standpoint. If an organization remains small, does it become insular? How does an organization remain fresh, how does it challenge itself when it is not growing (in the traditional sense?) A third pressure, and perhaps the most important, is from a mission perspective. What size and type of organization must one become to achieve the broad-based and sustained change that it envisions?

MKA:
I think the model of small organizations being linked can offer some interesting perspectives. The Alliance of Artist Communities, a member organization, which centralizes some of the administrative functions of the organizations it supports, might be an interesting approach to look at. Charter schools, too, might provide some interesting examples. They are individual, yet there is “power” if you will, in their shared resources, and their ability to collectively advocate, lobby, communicate.

TD:
Yes. I hear the National Performance Network offers another good example.

MKA:
It seems as though the "effectiveness" measures that the manufacturing sector utilize are not consistent with the kinds of things we are trying to measure here. Although I am mindful of some of the lessons from manufacturing and commerce – in terms of Friedman’s “flattening” – the emphasis on ownership of methods is less and less important. The information is available readily from anywhere in the world. It is the implementation, the leadership, the innovation – that drives “results.”

TD:
Absolutely. Yet, organizations like New Urban Arts are critically referred to in some circles as "boutiques" - the implication being that this type of organization is expensive, under-professionalized, and limited in scope. And, the question naturally becomes, how can the organization achieve a certain scale to deliver its programming more broadly, cheaper, and more professionally. I would like to figure out how to reframe the debate. I guess it's trying to understand the best way to share resources, practice, etc. I don't want to be a factory. I don't know how to be a network.

MKA:
It seems to me that "network" is really the way to go. But let’s interrogate this more closely. What do networks look like? How do they work?

TD:
There are webs, hubs and spokes, loosely affiliated programs bound by values and ideas, centralized organizations supporting satellites.

MKA:
What are the obstacles to networks, webs? The entrepreneur as rock star phenomenon?

TD:
The obstacles to networks seem countless. Entrepreneur as rock star is an issue here, i.e. too many egos and ideas can get in the way. Too many varied interests. Too much work. Not enough "results." Centralized leadership versus shared leadership.

MKA:
Is it fair to say that organizations in earlier stages tend to have bigger egos at the lead? The "founders," if you will?

TD:
This is a very important question. According to Independent Sector, 3,000-4,000 nonprofits are being created each month, and growth in employment in the sector outpaced the for-profit and government sectors from 1997-2001. So, understanding founders is critical to understanding the sector.

There was an article published in Grantmakers in the Arts Reader this year by Susan Kenny Stevens, titled, “A Call Taken to Heart: The Entrepreneurial Behavior of Nonprofit Arts Founders.” In the article, she discusses the relationship between one’s “inner script” and the need for venture creation. She cites some common trends among nonprofit arts founders: thrust into premature responsibility, are willing to risk public failure for acceptance, and see creating new ventures as acts of rebellion. The act of starting an organization is perhaps as rooted in the ego of the founder than the need for the organization itself.

Whatever the case may be, the founder’s ego is a driving force in the early stages in many ways, and there is also an assumption that the founder eventually holds the organization back from growing. I tend to hope that the founder’s identity, responsibilities, and skills can shift as the organization evolves.

MKA:
I'm wondering if there is any value in partnering with or exploring more "established" organizations? I am not sure what I mean by that, exactly, but I am thinking that when you put a lot of smart, driven people together, you are bound to end up with a lot of folks who want to be rock stars.

TD:
What does established look like? Organizations that have grown beyond their founders?

MKA:
I think that's what I mean. Organizations that are not exclusively personality-driven. That are sustainable beyond the initial stages of formation.

TD:
This is where rock star comes in. I feel like all organizations are personality-driven nowadays.

MKA:
OK. Well, let's think about rock stars for a moment. How do rock stars come together? A common cause, at least as each individual interprets it? A belief that they are essential to a certain thing being successful (rock star characteristic). A sense that there is a historical moment in the making... a movement.

TD:
The cynical side of me says that when the common cause advances the individual's agenda better than the individual can, then they come together.

MKA:
How to leverage that instinct… I attended a conference a year or so ago of progressive Asian -American women, and one of the main questions was, is there an Asian-American women's movement? And in some ways, this is the question we are looking to answer here in this conversation..is there a movement? Can there be one? Is it necessary or useful to look at it this way?

TD:
I want to go with your thinking, but I can't get the recent 8 global concerts fighting African poverty and indebtedness out of my mind.

MKA:
Yes, the recent concerts, I am trying to block them out myself...although maybe there is a lesson there, as well...

TD:
Tell me more about the conference conversation.

MKA:
We looked at the issues facing APA women, and we looked at the work that was being done. Then we looked around at each other and saw the energy, the passion, the intelligence in the room, and it was inspiring, it was motivating, energizing. We came away with the conviction that "yes there is a movement and we are it." I'm wondering if that's not something that we need - just a convening of sorts - regionally? nationally? virtually?

TD:
I think one of the more beautiful convenings was Black Mountain. Have you read the book by Martin Duberman? I read it the first year I started working on New Urban Arts. It recounts a bunch of post WWII artists - Joseph Albers, Merce Cunningham, Buckminster Fuller - who set up a retreat in North Carolina for people to come make work, share ideas, take "classes." Progressive school.

TD:
What do convenings need? Do they need a reason? Do they need facilitation? It almost seems that what happens must originate there. What are the questions? Who are the audiences?

MKA:
The questions are: How do we grow? How do we communicate with each other? How do we sustain the energy that brings us to the work in the first place? Perhaps we can set up a listserv (I know, another listserv) and invite local/regional nonprofit leaders to sign up - put the questions out there, track them - see if there is energy for such a thing. Board members, and staff of nonprofits that are looking to the next phase - who are interested in envisioning a future for nonprofits… what is our legacy?

TD:
Interesting... Is this a sector-wide conversation? Is it a community arts conversation?

MKA:
I am thinking that maybe we throw it out to the whole sector?

TD:
Conversations across disciplines are missing. The disadvantage is that leadership fear conversations where there may not be a tangible outcome. "How do we capitilize on the energy that is here?" without any resources to do so. The alternative to a convening is to find where the conversation or movement exists, and try to locate ourselves there.

MKA:
Where is it happening?

TD:
Small school movement. Charter school movement. Social entrepreneurship / venture philanthropy movement.

MKA:
Feminist movement? What does it mean to have a movement? What do these movements have in common? What is the threshhold for a movement?

TD:
A cause. Shared energy. Leadership. Attention.

MKA:
A few rock stars.

TD:
Arnold Aprill writes on the website of the organization he leads http://www.capeweb.org, “there must be at least three change agents in any institution to activate a critical mass, a tipping point, for change. In the ecology of an institution: > One change agent is a mutation. (One point is a point of contention.) > Two change agents are a conspiracy. (Two points draw a divisive line in the sand.) > Three change agents are a team. (Three points define a field of discourse, open to others, with many entry points.)”


Thoughts about this conversation from Jim Berson, Meeting Street School, sent via email:

"I was meeting with a local leader who believed that the right size of an organization is dependent on a couple of factors: what it needs from a resource base to hire talented people, having enough people employed to have a leader that could actually spend time leading as opposed to just providing service, and the organization's mission. Another E.D. I met said that things really changed for the positive when his organization was large enough ($350K) to free him up to do advocacy work and impact the public policy dialogue, as opposed to him being in the office leading workshops with kids around racism (which his employees were now able to do when his place grew)

I think that the issue of reinvention and insularity of an organization is largely a leadership issue, at least in my professional experience. I had the distinct pleasure of working for a CEO who had the ability to reinvent himself and the organization -- not like a rockstar, but rather unassumingly -- without losing the core mission/vision/purpose of the place or severing its roots. Sooooo, I think it is possible for an organization to remain vibrant and vital without dot.com like growth rates --- if there is a leader who has the time to focus on leadership.

In terms of growth and size for NUA, I was concerned that you might ask me to be practical as opposed to theoretical. A couple of thoughts, so long as you asked.

1. I think you need to have NUA large enough to be able to assure its location, wherever it may be. This could mean large enough to buy the building you are currently in and make the monthly payments without rolling blackouts to save money

2. I think you need to be large enough so that you have the time to lead-- no rule of thumb, but perhaps you should be spending 1/3 time leading, 1/3 time managing, 1/3 working directly with kids/artists. Then there is the 1/3 time spent fundraising.

3. I think you need to be large enough to have the kind of impact on kids and communities that provides meaning to the kids, communities, you, your staff, and board.

4. I think you need to be large enough to be able to hire talented people, grow and develop them, and keep them.

Other than item 1, perhaps you are already at the size you need to be. And growth could mean more around networked relationships than necessarily budget size."

Teaching & Learning

When I started this work, I thought that there was a radical approach to teaching and learning, and that approach would be one I would learn and practice. (By "radical," I mean an approach that encouraged significant growth and change in learners.) This is probably rooted in my teacher-centered understanding of the classroom. (It is safe to assume that if a teacher is radical, then the classroom might be radical.) Overtime, by watching New Urban Arts unfold, I have grown to appreciate a myriad of approaches to teaching and learning, some traditional and others quite progressive. What is radical, though, is what happens when these diverse approaches are on display, as they are in our studio.

This became clear for me in a conversation yesterday with Jennifer Rice, a former student and staff person, who talked about how the numerous artist mentors and students, working at once in the studio, provided countless examples of approaches to making art, sharing work, etc. And, when each of these approaches are on display, as they are in our community, they inspire a sense of possibility. Students see others in the studio and see ways of approaching art that are different from their own. They might consider experimenting with that approach, or at least learning about it and incorporating ideas into their own practice. It is quite the unusual experience, since most of us are accustomed to making art in a solitary way.

In my conversation with Jen, it occurred to us that the diverse approaches to teaching and learning the arts in the same space gives students a sense of possibility and an appreciation for difference. Perhaps it even expands their understanding of who they are and who they might become.

Tyler Denmead