Past Projects
A Way Out of No Way Project
A Way Out of No Way was a multi-media project that documented the forty-year practice of cultural work of the extraordinary musician, educator, activist and cultural worker, Jane Wilburn Sapp.
Recasting Reconciliation Through Culture and the Arts: A Virtual Collection
This 2003-04 international fellowship program featured artists and cultural workers working in historically divided communities in South Africa, Sri Lanka, Burundi, Cambodia, and New Zealand. Their papers, portfolios, analysis, and recommendations are for artists, cultural workers, peacebuilders, students, scholars and policymakers interested in the contributions of culture and the arts to coexistence and reconciliation.
Student Work
- Cultural Work and Social Transformation, 2014 – Students were invited to join the "A Way Out of No Way," project as interviewers, transcribers, archivists, researchers, writers and event producers. They were welcome to work as volunteers, or more intensively for credit as interns (in PAX 92a4) or researchers in a group independent study (PAX 97a1).
- PAX 250 – The Arts of Building Peace, 2013 – Through analysis of case studies, interviews with socially engaged artists, critical reflections on works of art and student projects, this course explored how cultural productions contribute to non-violent resistance, the re-humanization of former enemies, and reconciliation. It focused on performance and visual arts.
- The Arts of Building Peace: Stories of Cultural Workers and Artist-Peacebuilders, 2007 – In what ways do the arts create social change? How do artists and the arts help create a sense of community? What are some examples of successful arts-focused peacebuilding projects? These are among the questions addressed in a collection of papers written by undergraduate and graduate Brandeis students taking COEX 250: The Arts of Building Peace in the spring of 2007. In this anthology you can read the stories of a filmmaker in South Africa, a muralist in El Salvador, a cultural worker in Palestine and community historians in rural America. You can learn how the successful artist-peacebuilders engage and expand the moral imagination.