Social Agents: Work from Select Engaged Practice Courses

A public reception for Social Agents takes place from 12 to 2pm, Thursday, April 12, in the Ann and Norman Roulet Student + Alumni Gallery. The exhibition, on view through Sunday, April 15, features work from six Engaged Practice courses across the degree program.

Cleveland Institute of Art has a long history of community involvement connected to its curricular offerings. CIA’s mutual engagement with the community is well-supported by its geographic location in University Circle and the greater Cleveland area, uniquely situated among world-class colleges and universities, museums and galleries, parks and gardens, the health tech corridor, major partners in industry, and a rich diversity of neighborhood and community organizations.

At CIA, we call these curricular connections to external partners Engaged Practice, and students may select among 39 such professionally engaged courses across the curriculum. Exhibited here is a subset of those courses that are more socially engaged with the community, such as through non-profit organizations, hospitals, schools and/or neighborhoods.

Exhibiting Courses:

• Advanced Video + Digital Cinema Projects works on video projects with various community partners, such as the urban youth advocacy group, Shooting Without Bullets
• Applying Anthropology collaborates with East Cleveland senior citizens through the Benjamin Rose Institute at the East Cleveland Salvation Army
• Community Projects: Animation collaborates biennially with student composers at the Cleveland Institute of Music, premiering their animations on the roof of the Planetarium at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History
• Design Center-Based Learning provides consultation to University Hospitals’ pediatric epilepsy unit
• Drawn to Care, in partnership with the Cleveland Clinic, places students as portrait artists in clinical rotation at neighborhood medical treatment centers
• Putting Artists in the Classroom places students as visiting artists in underserved, area K-12 schools

For more information, contact Academic Director and faculty member, Barbara Chira at bchira@cia.edu.

Sponsors