 New York, NY— The Ford Foundation has awarded The Confined Arts in partnership with Another Choice Youth and Family Outreach Inc with a grant to launch the Strategic Arts & Education (SAE) initiative to provide free artistic literacy, professional development, and capacity-building to new/existing community-based artists, students, and advocates including justice-impacted people.
PROJECT SUMMARY The mission of the SAE initiative is to provide free artistic literacy, professional development, and capacity building trainings and workshops to new and existing community-based artists (specifically those that have justice-involvement), young adults, students, advocates, teaching artists, practitioners, legal advocates, and organizations who want to learn more about entrepreneurship, community enhancement and/or how they can use the arts to mitigate the imprint of the criminal legal system.
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 Through our partnership with the Center for Court Innovation, Arts Justice Safety Coalition members have begun planning, promoting, and running free workshops for teaching artists, practitioners, and legal advocates who want to learn more about how they can use the arts to mitigate the imprint of the criminal legal system through facilitated workshops. Please see below the details for the first professional development workshop offered in 2022. Strategic Arts Engagement as System Intervention (Artivism 101) Organized by Recess Art, Dances for Solidarity, and The Confined Arts  The Center for Court Innovation's Brooklyn Justice Initiatives (BJI) seeks to re-engineer the experience of criminal court in Brooklyn, New York by providing judges and attorneys meaningful alternatives to bail, fines, and jail sentences. Operating out of Kings County Criminal Court, Brooklyn Justice Initiatives is a team of social service providers, court-based resource coordinators, and others who seek to improve the quality of justice. By providing meaningful pre-trial supervised release and post-conviction sentencing options, Brooklyn Justice Initiatives seeks to use an arrest as a window of opportunity to change the direction of a participant’s life and avoid the harmful effects of incarceration. Project Reset is an early diversion program that provides people who have been arrested an opportunity to complete arts-based programming at the Brooklyn Museum and within the community instead of going to court to face formal prosecution. Upon successfully completing Project Reset, the original case is not prosecuted, there is no record of a court appearance and the arrest is sealed. Brooklyn Justice Initiatives, in partnership with the Brooklyn Museum, is seeking two Teaching Artists. Reporting to the Project Reset Program Manager, Teaching Artists will facilitate biweekly, arts-based programming at Brooklyn Museum and in BJI community spaces for Project Reset participants ages 18-25 and older. This innovative collaboration will bring Project Reset to the entire borough of Brooklyn, leveraging the power of the arts to provide a meaningful alternative to conventional prosecution of low-level crimes. DETAILS Position Type: Part-time hourly; average of 3 hours per week. Planning sessions are 1.5hrs in length and will take place on the off-week/day of programming. Compensation: $105.88/hour. Application Deadline: Sunday February 6th, 2022 The Fund for the City of New York/Center for Court Innovation is an equal opportunity employer. The Center does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, national origin, age, military service eligibility, veteran status, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, or any other category protected by law. We strongly encourage and seek applications from women, people of color, members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities as well as individuals with prior contact with the criminal justice system. As of September 9, 2021, all new hires are required to be vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus, unless they have been granted a reasonable accommodation for medical, disability or religious reasons by the Center’s Human Resources Department. RECRUITMENT FOR THIS POSITION IS BEING CONDUCTED BY ARTS JUSTICE SAFETY COALITION Please email questions to: theconfinedarts@gmail.com If you are system impacted, don't have a bio and/or resume, and would like to apply for this position please email us with the details of your circumstances. If you have any trouble accessing the google form please submit your application through email by sending us the following materials:
THIS OPPORTUNITY IS CURRENTLY CLOSED AND NO LONGER ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT BY PASTOR ISAAC SCOTT, FOUNDER AND LEAD-ARTIST  During my incarceration, art was the means by which I was able to financially provide for myself as well as psychologically withstand the day-to-day torture of imprisonment. Hearts, flowers, and foliage gave me peace during uncertainty. My art forced me to reconsider what I viewed as purposeful in life, and I found that what I valued was not the status quo. Nevertheless I managed to stay within the lines of my creativity while illustrating outside of the popular narrative. My process of creating beauty under the harshest of circumstances helped me to reconcile a more sensitive and resilient side to myself.
In 2014, one year after my release, I launched The Confined Arts as an exhibition featuring the artistry of individuals who are currently and formerly incarcerated. Seven years later, with the help of the Justice in Education Initiative at Columbia University, The Confined Art has developed into an interdisciplinary public art and advocacy program that is housed (since 2015) at the Center for Justice at Columbia University, (since 2020) at the Center for Institutional and Social Change at Columbia Law School, and (in 2022) at Mount Zion A.M.E. Church on 116 street and Madison Ave. In 2020 The Confined Arts partnered with the Center for Court Innovation and Conspiring for Good to MAP, GALVANIZE AND SUPPORT artists, arts organizations, projects, and programs focused on racial justice, restorative justice, transformative justice, and Criminal Justice Reform. Our goals are: To sustain a community of individuals and organizations working at the intersection of art and justice system reform, with a focus on community resilience and prevention through advocacy and reform. Since 2014, The Confined Arts has produced visual and performing arts public programming and film-based projects that target specific aspects of the criminal legal system to shed light on or counter harmful, reductive, and dehumanizing narratives that shape and inform public perception and policy decisions. Through the Covid-19 pandemic and the recent national attention on our country’s history of systemic racism, TCA has responded by continuing to create art that challenges and changes the narrative of the criminal legal system and those directly impacted by America's carceral system. As a result of the impactful work of The Confined Arts, I’ve received foundation support as well as a historic 4 consecutive Change Agent Awards from the School of General Studies at Columbia University.  Experts and advocates have long touted the beneficial role of arts programs in the criminal justice system, both as an outlet for incarcerated people to express themselves while behind bars and an important element of the rehabilitation process once they’re released. And while the COVID-19 pandemic may have limited the intimacy of prison and reentry arts programs, many found ways to continue to teach, appreciate and showcase the work of incarcerated artists even during the crisis, by transitioning to virtual and solo lessons.
 Yazmany Arboleda (b. 1981) is a Colombian American artist based in New York City. His art practice is always created in collaboration with others. An architect by training, Yazmany activates communities with large scale art projects that seek to build connections across barriers and highlight how linked we are. He believes that art is a verb not a noun.  The Confined Arts has received a grant from the Global Drug Policy Program at the Open Society Foundations for the Claiming the Visual Narrative Public Arts Project. The purpose of the grant is to counter the racist narratives of the drug war through artistic collaboration in New Jersey. The Confined Arts, founded by Multimedia Visual Artist Pastor Isaac Scott of Columbia University, uses a unique methodology of strategic arts engagement to change popular perceptions, build relationships, and foster action towards collaborative community-based solutions.
It is crucial for community-based activists to engage in local and national politics and influence the opinions of elected officials to preserve community values and uphold public safety. As a result of this collaboration, political leaders are more likely to adopt a representational and equitable approach to their policies and governance.
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