Resilience and the Unseen in the Context of an Art House

RPAH Professional Development Track
Speaker Series in Community-Engaged Arts Presenting ft. Todd Thomas Brown
 
Red Poppy Art House founder Todd T Brown headlines the Poppy’s October professional development session with a conversation on resilience while making art and creating art spaces.

“Zena Carlota, Red Poppy’s Managing Director, asked if I would be the guest speaker for the Poppy’s October professional development session. I decided I would take the opportunity to share some of the ideas/insights that lay closest to my heart, ones that have served as a guide across the years of making art and creating art spaces, but that I don’t always get to talk about. Like, what is it that brings a sense of magic into the moment? Often, our most amazing (transformative) experiences of connection happen entirely unplanned, emerging out of a synchronicity of variables in a given moment such that it comes almost as a surprise. In art and in community engagement, this is something we seek–to facilitate, or invite, transformative moments of connection. But, if we can’t plan spontaneity, what are we to do? How do we create space, an opening, for something yet to be known or determined? Or, what can we do to set the context, and the invitation?

“Underneath these kinds of questions, for me, is a profound appreciation for the formless quality of life; life energy and life intelligence, the kind of intelligence that lives in children, in our immune systems, in plants and ecosystems of nature–a constant spring of resilience. We can’t own it or control it, but we can make a little more space in our lives, and in the environments we inhabit, to let it do its work. This is the kind of inquiry I enjoy looking at, and I’m hoping we can have a conversation along these lines, and see how these things relate to the work of art houses and to a range artistic practice.”
 
About Our Guest:
Todd Thomas Brown, a multi-practice artist engaged in visual arts, performance, and social practice, has been awarded numerous grants in disciplines of music and theater. His projects include collaborative music ensemble Nefasha Ayer: The Space of In-Between, the dance-theater production of “Teobi’s Dreaming: A Performative Inquiry into Biology and Being,” and, more recently, the collaborative dance/performance piece “This. Now.” Todd, the founder of the Mission Arts & Performance Project/MAPP in San Francisco, has performed and/or presented work throughout the Bay Area, Europe, the Caribbean, South America, and Mexico.
 
Photo: Sky Whales by Martin Vlach
 

 
About the Professional Development Track Program:
On the third Monday of every month, the Red Poppy Art House invites guest artists, arts leaders, community organizers, and other creative thinkers to share their experience and ideas on the work they are doing and the questions that we are exploring at the Red Poppy Art House. We like to open these presentation-discussions to artists, arts professionals, and others seeking to develop their skills and understanding of the arts ecosystem in relation to socially engaged arts presenting.

Focused on “community engaged arts presenting,” the Poppy’s Professional Development program centers around inquiry in:

• How can we best facilitate a space of encounter, an environment that connects both artists and people from different communities?
• What is the relationship/tension between art as a force for social transformation and art as a form of cultural entertainment that follows a consumer relationship (i.e. you buy a ticket and consume a show)?
• What are the different practical needs in different disciplines (i.e. dance as opposed to a music production), and how can we familiarize ourselves with them to better anticipate the needs of a particular collaboration? In other words, how do we become cross-disciplinary in our thinking?
• Seeing that social/professional relationships in the arts tend to fall along the dividing lines between artistic disciplines and genres, what are some strategies that can help intersect and cross-pollinate respective communities?
• How do we find new and creative ways of addressing issues around equity and access, particularly as we see them play out in our immediate community?

Click here to learn more about the program.
 

 
Time: Session 7:00PM
Admission: Free
All ages are welcome.