Community leaders, artists, and culture workers in the Virginia Commission for the Arts’ Region 8: You are invited to join an arts and community engagement workshop, facilitated by DoPT's Ash Hanson and Vivian M. Cook!
This workshop will help launch the Virginia Small-Town and Rural Arts Network pilot! The pilot is led by the Randolph College MFA in Arts Leadership program and Small Town Big Arts and is supported by the Virginia Commission for the Arts.
Building Creative Communities: Practical Strategies for Rural Arts
Tuesday, March 24th, 10am-2pm (lunch provided)
Colonial Theater, South Hill, Virginia
Learn More and Register via the link below:
Join Ash Hanson and Vivian M. Cook from the Department of Public Transformation (DoPT) and Geoffrey Kershner with Small Town Big Arts to explore concrete strategies for starting and sustaining community-engaged arts initiatives in rural communities and small towns. They will share stories, examples, and resources from Engage Rural, Activate Rural, and The YES! House—three DoPT programs that center art and artists as catalysts for community connection and civic life.
In this workshop, you will:
Receive resources and guidance for developing (and funding!) arts-based strategies that build trust, strengthen civic engagement, and expand access to locally-led decision-making
Hear examples of how creative entrepreneurs, artists, organizations, and small businesses are activating third places and building projects that spark possibility
Gain access to tools for affirming arts as essential infrastructure and models for arts-led development, collaborative leadership, and intergenerational connection.
Discuss local assets, challenges, and opportunities for arts-based civic engagement
You will leave the workshop with an action plan for applying some of the strategies from the workshop to benefit your own communities in Southside. In April and May, DoPT will offer two follow-up virtual workshops to support participants as they take next steps in their action plans.
Presenter Bios
Ash Hanson (DoPT) has 20 years of experience working with rural communities to activate stories, connect neighbors, and exercise collective imagination. She is Creative Executive Officer (CEO) of Department of Public Transformation, a rural- based, arts-led nonprofit working at the intersection of creativity and civic life. She is also the founder of PlaceBase Productions, a theater company that creates original, site-specific musicals celebrating small-town life. She was an Artist-in-Residence with both the City of Minneapolis and the Southwest Minnesota Housing Partnership, where she employed creative community engagement strategies for equitable participation in urban and rural planning processes. She was named both an Obama Foundation and Bush Foundation Fellow for her work with rural communities. She holds an MA in Applied Theater with a focus on Rural Community Development (University of Manchester (UK)). She is a Leo who believes deeply in the power of sharing stories on front porches, karaoke as an organizing strategy, engaging in radical acts of play, and the overuse of exclamation points!
Vivian M. Cook (DoPT) is a community-engaged artist and Engage and Amplify Rural Program Coordinator with Department of Public Transformation. A producer and curator of interdisciplinary and cross-sector arts initiatives, Vivian’s practice is at the intersection of storytelling, asset-based community development, and social and environmental sustainability. She holds a BA in Performing Arts and MS degrees in Community Development and Sustainable Agriculture, with her research focusing on how the arts can strategically contribute to environmental communication and civic engagement. Over the past decade, Vivian has worked in theatre direction and performance, arts education and curation, community development, interdisciplinary and cross-sector project management, climate justice and regenerative agriculture, and program development. In addition to her work with DoPT, Vivian serves as Community Engagement Director and an Artistic Producer with The EcoTheatre Lab, a member of the grassroots Ames Climate Action Team, and a member of the national Pleiades Network.
Geoffrey Kershner (Small Town Big Arts, Randolph College) is the inaugural director of the low-residency MFA in Arts Leadership program at Randolph College. He served as the Chief Executive Officer of the Academy Center of the Arts for over a decade and was a founding member and Artistic Director of the Endstation Theatre Company. During his tenure as Artistic Director of Endstation, the company received the Virginians for the Arts' Rising Star Award, and Kershner was honored with the City of Lynchburg's Vice Mayor's Award of Excellence. Under his leadership at the Academy, the organization increased need-based scholarships for arts programming by 124%, grew its overall operating budget by over 400% between 2015 and 2024, and successfully completed a multi-million dollar capital campaign for a historic theater restoration project, which reopened in 2018. Geoffrey was a National Arts Strategies' 2014-2015 Chief Executive Fellow, currently serves as the Chair of Virginians for the Arts, and is a board member of the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation.
Download the event information PDF via the link below: