The USC Arts in Action program was created about three years ago as part of an Arts and Humanities Initiative from the Office of the Provost.
One of its main purposes is to fund art projects. This is an effort to build and grow relationships with communities in the area. According to William Warrener, the lead producer for Arts in Action, the program was built on the idea that change is created through the process of collaboration.
Warrener: Whenever we create projects, or whenever we receive applications for funding for projects, we’re always looking for the strength of those relationships. It’s all about trust, collaboration and building a process of friendship throughout the act of creating work, and so that’s kind of what has given the program its success.
Arts in Action uses its funding to support students who are using art to explore social justice issues like homelessness, mass incarceration and healthcare inequalities. It has had partnerships with groups like Black Lives Matter Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Unified School District.
USC Provost Charles Zukoski encourages and supports the program, saying that by “partnering with the communities and neighborhoods of Los Angeles with the purpose of promoting positive social change through shared artistic endeavors, Arts in Action is first and foremost a community effort.”
Within Arts in Action is another program called the Arts and Climate Collective, which started last spring. Like Arts in Action, the collective gives students financial awards. These awards are used to help fund projects that use art to explore sustainability and environmental justice issues.
Colin Maclay is one of the collective’s co-founders. He founded it with recent USC graduate Hannah Findling and Roski School of Art and Design professor China Adams.
Maclay is also a USC communications professor and the executive director of the Annenberg Innovation Lab. He feels like art is an important storytelling tool. This is because it can help people care about climate change by engaging their emotions.
Maclay: The piece that feels to me that has been missing is the storytelling piece, the translation piece that helps us to understand and compare and contextualize that research that helps us to understand what we can do individually and collectively to address the challenge before us.
Both Arts in Action and the Arts and Climate Collective are currently accepting project proposals from students. Arts in Action proposals are due this Friday, Oct. 8, and Arts and Climate Collective proposals are due Oct. 29.