TREC: Talking Race, Engaging Creatively (sm)

TREC Workshops

TREC hosts art-based interracial dialogue workshops in a wide variety of settings, including public agencies, art galleries, schools, and churches. The 3 hour workshops are facilitated by an interracial artist-activist team who help participants create 4" x 12" art panels. These panels communicate feelings, beliefs, memories and thoughts about personal experiences with racism and ideas about social change. The panels are mounted on magnets so they can be moved around on large (4' x 5' ) steel panels. Usually a workshop of 30 people will use four of these steel panels. After participants have communicated through one round of panels and discussion, they create a second panel to deepen their understanding and encounters with each other. The workshops are very intense and meaningful for the participants.

TREC can design on-site workshops using their standard three-hour format, as well as other configurations of time and format. While the 4" x 12" panel is the primary unifying aesthetic, other art forms can also be used, such as masks, murals, etc. To schedule a workshop, contact The Visual Dialogues Project at 314-968-6868.

TREC FACILITATOR TRAINING

Facilitators are trained to use art processes in the context of interracial dialogue. The actual approach to dialogue is based on the FOCUS St. Louis' Bridges Across Racial Polarization (R) program and the dialogue concepts of David Bohm. The use of art in dialogue was pioneered by the Mother Tongue Project in Massachusetts and by The Visual Dialogues Project in St. Louis. Training requires the participants to experience these processes while clarifying their own racism experiences, beliefs and feelings. Trainees are mentored through this process by staff from Bridges and VDP, as well as experienced trained facilitators. A monthly facilitator art group provides on-going support and training.

TREC Public Exhibits

The artwork produced in public interracial dialogue workshops and in the facilitator training groups is shown periodically to generate interest in the project. Wild Oats Market sponsored a display in their store during Black History Month, and negotiations are underway to host a major exhibit with on-site workshop at a local arts and activism site in late spring. The work is available for traveling displays on request.To schedule an exhibit, contact The Visual Dialogues Project at 314-968-6868.