Learn about CIVICKIDS, our year-long exploration into child-led civic engagement and shared community pride through art-making.
As CMA’s 30th anniversary approached in 2018, we saw children and families grappling with big ideas: climate change, equity, gun violence, and more. At the heart of introducing children to the transformative power of the arts lies the belief that art transforms and makes a change. This happens at CMA every day; the magic moment when a child MAKES something that could not otherwise exist and then SHARES a conversation about it. We know that this is how children begin to LOOK at themselves as active agents in this world, to believe that they can make an impact, a difference, and practice making that impact in something as simple as a work of art.
This is where the idea of CIVICKIDS took root. CIVICKIDS was a year-long experiment in implementing and disseminating curriculum designed to initiate conversations surrounding civic engagement with children and families. We identified 12 themes for each month of CIVICKIDS. During each month, all of our onsite programming related to CIVICKIDS, and we also asked partners working with children from all over the world to reflect with us. In addition, we hosted workshops in all of NYC’s five boroughs. Through the process of working with children, families, and organizations near and far, we learned about how children see themselves in the world, the issues they face, and the future they want to inherit.
We celebrated a year of child-led civic engagement in October 2019 with an all-day program of workshops, activities, readings, and performances in partnership with artist-run civic engagement platform For Freedoms. Highlights included Story Time with Senator Julia Salazar, a collaborative digital quilt with For Freedoms in the Media Lab, and screenings of short films by filmmaker Pablo Herrera and the young filmmakers in CMA’s Summer Art Colony in collaboration with The Climate Museum. View more photos from the celebration here.
Join CMA as we continue to Make Art. Make a Difference in the years to come.
