Imagination and creative practice belong in how we live together and shape our shared future We hear it across the creative world. Theatre will lead us forward. Music brings us together. Dance reconnects us. Visual art gives us community and hope. Architecture and design shape how we live. Behind these expressions is a shared conviction:…
The Civic Imagination Project explores how people and communities can envision a better future, recognize themselves as civic participants, and connect across differences. Based at the University of Southern California, the project treats imagination not as an escape from present conditions, but as a necessary first step toward changing them. Through research, workshops, storytelling, toolkits,…
Arts activism, sometimes called artivism, uses creativity to advance social change. Res Creativa asks a different question: How can creativity change our ability to live together? This is an inquiry into what becomes possible when we place creativity before crisis, rather than summoning it only after events have been set in motion. When It Comes…
What happens when protest becomes a creative act rather than merely an expression of opposition? Protest makes private dissatisfaction publicly visible. It also tells us that a concern felt by one person is shared by many. People rarely take to the streets for a single reason. Outrage may bring them there. So can shared values,…
Mapmakers once filled unknown regions with lions and monsters. The phrase hic sunt leones did not appear everywhere, but the instinct did. Where knowledge ended, imagination supplied danger. We still do this. We draw lions around people we do not know, histories we avoid, and futures we cannot control. Political leaders exploit that instinct. They…
There is a conversation that has been waiting to happen. Not between politicians and constituents. Not between policy experts and the public. Between a writer and a trumpeter. Between a filmmaker and a choreographer. Between a painter and a game designer. Between artists who have spent their lives inside the most demanding truth-telling work democracy…
For centuries, people have argued over theology, doctrine, and religious authority. Empires have risen and collapsed around belief. Political leaders have tried to use religion, contain it, reshape it, or erase it. And yet, when I think about what ferried the great faith traditions across generations, geography, war, migration, and upheaval, I do not first think of…
Like any practice — whether music, dance, surgery, or prayer — democracy requires repetition, discipline, failure, adjustment, and the willingness to try again. Which raises a question: What role do the arts play in that rehearsal? Not the arts as decoration or entertainment, though beauty and joy matter. Not even the arts only as protest, though…
Most of the rules that shape daily life are not made in Washington. They come from state legislatures, administrative agencies, and local councils. Most of the people making those rules do not have a writer in the room. That is not accidental. It is a failure of understanding. Theirs, and sometimes ours. Here is what…
Let’s put it simply: We need a nonprofit entity for individual artists, creators, and makers across all disciplines. Not a union. Not an arts advocacy organization. Not a public relations campaign. Not a government agency. We already have those. Individual artists deserve a republic of our own. Creative practitioners are needed for the Reconstruction ahead. We…