Program Update and Redesign
- The Artist as Changemaker initative is currently being reviewed and redesigned. Applications for the next cohort are projected to open in September 2025.
- Are you interested in receiving updates about AAC, including 2025 AAC applications and other Art for Social Change projects happening in Calgary? Please sign up for our newsletter to get all the latest updates.
As a society, the challenges we face are complex and do not have easy solutions.
Artists have been playing powerful roles in helping us understand and make sense of complexity.
About the AAC Project
A partnership between The Trico Changemakers Studio and Calgary Arts Development, the Artist as Changemaker (AAC) project started in 2018 as an initiative to expedite the capacity of socially engaged artists to create meaningful social change.
Over the past three years, a cohort of local artists have developed a residency program to employ their artistic mindset and systems-change knowledge to discover unique and creative ways to address complex social challenges.
Why Artists?
Because artists have always been paving the way for change.
Artists have the capacity to mobilize people and catalyze action. They expose the underlying conditions that hold problems in place. They inspire new connections and offer people new possibilities for engaging with a challenge.
Combining the artistic process with the tools of social innovation can help socially engaged artists identify leverage points to amplify change. Partnerships with organizations on the front lines of social problems serve as fertile ground for artists to demonstrate these abilities.
For more details and outcomes of the program, read the full reports here
Artist as Changemaker 2024 Program Report
The Artist as Changemaker Program (AAC) is a seasoned initiative spanning 6 years and 3 iterations, aimed to expand the capacity of artists to facilitate meaningful social change in Calgary Alberta. Since inception, the Program has been co-designed with participating artists to meet artists needs in facilitating change in community, and in partnership with community organizations.
Through the Residency, in partnership with local organizations, artists explore the relationship between the artistic process and social innovation as a means to discover unique and creative ways to address complex social challenges. Following the Residency, artists have the opportunity to participate in the AAC Fellowship to deepen their practice, building on outcomes from the Residency.
Read the report here.
Artist as Changemaker 2021 Program Report
The Artist as Changemaker Residency Program is a direct outcome of the Artist as Changemkaer Project. The second pilor of the residenc program launched in January 2021 and ran until June 2021. Artists expressed the importance of leveraging relationships with organizations on the front lines of social problems, which informed the focus of the 2021 residency: How might artiss and organization work together to address complex challenges?
Read the report here.
Artist as Changemaker 2020 Program Report
As a society, the challenges we face are complex and do not have easy solutions, and artists have been playing powerful roles to help us understand and make sense of complexity. Using art, artists invite people to enter into alternative realities in all sorts of ways. Artists use playfulness, dialogue, and even controversy to evoke emotions that have the potential to catalyze action. This is one of the ways that artists contribute to systems thinking and change work. Artists help to clarify patterns and trends in society by challenging mental models, which are founded on layers of beliefs, values, assumptions, and traditions.
Read the report here.
