Who we are
Art for Systems Change (ASC) sits within the Institute for Community Prosperity as a practice-based stream that brings together artists, community partners, students and faculty to bridge creative practice with systems learning so that community wisdom, academic insight, and artistic process inform each other. ASC recognizes and supports artists as catalysts for meaningful transformation in community. We equip, connect, and amplify artists and partners to integrate community-engaged creative practice with systems learning to build trust, grow shared capacity, and move ideas into action.
Social change and systems change, together
- Social change centers people, narratives, relationships, and cultural life.
- Systems change centers structures, patterns, policies, and resource flows.
- Art as social change treats the artistic process itself as change, with participatory creation reshaping how people relate, learn and collaborate through making.
- Art for social change applies creative work with purpose to build awareness, dialogue, participation, and collective action.
- Art as systems change treats creative practice as a direct lever on structures and narratives.
- Art for systems change contributes tools, stories, and relationships that help people navigate and redirect systems.
How we work
We treat complexity as the context for our work. ASC uses systems thinking, participatory methods, and creative practice to recognize patterns, map dynamics, and identify promising places for transformative change. From our position within the university, we work in reciprocity with the community as partners and co-creators.
We do this through three connected streams:
Creative Practice
Purpose: Make visible issues and possibilities within communities through art as praxis, linking reflection and action in context.
Convening and Connection
Purpose: Strengthen the network of artists and partners who are working in social and systems change.
Capacity Building and Systems Learning
Purpose: Equip people with creative and systems tools that link reflection, creative works, and action, so mindsets move, behaviours change, and practice follows.
Our why
Artists have always done this work, often at the margins. ASC brings it into shared view and resourcing, so that creative practice, systems learning, and community partnership can move together in service of community prosperity. Now more than ever, communities need ways to work across differences, think in systems, and try new ways of doing. Art makes complexity more graspable, brings people into relationship, and helps ideas move from insight to practice in ways that support community prosperity.
Creatives Mixer
February 24, 6 - 10 PM, at The Alcove Centre
Our Creatives Mixer is a quarterly networking event that brings together people that Alcove collaborates with, local creatives, individuals who work in the sector, and supporters!
ArtistSpeak* AI (Artificial Intelligence)
March 12, Trico Changemakers Studio
Check back later for more details about the event.
Artist as Changemaker Card Deck
Artists are the Changemakers of our times.They are able to influence mental models, build empathy, and support group processes through their artistic practice. We built this deck as an open and adaptable tool for artists and groups who are doing changemaking work together. Use it to build common ground, unpack ideas, get inspired, understand impact, and dream big.
This program is made possible by the support of Calgary Arts Development and the Institute for Community Prosperity.