Periclean Partner Spotlight: An Interview with Krystal Barrett from the Center for Artistic Activism

The Center for Artistic Activism (C4AA) is an education nonprofit that helps organizations and individuals bring creativity and innovation to their social impact and voter engagement work. Project Pericles has been collaborating with C4AA since 2023. Periclean Fellow Brandon Bauer of St. Norbert College connected Project Pericles and C4AA in 2023 given synergy between their faculty fellowship programs. They have been collaborating ever since. 
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In this collaboration, the two organizations have held three online webinar events to highlight Project Pericles and C4AA’s resources designed for faculty to make civic engagement work more creative, innovative, interesting, and dynamic. Last year’s webinars focused on creative civic engagement with students in the classroom in the context of the election year. This year’s event, “Teaching Creativity to Inspire Social Good” focused on faculty sharing creative lessons they did in the classroom to help students realize the importance of their voices. The webinar presenters generally offer key takeaways and tips for other faculty members to implement in their own work. 
Project Pericles interviewed Krystal Barrett, C4AA’s Programs Manager. Her background is in higher education, and she’s always had a passion for working with faculty, staff and students. In regards to her own experience with art and activism, she shared, “I really learned how to be an artistic activist through the Center. You don’t have to be an Artist to do this work. We teach how everyone is innately creative and how to tap into those creative abilities to engage in the crucial work around civic engagement and social justice.” She loves that C4AA is a space that truly encourages thinking outside the box and makes civic engagement “fun, silly, and weird”. 
When it comes to the overlap between Project Pericles and C4AA, Barrett highlighted that both organizations share crucial resources that help faculty have engaging, fun conversations with their students about challenging topics. “We both give out lifelines to faculty who want to engage students in these conversations… They don’t have to do it on their own, we have these resources to help them have difficult conversations with their students in engaging and fun ways.” 
Barrett’s favorite part of the collaboration is meeting new people and getting inspired, “During our events, we hear faculty fellows talk about the amazing work they’re doing with their students and it makes me wish I was a student again. Barrett shared, “The work they’re doing is so different from what happens in the average classroom!”
In closing, Barrett expressed gratitude for the non-transactional, working relationship between Project Pericles and C4AA. “We’ve really built a strong and lasting relationship. We work well together.” Likewise, Project Pericles is grateful for our continued partnership with C4AA!

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Resource Spotlight

You can check out the recording, takeaways, and resources from the April 17 webinar in collaboration with C4AA, “Teaching Creativity to Inspire Social Good” by clicking the button below!

Webinar Recording, Takeaways, and Resources