AEP Equity Working Group Resources 

A Learning Community for AEP Partners and Affiliates

Overview of AEP Equity Working Group

AEP working groups convene partner and affiliate organizations to generate and disseminate knowledge, effective practices and policy and practice deliverables around a specific topic or issue at the forefront of the arts education field. The AEP Equity Working Group brings together arts and education organizations committed to advancing equity to gather, study and share models of practice and lessons learned on the topic of equity in arts education. The AEP Equity Working Group is chaired by Alysia Lee, Baltimore Children & Youth Fund and Ray Yang, National Art Education Association. The working group consists of interested AEP partners and affiliates invited to participate in a volunteer capacity.

As of 2020, AEP’s working group re-centered as an inquiry-based learning community for AEP partners and affiliates with expertise and/or interest in diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA). Through this revised model, AEP provides capacity building resources for members to explore DEIA issues together, with a secondary focus on producing deliverables. This direction considers the group’s feedback on the value of dialogue and activities to deepen understanding of strategies and tactics to move DEIA work forward in their respective organizations. This also supports AEP’s new strategic mission which places greater emphasis on building leadership capacity and knowledge for arts education leaders.

Group Structure and Membership

The equity working group is structured as an inquiry-oriented learning community. This group consists of leaders from AEP partner organizations and affiliates seeking to learn about diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) and leaders with expertise in DEIA focus areas.

As part of this work, AEP will seek assistance from experts to serve as speakers and technical support providers for the group as needed.

To learn more or join AEP’s Equity Working Group contact Jamie Kasper.

AEP Working Group Products

Below you’ll find a list of our current products related to the equity working group to assist you in your research and work:

Title: 2280 Pasos Bajo un Cielo Nublado | Artist: Hernán Jourdan | Medium: Film

When I was asked to create a work of art exploring literacy, I wanted to create a dance but I had no dancers or a studio, so I chose to use my own body in the space I had, my yard. Fluent Nature is video of micro-choreography that explores what cannot be expressed with words, how nature has its own language, and how placing the human body in nature changes the story.

Title: What Is Me and What Is Not Me | Artist: Alex Chadwell | Medium: Music

My thinking on arts and literacy centers around the concept of literacies and artmaking as both sense-making and meaning-making processes that organically and inevitably overlap, intersect, and reciprocate. Compositionally, What is me and what is not me is a sound collage of sorts (there is no notation for the piece, and I'd be hard pressed to recreate it accurately) that abstractly and aurally represents the relationships between literacies and artmaking.

Title: A Curious Honeybee | Artist: Gideon Young | Medium: Film

Offering welcome through traditional and digital elements of literacy, A Curious Honeybee provides an experiential learning environment by activating visual, musical, natural, and emotional literacies.

Title: Tercera Llamada | Artist: Karilú Forshee | Medium: Audio

La Carpa Theatre is a project that I am currently directing in the Detroit Latinx community. The project aims to strengthen and uplift youth voices through devised theatre, in the style of the Mexican Carpas. This audio was created in the theatrical environment envisioned for our project. The ways in which literacies are re-defined are at the heart of La Carpa Theatre's mission.

Title: Literaseas | Artist: MJ Robinson | Medium: Graphite and ink on paper with digital edits

Title: A Riddle | Artist: MJ Robinson | Medium: Graphite on paper with digital edits

Title: False Binaries | Artist: MJ Robinson | Medium: Graphite on paper with digital edits