Online Course
Social Arts for sustainable community partnerships - activism, research and education
10-week course starting in March 2026
SFG Certification upon completion
This course is an accessible, university level accelerator to arts practice that includes connection and intimacy with an international network of expertise.
It invites participants to explore art as a primary human need—a way of making, imagining, and re-making the world. Unlike traditional educational settings, this program will actively and rigorously respond to the needs, contexts and questions of small groups of students.
Led by artists, researchers, and educators from Africa, North America, and Europe, it expands the arts beyond entertainment or illustration, positioning them as vital tools for inquiry, education, and social engagement. Rooted in dialogue and connection, it nurtures the arts as a force for ethical partnership and transformation in a changing world.
Course fee – $150
Course running on Thursday afternoons (UK time)
Course Description
…still the story isn’t over. Still there are seeds to be gathered, and room in the bag of stars. – Ursula K. Le Guin
This course begins with an exploration of art as a primary need, working with the raw materials of the world to make and re-make, to explore and inquire, to present and represent.
Arts experts (artists, researchers, and educators) from Africa, North America, and Europe will work with you to share and explore the practices of craft, play, creation, representation, collaboration, and imagination. The course will expand the notion of the arts as entertainment and as illustration; and engage with arts as critical contemporary research and learning practices. As a group, the cohort will address using culturally relevant arts to engage people, to educate, and to research.
Creative practices, ways of being, knowing and doing are ever more critical in a world that is in unprecedented environmental fragility, and a moment of exasperated global social upheaval.
The modules aim to equip participants with the knowledge, place-based practices and pedagogical strategies necessary to integrate ecological awareness, Indigenous and local perspectives and sustainability with the arts as a way to uplift and weave together notions of artistic creation, inquiry, and learning. By emphasising local relevance and global context, the course fosters a relational approach to arts practices that relies upon dialogue and collaboration to bring about ethical partnerships of action.
Is this course for you?
If you want to connect directly with social artists from Africa, Europe and North America, enrolling in this course will allow you to work closely with them in a small, learning community, forging connections and building a network of future resources.
If you are ready to effectively apply arts practice to your work in community, education, activism, or research this course will provide you with the understanding, frameworks, and tools that you need.
If you hold the vision that arts practice is a vital language towards building a more sustainable, equitable and just future, this course offers applied knowledge and learning to ground this dream.
If you are an artist, educator, or researcher who is curious and wanting to extend your practices and perspectives, this course is for you too.
Learning Goals
By the end of the course, learners will be able to:
- Understand the diverse purposes and practices of art as imagination, expression, livelihood, and world-making.
- Explore how the arts can serve as powerful tools for activism, advocacy, and community engagement.
- Apply artistic methods to educational contexts, fostering creativity, play, and inclusive learning.
- Design and implement culturally responsive, arts-based approaches for inquiry, participation, and knowledge sharing.
- Reflect on their learning journey to identify personal goals, future collaborations, and sustainable pathways for continued creative practice.
Teaching Team
Prof. Gus Weltsek
Reagan Kandole
Bosco Chinkonda
Guest Speakers
Elson Kambalu
Dane Armstrong
Prof Mia Perry
The team of co-facilitators and speakers combines academicians and practitioners. This allows us to offer a programme that bridges the academic and the applied, offering a spectrum of approaches to explore, practice, and reflect on.
Your commitment
Online - Zoom
Download Zoom ahead of course
10 weeks
Commit time to engage throughout the course
3-hour sessions
Attend sessions and engage with facilitators and peers
Presentation
Present how you'll apply learned practice in context
Curriculum
Learning Objectives
This module will explore key principles of art practice (imagination, entertainment, livelihoods, convening, belonging, communication, creativity and creation) as they emerge in different contexts. The module will equip learners with the tools of justification and rationale for this type of work, but also deeper understanding of the implications of art practice in the world
Core Concepts
- What do we mean by Art? The arts?
- Art as a primary need
- Art as world maker (radical imagination, creativity, speculative futures)
- Art as literacies of matter (working with raw materials)
Activities
- Introductions
- Art making together
- Discussion and debate
- Artistic propositions
Learning Objectives
To understand the possibilities and practicalities of the Arts in the work of advocacy, public pedagogy, community engagement and activism. This module will introduce a range of examples of activism and public engagement through the arts and explore the many ways for artists and non-artists to harness cultural production, art, and crafts in local and global contexts.
Core concepts
- Art and affect
- Matter (material contexts) and communication
- Art practice and artist engagement
Activities
- Presentations
- Interpretation activities
- Artistic propositions
Learning Objective
To understand and practice the many ways the Arts may be engaged across contexts and subjects of teaching and learning. To introduce theoretical and practical applications of the Arts for a variety of learning styles and objectives.
Core Concepts
Stemming from a notion that creativity, imagination, and play are central to how we learn, the arts are positioned as spaces of cultural actioning where individual ways of knowing and being are activated across literal and metaphoric collaborative borders.
Activities
- Informative videos
- Readings and viewings
- Artistic responses
- Collaborative creations
Learning Objectives
To understand and build capacity in designing culturally responsive and arts-based methods for engaging participants (data generation) and audiences (research communication) in a wide range of contexts.
Core Concepts
- Ethical partnerships
- Culturally responsive research
- Knowledge and experience beyond the spoken and written word
- Community and stakeholder engagement
Activities
- Presentations
- Data generation example
- Dissemination modes and methods
Learning Objectives
This session is designed to consolidate the learning across the course; to engage with reflection and evaluation of the learning; and to set goals, links, and sustainable plans for the next steps towards each learners’ goals.