Artists: Creators of HOPE
We work with artists who have the lived-experience of our partner communities, and train them to think about cultivating hope and belonging, and impacting health, justice, and sustainability.
These co-creation initiatives are:
Fueled by the arts: visual, spoken word, music, photography, culinary, performance, digital, etc.
Grounded in culture: values, beliefs, traditions, norms, etc.
Celebrating community identity: LGBTQ+, Black, Women, Organizational, and more.
(Un)Known Project (2020-Present) Creates artistic spaces and experiences to support learning, healing, reflection, reconciliation, and action by honor the names and telling the stories - of both known and unknown - Black men, women and children who were enslaved and hidden figures in Louisville, Kentucky and beyond.
One Poem At A Time (2017-Present) Smoketown in Louisville, KY
One Poem At A Time has replaced 30 billboards, primarily in Louisville’s Smoketown neighborhood, with positive historical and contemporary images of people and places, paired with one-line poems written with community members.
Our Breathitt (2017-2020) Jackson, KY
Our Breathitt is a community arts and health experience that launched in fall 2017, through IDEAS xLab’s HEAL Community Approach, with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Our Emotional Wellbeing (2019-2020) Smoketown in Louisville, KY
A two-year initiative designed to measurably impact the hope and belonging of young people 12-20 years old through an arts-based co-creation process.
Whole Teacher, Whole Community (2019-2020) is a partnership with community members to utilize both in-person and digital, arts-based engagements designed by Todd Smith, our Kentucky Artist Innovator in Health, that focus on the cultural drivers of trust, hope, belonging with active and retired teachers in Louisville and Jackson, KY.
Universal Art (2019-2020) brings together individuals with paralysis and their support networks with artists to participate together in arts-based experiences.
The Guide to Greatness (2018- June 2019) Louisville, KY
The Guide to Greatness was designed to activate the potential of individuals in the community and their arts and culture assets by supporting opportunities for increasing civic engagement and building community capacity.
Hero + Shero Journeys (2017-2018) Smoketown in Louisville, KY
A series of artist engagements that combine the power of community with art, data science, mythology and storytelling to engage over 150 sixth graders at Smoketown's Meyzeek Middle School in Louisville, KY, to learn about civic engagement and policy-making that can positively impact environmental health.
Equity Platform, Button Soap and Girls'n Pearls Hand Soap (2017) Natchez, MS
In collaboration with the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Inc., Southwest Mississippi Chapter, their 12 “Girls’n Pearls” (girls ages 8 to 18 mentored by the Chapter), and Natchez-based artists and small business owners – Brazilian artist Cadu created the Equity Platform, Girls’n Pearls Soap Sculpture, and Button Soap.
Smoketown Life|Line Project (2016) Smoketown in Louisville, KY
The Smoketown Life|Line sculpture uses vertical metal rods to represent the “lifelines” of residents in Louisville, Kentucky’s Smoketown neighborhood.
@Worthy of Everything (2018) Smoketown in Louisville, KY
The Worthy of Everything campaign (Instagram @WorthyofEverything and Facebook features images of people who live, work, worship, learn and play in Smoketown, and beyond. The images are paired with quotes by the individuals depicted lifting up what the community is worthy of.
Photovoice (2016-2017) Smoketown in Louisville, KY and Natchez, MS
In two of our Project HEAL sites, Photovoice has been used as an engagement tool and way to facilitate a conversation around quality of life and policy change. Local photographers worked with community members or groups of students to explore aspects of their personal experiences and environment. The Photovoice projects were then presented during community events.
Roots & Wings (2015-2017) Louisville, KY + Senegal, West Africa
Led by Bridge Kids International and IDEAS xLab in partnership with The Kentucky Center for African American Heritage and the Kentucky Center, Roots and Wings brought together Black poets, musicians, dancers, a DJ, and performers 2015-2016 culminating in the production of The Blood Always Returns.
Image by Kelsey Page of heARTstory participant Marquita "Pinky" Busby.
heARTstory (2016) in Louisville, KY
heARTstory was a 4-month artist engagement organized by IDEAS xLab in partnership with American Heart Association Open Your Heart committee, and featured an interdisciplinary group of artists who highlighted the impact of heart disease on women through a contemporary lens.
Kentucky Lab (2017) Smoketown in Louisville, KY and Jackson, KY
Policy is an imagining of the future. This is one of the core domains of all artists and an activity that is fundamentally cultural. To be sustainable, health and community development policies must find ways to become embedded in local cultures. Project HEAL: Kentucky Lab includes the Word To Wellness, a podcast created by Mackenzie Berry, a poet exploring the rural-urban dynamic of health access in Kentucky
Urban Green (Ongoing) Smoketown in Louisville, KY and Versailles, FR aims to transform fallow urban land into a productive and engaging greenspace fueling local entrepreneurship through the training and employment of opportunity youth.
2019 was the 6th year for Urban Green: The King’s Garden Exchange -- a collaboration started by IDEAS xLab, YouthBuild Louisville, NYC-based Christian Duvernois Landscape/Gallery, Antoine Jacobsohn (Director-Potager du Roi, Versailles, FR), and Isabelle Leroy-Jay Lemaistre (Retired Conservateur Général du Patrimoine Honoraire- Musée de Louvre, Paris, FR).
Summary of Select Projects 2014 - 2016
