Dear Friends:

This summer has been a busy one at Art Works for Change. We launched one exhibition in Senegal while planning another on the same continent. Our "Off the Beaten Path" exhibition traveled from Chicago to Atlanta, receiving rave reviews in both cities. I traveled to Sarajevo to meet with our newest collaborators, Freedom to Create. Meanwhile, our forthcoming "Nature's Toolbox" exhibition is receiving high interest from museums around the world. All of this while working to ensure funding for 2012 and beyond (Let us know if you can help, whether small contributions or large — all tax-deductible.).

A couple of things of note:

• You can now find AWFC on Twitter and Facebook, where you can Follow and "Like" us!
• We have an opening in the Off the Beaten Path: Violence, Women and Art exhibition touring schedule for a prospective venue in the United States — dates from late January - April, 2012. If you are interested, please let us know right away!

As always, I look forward to your comments. Send them to me at rjr@artworksforchange.org.

Warm wishes,

Randy Jayne Rosenberg
Executive Director and Chief Curator
Art Works for Change

The Art Works for Change team recently returned from the opening of the Dakar, Senegal, Hors des Sentiers Battus, Off the Beaten Path/AFRICA art exhibition — with optimism, pride and accomplishment. A spinoff of our traveling exhibition, "Off the Beaten Path: Violence, Women and Art," this show, comprised of primarily Senegalese artists, opened on July 12, 2011 at the Galerie le Manège. Many thanks to our exceptional partners, RAES, French Cultural Center, and sponsors, Trust Africa and the Oak Foundation.

Below are images from the opening concert as well as the exhibition itself. Following is a report of the opening concert and exhibition events from the Art Works for Change team on the ground in Dakar:

Last night here was magic! The French Cultural Center (FCC) arena was packed for the concert of hip-hop music, dance and performance--would have been a Fire Marshall's nightmare if it had been in the US. People quite literally of every age and color were mixed together. Clearly some would never, ever have had the opportunity to attend an event like this (we received funding to transport children from the outlying communities to the event). In the background a street artist was developing a massive graffiti message that read "respect women".

The next evening, at the opening of the exhibition, we heard the roar of motorcycles and the blast of sirens. Up comes an extraordinary motorcade. Black cars filled the small street outside the gallery, and out steps the Senegal First Lady Viviane Wade! She studied each artwork with real interest and was apparently stirred by what she saw.

Once the First Lady departed (with all of the drama of her entrance), the gates at the Gallery were thrown open and people began to pour in. The room was filled with such warmth, excitement, and good cheer. The commitment the artists made to share their very best work was touching. They were so proud to there, to be a part of the exhibition, and to have given voice to such an important topic — the elimination of violence against women and girls.

We started this journey with too few resources, too big a dream, and too little time. Yet, almost as in a dream, the exhibition came together in a way that was nothing short of magical. We asked our translator what kinds of conversations he was hearing as he moved through the space. He responded that he was quite surprised: many people were talking about how to carry the conversation forward and were looking for ways to bring about change. This is not a usual topic for the Senegalese people and to hear the open, passionate dialogue really seemed to move him.

To read more about the exhibition, the concert, the panel discussion and the accompanying UNESCO workshop, visit our website at: www.artworksforchange.org/dakar.

We are pleased and honored to announce that we will be participating in the Freedom to Create Prize celebration in Cape Town, South Africa, this November, with a new project, Aware/Oware, addressing the issue of female empowerment.

Launched in 2007, the Freedom to Create Prize is a celebration of the courage and creativity of artists from around the world. The prize is open to all forms of art, in any creative field and any individual or group of any gender, religion or nationality. In 2010, nearly 2,000 artists from more than 100 countries submitted entries to the prize committee.

The exhibitions of Art Works for Change are closely aligned with Freedom to Create: to challenge and change the world through creativity and the arts, to foster peace and prosperity. Like Freedom to Create, our ultimate goal is to make a profound contribution to deep social change and to reach a critical mass where all people enjoy the rights and privileges of a civil society. We are grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with Freedom to Create in November.

For the Cape Town event, Art Works for Change is creating a life-size game titled Aware/Oware, based on the classic Oware game of Africa, which is considered by some to be the oldest board game in the world, dating back 7,000 years. The community-generated game will be played for 10 days in the Kirstenbosch Gardens in Cape Town.

AWFC is inviting six South African art collectives to research and explore the challenges and successes inherent in becoming empowered as a female, using visual arts and story-telling. This information, organized into the six aspects of female empowerment (education, basic human rights and safety, economic, political, health, and environmental), will comprise a visual journey that tells many stories experienced on the road to female empowerment, and be the source of decoration for the bowls. The game of Oware will be adapted so that each person or team will be collecting knowledge and capabilities on this journey to empowerment.

We plan to further develop the game electronically so that it can have a global application.

In June, Off the Beaten Path completed a very successful run at the Chicago Cultural Center and headed to the Centers for Disease Control headquarters in Atlanta, where it will be on exhibition until September 9 at the David J. Sencer Museum.

CDC is committed to stopping violence before it begins and sees violence as a serious health problem in the US and around the globe. We are pleased to be working with this prestigious organization and delighted with the CDC's public health approach to our exhibition. With partners around the world, CDC works to prevent such issues as intimate partner and sexual violence.

Visitors included many community-based organizations, and policy-makers such as: U.S. State Department, Care, Georgia Diocese, Boys and Girls Club of Metro Atlanta, Rev. Elizabeth Mitchell Clement (regional director of Calling Congregations at The Fund for Theological Education), and Men Stopping Violence.

We are receiving very positive feedback. John Moore, of the CDC Office of the Chief of Staff, said this about the exhibition, "For me it is the most significant, moving, and disturbing exhibit that we have had. It is amazingly well done."

If you are in Atlanta, or nearby, please go see the show. If you miss the exhibition in Atlanta, our next stop is New Orleans, starting October 22, where the exhibition will be part of the Prospect 2 Biennial and be on view at four locations.

Magnolia Editions' latest print edition is aimed at providing financial support to nonprofits working to rebuild Japan and to dismantle nuclear power plants on California's earthquake-prone coast. Donald & Era Farnsworth's Sacred Pine depicts a celebrated pine tree from one of the Japanese cities hit hardest by the tsunami; miraculously, this single tree was the only survivor from a grove of more than 70,000.

To learn more about the composition, purchasing this print, and how your modest donation can help both locally and globally, please visit Magnolia's website.

Our friend Dorka Keehn's new book, ECO AMAZONS: Twenty Women Who Are Transforming the World, was published by Powerhouse Books in June. A seminal book on American women environmental leaders, ECO AMAZONS contains personal stories of each woman's life as well portraits and photos illustrating their work. It retails for $35, but you can receive a 30% discount by going to ecoamazons.com.