The arts as a vehicle to address issues of social justice.

*Selected presentations:

2021, Pop/American Culture Association National Conference, Boston, MA -The Privatized Art of Equalized Education (1)

2021, Pop/American Culture Association National Conference, Boston, MA - Privatization of Art in Design (2)

2020, Pop Culture Association National Conference, Philadelphia, PA -The Arts as a Vehicle to Address Issues of Social Justice -Pre-K12 (1)

2020, Johns Hopkins University, Krieger School of Arts & Sciences x Earth Day, Baltimore, MD -The Arts are a Vehicle to Address Issues of Social Justice

2020, American Culture Association National Conference, Philadelphia, PA -The Privatization of Art (2)

2019, AGLSP conference - Washington, DC -The Arts as a Vehicle to Address Issues of Social Justice

2019, Symposium -Johns Hopkins University x The National Academy of Science- Changing by Degrees: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Climate Change, Washington, DC

‘The arts are tools of advocacy, the artists behind them activists and the communities created in their wake, a collective of adherents. Speaking to the latter, school systems house creativity within the confines of a social construct.’

-Jesa Townsend // MLA, Johns Hopkins University

Excerpt from AGLSP national conference, 2019 ©

“The arts as a vehicle to address issues of social justice as they relate to climate change. The arts provide common ground in shaky times by highlighting interconnectedness through the cultivation of community commonality –Just think whether you dislike or love an art piece in whatever form it presents itself, you will inevitably end up in a conversation about it. art is the ultimate unifier, communicative tool and mediator of boundary-crossing conversations.”

-Jesa Townsend,

Johns Hopkins University, Master of Liberal Arts ‘20

Common ground

‘Art presents civic undercurrents and narrates shifts in social constructs.’

“Art is the ultimate unifier and the most underutilized SEL (social emotional learning) tool amongst educators and academic institutions. ”

-Jesa Townsend // MLA, Johns Hopkins University

Excerpt from AGLSP Association national conference, 2019 ©

Social Movements

The arts parallel social movements throughout history. Restorative justice is arguably a social movement that was molded into a discipline model.

Research Inquiry: Social movements found in privatized pre-K12 school systems that utilize restorative justice in favor of punitive and place value on the arts.