“How can an arts-based institution such as the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts have significance for social work as a field and for the Brown School in particular?” asked Paul Shattuck, assistant professor at the Brown School, speaking to alumni gathered at the Pulitzer during the final week of the Dan Flavin: Constructed Light exhibit.

The obvious, converse question arises: “What is Brown’s significance to the Pulitzer?”

Community engagement

The answer to both questions lies in a single word: engagement. The Pulitzer’s commitment to engaging their urban neighbors aligns perfectly with social work’s traditional strength in building communities. 

Edward F. Lawlor, Brown dean, identified four dimensions of the School’s interest in working with Pulitzer, the first being Washington University’s quest “to better understand and deploy our resources in this great city.” Secondly, “we’re always looking for ways to find reach, to make institutions and services accessible. Arts and culture could be avenues by which that happens.”

Lawlor continued, “We also have a motivation to find some new and exciting roles for social workers. … Lastly, this is an opportunity for us to innovate.”

Working with the Pulitzer

Director Matthias Waschek explained, “In essence, this is a new take on what is generally conceptualized and implemented as part of the educational mission of cultural institutions: instead of teaching, we are engaging the community, and instead of working with one skill set, we are combining two, that of the social worker with high ethical standards and that of the art historian with high aesthetic standards. Because we are small, we can explore things, and you can use us to engage in the cultural world as a place of possibility to just play out ideas.”

Brown School alum leads effort

To some, “play” might sound frivolous—and there’s no doubt that Lisa Harper Chang, MSW 2007, enjoys her work—but as Manager of Community Engagement, she is quite serious about evidence-based practice. “We are very intentional in framing these programs,” she says, citing research that promotes community members’ active participation (e.g., collective art-making, amateur arts practice); the integration of the arts into education; the development of social capital; and art as a vehicle for skill development.

Community engagement programs 

The first program emanated from the Dan Flavin: Constructed Light exhibit, which cast magical colors onto largely vacant neighboring streets, wordlessly communicating, “There is life in the area,” says Harper Chang.

The Pulitzer expanded on this exhibit by commissioning professional artists to create four outdoor installations, all expressing the theme of light.  Collectively known as The Light Project, the installations ranged from an illuminated, faux church roof to a solar-powered ice cream machine.  

“People from the neighborhood stopped to watch the artists working, and the artists stopped to talk with them,” Harper Chang reports.

Then the Light Project flowed into neighborhood schools, creating a new component: the Community Light Project. Guided by their teachers and project volunteers, students at Cole Elementary, Loyola Academy, Cardinal Ritter Preparatory School, and Metro High School, designed and constructed light-themed art installations, which were exhibited in their schools, with one collaborative installation displayed on the Grand Public Arts Plaza next to Powell Hall.  

Active participation and social capital development top the list of the Community Light Project achievements. More than 150 students engaged in visual, musical, and performing arts. Teachers worked together with interns from the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts, Pulitzer gallery assistants and docents, professional musicians, and a Brown practicum student, while volunteers from the St. Louis Science Center and the WUSTL student group Engineers without Borders designed and built the circuitry of the illuminating drums.

Additional Community Engagement projects involve Big Brothers Big Sisters, the Alzheimer Association, Metro Theatre, ex-offenders enrolled in Employment Connections, and Prison Performing Arts.

“When we bring all partners to the table, we consider the value and benefits to all involved and try to define clear and measurable outcomes,” Harper Chang explains.

Future plans with Brown

“We intend to more fully integrate the Pulitzer arts experience into Brown,” Harper Chang says.  “There will be guest speakers and more talks that students can access. We want to explore the impact of music on social movements. A group of students is conducting needs assessments with new immigrants, exploring the role that art plays in their culture, thinking we may be able to use art to help them integrate more fully, more quickly.”

She concludes, “By the time students graduate, we want them to recognize art as another tool in their professional toolbox.”

By: Jan Niehaus, MSW ’80

Pictured in Photo: CHORUS, by Ranier Kehres and Sebastian Hungerer

Photo by: Geoff Story