Letter: Yes to CURE Concordia
As a socially conscious Fine Arts student at Concordia, one ongoing challenge has been to link my classroom learning with inspiring organizing on important issues, like missing and murdered indigenous women or support for refugees rights. Luckily, Fine Arts students can look to the Community-University Research Exchange (CURE Concordia), which hosts a database of grassroots community projects that students can work on for credit.
With stable funding CURE Concordia plans to expand, offer more art-based projects and reach out to Fine Arts students, whose skills and creativity in design, visual arts, film, sound, and theatre can contribute to important social justice organizing. CURE has big ideas for how art can be linked to community—murals, workshops, theatre for social change, documentary and other artistic interventions can all have a transformative social impact. It’s a great opportunity to enrich our learning experience outside of the university, while still getting class credit.
CURE Concordia is asking for the support of Concordia undergrads, including Fine Arts students, to get a small 8 cents per credit fee levy in the upcoming CSU elections (November 24-26). I encourage my fellow Fine Arts students to vote “Yes to CURE Concordia” and support community-based art and more opportunities for Fine Arts at Concordia. You can learn more at cureconcordia.org.
— Shayla Chilliak, Fine Arts student
