Arts Recovery Plan

CIRCA STEAM: Science and Cultural Work

Our long history in CIRCA-Pintig of conducting artistic-educational workshops, performances, and other collective actions to address pressing community issues serves as the foundation of our “homegrown ” cultural work The use of the integrated arts approach to interrogate, analyze and challenge assumptions about our communities or the larger world around us and creatively figure out solutions to problems confronted by our families, neighborhoods or society at large are critical to our work of educating, organizing and mobilizing for transformative social change We view these foundational elements of cultural work as strongly akin to the work of scientists that involves challenging prevailing assumptions or explanations of facts as well as proposing novel and original ways of interpreting the material world

In the same vein, we also believe that the practice of science, whether that be inquiry, discovery, testing assumptions, finding and designing solutions, etc cannot be devoid of any cultural influences in which it is done. In this light, we deem that science is an integral part of culture and vice-versa. And hence for us, in these challenging times marked by serious environmental concerns, racial injustice, economic dislocation of predominantly communities of color or responding to the COVID-19 crisis, engaging in “relevant science” not only makes sense but becomes necessary if we want to make our cultural work equally relevant and impactful as well