Project led by:

PI: Ayana Allen-Handy, PhD
Co-I: Rachel Wenrick 

This intergenerational community-led participatory action research (CPAR) project examines the potential impact of public arts programming to strengthen civic engagement, civic infrastructure, and to promote community-driven civic innovation in West Philadelphia. The purpose of our study is to critically examine the ways in which a collective of community residents, students, faculty, youth, writers, and artists leverage the arts to solve community-identified issues such as gentrification, displacement, racial injustice, and systemic inequality. Drexel University's School of Education and Writers Room, along with our community partners Mantua Civic Association and ArtistYear, will execute our research and two-fold dissemination action plan to highlight the scholarly interconnections between the arts, civic infrastructure, and civic innovation, as well as to provide tangible products that can be easily disseminated and used as resources to inspire and support youth, community residents, practitioners, policymakers, researchers, artists, and both the public and private sectors.

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