Civic Design + Social Practice

Social practice, specifically social practice arts, or socially engaged art, is a specific approach to community-based arts that can include any artform which involves people and communities, collaboration or social interaction. This can often be organized as the result of an outreach or education program, but many independent artists also use it within their work. Social practice arts is often associated with activism given that the community topics explored can involve political messaging.

Civic design is a human –centered approach to problem solving. It focuses on discovering and delivering solutions that are shaped by the holistic experiences of everyone in a community who is affected by a public service. It also centers culture and as an approach to design solutions to public challenges.

Both concepts explore working in partnership with community to address social problems. At Powerful Pathways, we apply both praxis methods to our so that we're incorporating innovative and collaborative design strategies at every stage of a project, from initial inquiry, to planning, to implementation.