The new anthology Art Education for Social Justice, published by the National Art Education Association, was printed just in time for the 2010 National Art Education Conference in Baltimore. The theme for this year's conference, conveniently, was social justice. Co-editors: Tom Anderson, David Gussak, Kara Hallmark, and Allison Paul as well as authors: Christine Ballengee-Morris, Vesta Daniel, Karen Hutzel, Ryan Shin, Pamela Taylor, Kristin Congdon, Elizabeth Delacruz, Mary Stokrocki, Debrah Sickler-Voigt, Carolyn Erler, and Therese Quinn presented the new text at a super session on Friday afternoon. It was a wonderful opportunity to hear a few of the authors share their research and art and social justice initiatives. We hope the book will serve as a call for action and inspire others to share art education and social justice work.

If you have recently explored the anthology let us know what you think. Additionally, we look forward to the beginning of a forum for the many other initiatives that are happening across the country every day! Please share your own current and local art education for social justice initiatives.

Kids' Guernica International Children's Peace Mural Project Tallahassee 2010

The fifteenth anniversary of Kids' Guernica held at Florida State University celebrated over 200 peace murals by children from more than 40 countries. Artists, educators, and community activists and organizers gathered from around the world to share their stories of mural making as peace building. The original murals between students in Florida and Japan fifteen years ago were created to honor the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. The Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts will host an exhibition of the murals through January 31st. http://www.mofa.fsu.edu/

The goal is to build a bridge of peace and understanding, ultimately to save the world from further devastating warefare. Is it too grand to claim that the world can be saved through community action in art? Probably so. But let me reverse the question and and ask if not through art, then what? Certainly biology and physics and agriculture and chemistry give us wonderful practical tools, but it is the arts that provide the holistic quality of understanding necessary for social wholeness and cultural health, through the arts that we develop the sensibility, the unifying sense, the direction, in short the ability to use our tools. Let me repeat then, if the world cannot be saved through art, then through what? Through the Kid's Guernica Peace Mural Project and initiatives like it, we want nothing less than to save the world through intercultural tolerance and understanding. One bridge at a time.

-Tom Anderson, Ph.D, Florida State University, Co-founder of the Guernica Peace Mural Project

As part of the weekend mural arts program, international students from local schools painted a mural with the theme "A Global Village".

2010 Art & Design for Social Justice Symposium

Join us for the 2010 Art & Design for Social Justice Symposium at Florida State University

January 17-18, 2010. Among the many art and design for social justice events, co-editors Tom Anderson, David Gussak, and Allison Paul will present the upcoming anthology Art Education for Social Justice. Follow the link for more information and registration: http://socialjusticesymposium.fsu.edu/

The 2010 Symposium will be held January 18, 2010, in association with the 15th anniversary of the Kids' Guernica International Peace Mural Project, which will involve workshops, exhibits and events preceeding the actual Symposium. The Call for Papers for the fourth annual 2010 Symposium brought in submissions from across the United States and numerous international sites. Accepted participants come from 14 different states and 12 foreign countries.