An Act of Collective Imagination: The USDAC’s First Two Years of Action Research is the first publication to summarize the USDAC’s work to date, along with the lessons we’ve learned about translating community members’ visions into powerful ideas and action.

This report was created to offer an inspiring glimpse of the possibilities to come. It portrays community-envisioned cultural policy that embodies the public interest in culture. An Act of Collective Imagination features six specific policy ideas to address the needs and aspirations people have shared at Imaginings and through National Actions:  

• A Bureau Of Cultural Citizenship to support and enact full community belonging;
• support for Rapid Artistic Response in times of crisis;
• a Cultural Impact Study, analogous to environmental impact assessment;
• a Bureau Of Teaching Artistry;
• a universal Basic Income Grant; and
• an EcoArts Fund. 

As we always say, everything created must first be imagined. So as a people-powered department, we’ve taken matters into our own hands, demonstrating how it might be done. The required culture shift may start small, with specific communities and organizations adopting the generative policy ideas offered here. But with the help of Citizen Artists like you, it will spread and come to fruition. Download the report and join the movement!