What's Home?

What's Home? Creative Listening Across Differences

• What is home to you? 
• What’s your story of home?
• What are the values that make you feel “at home” in a place or with another person?

These are the kind of questions that ten Santa Cruz based visual artists, theater artists, choreographers, writers and musicians will explore as they each collaborate with both an un-housed and a housed person. 

Imagine listening to a new song, which combines two intertwining melodies, reflecting a conversation between a person who lives in a stable household with privacy and another who doesn’t have this kind of shelter/security?

Or consider viewing a new art work with poetic narrative made from materials found in each of the un-housed and housed person’s living situations. 

The project will create an open-minded atmosphere of cooperation between those of us without homes and those of us who have reliable housing, so that we can address our mutual needs for well being, dignity and safety. The creative listening process of each artist with their unhoused and housed collaborators will be captured in ten short documentary videos. We will enlist the power of artists to create works that convey these stories in a multi media exhibition, screening and performance: the What’s Home? Arts Festival at the 418 Project and Curated by the Sea in downtown Santa Cruz in March 2023. 

What’s Home?  Creative Listening Across Differences is part of the City Arts Design Recovery (CARD) Pilot Grant Program. 
This project will start in early June 2022 with a multidisciplinary workshop for the artists and production team. 

See the proof of concept video below with singer songwriter Michael Levy.