ACTIVATE was created to become a home for our projects and as a participatory platform for the presentation of initiatives that share the aim of finding the confluence between the Sciences and the Arts to activate people around the urgent issues of our time. This objective is based on the conviction that the combined energy of scientific research and creative endeavor can serve as a special ‘contact zone’ to link productive actions motivated by similar principles, and unite people from different disciplines and backgrounds. The organization was conceived with the intention that such a perspective of the world can connect and communicate ideas and concepts engaged with the pressing concerns of the moment, while also promoting a culture of conscientiousness, a greater awareness of our everyday practices and predispositions, and accordingly, a greater respect for the earth.
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OUR MISSION
ACTIVATE is an organization dedicated to activating the contribution and the participation of the arts, sciences, and of people from other disciplinary fields towards the betterment of our societies and of our planet. As the role and the need for creativity and of engagement grows in today’s world, our objective is to bring together people whose endeavors connect culture with current environmental, societal, humanitarian or political issues.
The short-term objective for the progress of this mission is to produce and participate in cross-disciplinary projects that put the organization’s spirit into action. This is achieved by facilitating new partnerships and collaborations between the arts and the scientific and academic communities, while also connecting and disseminating existing projects which share the principles of opening new channels of communication and integrated approaches between different fields of study.
ACTIVATE’s long term-mission is to help generate creative production through research-based projects, towards positively affecting the world. Likewise, to help inspire a critical and a creative environment within any discipline by engaging and activating the public both on an emotional and practicable level around many of the interconnected challenges faced by the world we all inhabit and share.
ACTIVATE was founded in 2015 as a fully registered and as an independent nonprofit organization.
OUR VISION
Our vision is to see a world in which we are all just a little bit more involved in defining and generating positive actions that will shape our future. We hope to contribute in some way to the strengthening of the already growing connections between different disciplinary fields and new modes of thinking and working; it is this practice that may truly help us all better understand our cultural intersections and become a little more authentically embedded into each other’s lives and daily realities. Our observance and understanding of one another - how we as humans interact, compliment or conflict with each other - may help us relate to and care more about issues that may not directly impact our lives in the present moment.
Over time, ACTIVATE hopes to contribute to a growing transformative movement and to uphold purposeful and like-minded projects backed by creative thinking, persistence, and a genuine awareness of the socially-benefiting dimensions of the arts and sciences. If the intention is to contribute outwardly, to help generate new possibilities with collaborators and to channel innovative ideas into action, this would certainly constitute striving for the utmost connective potential of our contemporary societies: working for positive transformation, cultural enrichment, and resilience for our ecosystems in our climate-altered world.
Is this a very farsighted plan to aspire to? For sure, but we must all start somewhere, rather than not at all.
PROJECT TEAMS & HONORARY ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Each ACTIVATE initiative designates a project team to carry out research, content development, production, and programming. For each project, the Organization is contributed to by collaborating individuals or institutions.
The Advisory Committee is a growing body of people that have served in an advisory capacity to the Organization, comprised of individuals with diverse backgrounds and working in a wide range of disciplines and different geographical areas. The primary designation of each advisor is to provide counsel within their particular area of specialization, and direction for strategic and effective exchange in the collaborative process between project participants.
The active contribution and participation of these individuals within our projects is vital to the shared mission of establishing a compelling cross-disciplinary community through new relationships between artistic practices and other fields of research, learning and knowledge production. Many thanks go out to each of them for our projects completed thus far.
Director of ACTIVATE: Melina Nicolaides
THE SCOPE
The Arts are an important means of communication and expression of any experience, or of any aspect of the human condition. It is capable of communicating the basic insight that human beings should respect each other, and should try to understand each other. For many, the nature of making art today is to be engaged – to express a position, to connect audiences and to share ideas, thoughts or feelings that can be experienced by every human being. Consequently, the initial idea to create ACTIVATE grew out of the desire to create a space in which the focus would be on the intersection between art and the lived experience, but also to connect broad-minded people who possess an essentially humanistic approach in their lives and intent within their work experiences; individuals who address real situations and take action on issues in the world with constructive energy and with mindfulness.
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THE WIDER SCOPE
There is a growing movement in every corner of the world driven by people from all walks of life who have realized that we must find more effective ways of collaboration in order to contribute towards building a better society. The truth is, we are all in need of assistance in order to help find the correct solutions to the challenges of the 21st century. To adequately meet these challenges we must continue to widen our possibilities of interaction and build new roads and intersections between the things we know already - and the growing information-gathering and sharing means we have. In this endeavor, the cross-over of the Arts and Sciences have served to bring together creative minds across many disciplines with the ‘transfer’ force capable of truly engaging cross-culturally important questions and preoccupations.