Overview

Creative B Summer Program

The 2025 Creative B Summer Program will feature interdisciplinary activities from June 30-August 8 and then culminate in a Sustainability Summit in Fall. For more information on upcoming events, please visit Calendar of Events.

2024 Projects

Recovery through the Arts Convening
Explore interdisciplinary creativity, collaboration, and innovation this summer with Recovery through the Arts, a culmination of the Creative B Summer Program funded by the Provost’s Office. Discover how artists serve as second responders, provide recovery in community, the role of arts in public health, and learn more about Afrofuturism, AI and emerging technologies. UF alum Julian Chambliss will provide the keynote address on Afrofuturism as a “Literary Technology” focusing on the arts and liberation: “At the core of Afrofuturism is an emphasis on trying to create a system that’s more equitable with a core goal of collective care for everyone.”

Sponsored by the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere. Co-Sponsored by the Center for Arts, Migration + Entrepreneurship (CAME) and the College of the Arts Creative B Summer Program in partnership with the Office of the Provost.

Point of Contact: Stephanie Silberman, Creative Campus & College Events Manager, College of the Arts; Osubi Craig, Director, CAME

Devised AI Project
What do you need right now? This is a simple yet loaded question. With an ever-changing world filled with pandemics, doomscrolling, hostile political climates and more, we are becoming exceedingly isolated from one another. In this devised project featuring A.I. elements we try to use art as a creative force for healing and change. Art by itself may not be able to heal the world, but it can heal people. And those people can change the world.

Working with a team of student performers, designers, stage managers, and production teams, this project delves into methods of utilizing Artificial Intelligence in devised and/or interactive Recovery through the Arts storytelling. Assistant Professor Heidi Boisvert and Visiting Research Assistant Professor Braxton Rae will guide students through this research and development process.

Points of Contact: Heidi Boisvert, Assistant Professor, School of Theatre + Dance; Braxton Rae, Visiting Research Assistant Professor, School of Theatre + Dance

Making Place in Gainesville: How Creative Practices Shape our City
This three-credit class offered by the Honors Program will introduce students to the role of arts and creativity in the formation of “place” as a framework for thinking about how we value different areas and cultural goods of our city.

With the help of local creative practitioners and stakeholders, the course will look at the complexities of the social and civic history of arts-based places in Gainesville and examine questions such as “Who decides?” and “Who benefits?” in relation to the role of the arts in equitable development.

Additionally, throughout the course, students will develop their own “creative toolkit” that will include workshops provided by local artists and guest speakers in design thinking, sketching and visual communication, mindfulness and ways of seeing, problem solving and creative ideation. These weekly workshops will be open to the broader Honors student community.

As a culminating project, student groups will pair with local stakeholders (business owners, artists, and organization leaders) to put their creative toolkit to a real-world application by generating a proposal tailored to address an expressed need or challenge faced by the stakeholders. The proposals will be presented in an open-to-the-community forum at the end of the term.

Point of Contact: Michael O’Malley, Honors Advisor, Honors Program

UF Public Art Symposium: Finding our Place on Campus
The UF Public Art Symposium: Finding our Place centers the public in public art. New and returning students, as well as faculty, staff and the surrounding community can learn about public art, its place on campus, and explore meaningful interactions with art encountered in the built environment. This Symposium will educate, inspire, and foster connection to each other through our shared campus experience with public art. Public art aids in recovery by creating a sense of belonging and wonder. Art heals when connection is found. The programming provides two days of presentations, a keynote, discussions, art making, and touring public art on campus. The UF Public Art Symposium is a time to come together to explore the value, to celebrate, to appreciate, and to thoughtfully question the role of art in the public sphere.

Point of Contact: Oaklianna Caraballo, Public Art Specialist, Art in State Building at UF; Porchia Moore, Associate Director, CAME

One Nation/One Project GNV Connector
Center for Arts, Migration + Entrepreneurship (CAME) will facilitate opportunities for UF students to connect with One Nation/One Project (ONOP), the national arts and health initiative, by partnering with the ONOP site in Gainesville to develop summer programming that serves young adults (ages 18-25). This programming will employ arts participation to address youth mental health and gun violence, which are the primary focus of ONOP GNV. UF students in this demographic are impacted by these issues in their home communities and across North Central Florida. These students will have opportunities to engage with local young adults impacted by gun violence through participation in visual and performing arts experiences, interacting with local artists, community leaders and UF faculty and staff.

Points of Contact: Osubi Craig, Director, CAME; Marie Kessler, Operations and Program Manager, CAME

Creative Gator at the Harn Museum of Art
Connect with your UF campus and release your inner creative Gator! "Creative Gator" is an event open to all UF Students, with art-making activities, mindfulness sessions, demonstrations, tours, and performance. Hundreds of students gather at their UF campus art museum for this interactive daytime program featuring exhibitions, local artists, performers, and a variety of activities.

Point of Contact: Eric Segal, Director of Education and Curator of Academic Programs, Harn Museum of Art

Walking Station
The Walking Station promotes the active exploration of campus, while fostering connection with the environment and each other. Using equipment purchased from Short Edition for Creative B 2023, the Walking Station dispenses short (10 to 15 minute) and long (15 to 30 minute) walking experiences, along with short literature on the topics of walking, the mind-body connection, and recovery, to foster individual and collective activities throughout Summer B. Each walking experience includes detailed instructions and a complementary creative exercise, including collage, photography, drawing, and more. Walking experiences are flexible and fun, bolstering students’ awareness of the built environment, its history, and change over time. Walking experiences harness the power of movement and the mind-body connection to foster physical /mental health on a day-to-day basis and at times of recovery. Walks can be done solo, in small groups, or integrated into academic coursework. After a walk, students share their feedback and creative works linked by a QR code. To create a more structured opportunity to explore together, the student assistant will lead two group walks that depart from the station to foster participation and awareness.

Point of Contact: Sarah Gamble, Assistant Professor, School of Architecture, College of Design, Construction, and Planning

Florida Studies: Artistic Legacies and Visual Imaginations of the Afro-Atlantic Deep South
This Creative B activity continues last summer’s offering which was Inspired by the 2022 groundbreaking exhibition presented by the National Gallery of Art Curator, Kanitra Fletcher; “Afro-Atlantic Histories” a visual reimagining for American audiences of the complex histories of the African diaspora. The exhibition broke attendance records for the National Gallery and pays homage to the original 2018 exhibition in Brazil, “Histórias Afro-Atlânticas” curated by the Museude Arte de São Paulo and the Instituto Tomie Ohtake. Nowhere in the nation can the cultural and geographical legacies of these histories be explored more than the Black Deep South. In particular, Florida with its rich history of indigenous, Spanish, African, and Caribbean influences isa perfect map to explore the cultural retentions and material culture of Black and African peoples from the 16th and 17th centuries until the present. This course focuses on site-specific places of memory and engages with the artistic and visual imageries of North Central Florida with an intense focus on historically segregated Paradise Park in what is now Silver Springs State Park. Students will utilize visual ethnography, explore innovative digital technologies, and immerse themselves in artistic practices to examine the cultural, spiritual, and artistic legacies associated with memory and water in the Afro-Atlantic. Water plays a significant role in the artistic, visual, and cultural memory of Florida from functioning as a key figure in the works of Zora Neale Hurston to the uses of sharks and alligators in some of the most critical contemporary works of art interrogating the institution of slavery and Black life to have been made in our time. Students will design an arts and community-based final project dedicated to the springs of North Central Florida and their histories. Using Florida Studies, Museum Studies, Material Culture, and other lenses this Creative B activity focuses on the theme of “Arts and Recovery” to retrieve and uncover important artistic, geographical, and cultural narratives for the creation of unique learning experiences and emergent interdisciplinary creativity using the acclaimed book, “Remembering Paradise Park”, by Cynthia Wilson-Graham and Lu Vickers as a foundational text connecting the visual narratives of Black of the Black Deep South and the Afro-Atlantic.

Point of Contact: Porchia Moore, Assistant Professor, Museum Studies, School of Art + Art History

Summer Dance Intensive
This transformative four-week dance intensive combines a rigorous schedule of classes with rehearsals, work-in-progress showings, artists’ talks, and culminates in a performance of works created during the festival.

Summer Dance Intensive guest artists include highly celebrated dancer, teacher, and choreographer Herman Ramos whose research intersects contemporary and Hip Hop dance. The school is currently working with the UF Center for Arts, Migration & Entrepreneurship (CAME) and New York Live Arts (NYLA) to engage a second Summer Dance Intensive guest artist.

Points of Contact: Jenny Goelz, Producing Director & Senior Lecturer, School of Theatre + Dance; Tiza Garland, Interim Director, School of Theatre + Dance

Research & Creativity Course
A staple of interdisciplinary research and creativity models, this introductory course explores the questions inherent to the practice of research within, and across disciplines. The course provides a dynamic, interdisciplinary, and interactive overview of diverse research methodologies.

Point of Contact: Anne Donnelly, Director, Center for Undergraduate Research

2023 Projects

Disaster and the Body
A multi-year research project in the School of Theatre + Dance that explores the role of performing artists in disaster recovery and response. Two internationally recognized artists/groups will conduct joint residencies at UF during Summer B to engage with each other; with UF students, faculty, and staff; and with the greater Gainesville community. The activities will result in several new artistic works.

Points of Contact: Rachel Carrico, Assistant Professor, School of Theatre + Dance; Colleen Rua, Assistant Professor, School of Theatre + Dance

Arts for Health Awareness: Recovery in Community
Communities often hold the solutions to their most pressing challenges and concerns, but how often are we listening, and how deeply? This project will center the voices and experiences of historically marginalized communities, artists and creatives, and students in a way that speaks to the universality of the human experience. Through engaging with the arts and other resources, participants will get to explore ways to address some of the most elevated concerns exacerbated in the age of COVID-19: namely social isolation, collective trauma, and mental health. This project will deliver a moving theatrical production by Art Prevails Project; workshops in storytelling, poetry, and spoken word; and engaging panels and talkback conversations which will be open to campus and the community at large.

Points of Contact: Alana Jackson, Lecturer, Center for Arts in Medicine; Osubi Craig, Director, Center for Arts, Migration & Entrepreneurship

Memorial for a disease - COVID: Dialogues, Drama & Documentaries
Memorial for a disease by the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences will focus on the guiding question: How can academics react to a collective trauma which brought about a global tragedy of unparalleled proportion? One way is to engage in a series of reflections and contemplation after the long period of isolation. Cities such as New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago have all created memorials to honor those who have lost their lives due to the COVID-19 virus. Here in Gainesville, we shall remember those who are gone and recall what is left to be done.

Point of Contact: Kole Odutola, Senior Lecturer, Department of Languages, Literatures, & Cultures, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

The Walking Station
The Walking Station promotes the active exploration of campus, while fostering connection with the environment and each other. This project builds upon ongoing research through the School of Architecture investigating how walking can be used as a tool to foster intentional observation and engagement with the built environment and communities. The Walking Station will dispense short (10-15 minute) and long (15-30 minute) walking experiences, along with short literature on the topics of walking, the mind-body connection, and recovery, to foster individual and collective activities throughout Summer B. Each walking experience includes detailed instructions and a complementary creative exercise, including collage, photography, drawing, and more.

Point of Contact: Sarah Gamble, Assistant Professor, School of Architecture, College of Design, Construction, and Planning

Florida Studies: The Afro-Atlantic Deep South
Using Florida Studies, Museum Studies, Material Culture, and other lenses this Creative B course will focus on “Arts and Recovery” to retrieve and uncover important art, geographical, and cultural narratives for the creation of unique learning experiences and emergent interdisciplinary creativity. Florida with its rich history of indigenous, Spanish, African, and Caribbean influences is a perfect map to explore the cultural retentions and material culture of Black and African peoples from the 16th and 17th centuries until the present, exploring everything from the delicacies of soul food to the impact of Black labor in the timber industry to innovations in art, science, music, dance, and more.

Point of Contact: Porchia Moore, Assistant Professor, Museum Studes, School of Art + Art History

NOMFUSI
UF Performing Arts to bring South Africa musical artist NOMFUSI to Gainesville for a cultural exchange through music, dialogue and conversation on health, women’s rights, and global healthcare support. With a voice rich in emotional vulnerability and nimble power, Nomfusi writes and sings from her experience, as a woman and as a child of a South African township. Her music flows from her homeland, shimmering with maskandi guitar flourishes and soaring melodies, while hinting at everything from house to '70s jazz to funk.

Points of Contact: Elizabeth Auer, Assistant Director, UFPA; Brian Jose, Director, UFPA

Sound-Sites in the Age of Utopian Recoverism: Art, Technology and Exhibition Practices
University Galleries will invite Amor Múñoz and Thessia Machado, two of the artists that won the first CIFO-ArsElectronica Awards in 2022, to exhibit original artwork at UF and initiate a series of conversations about how their exploration on the connections between art and technology can lead to rethinking problems related to our ways of inhabiting the environment. These conversations are going to take place in different formats including but not limited to talks, panel discussion, master classes, studio visits and small gatherings.

Point of Contact: Jesús Fuenmayor, Director and Curator, University Galleries

NYLA Choreographic Residency and Summer Dance Intensive
Choreographer and New York Live Arts residency artist Lacina Coulibaly will come to Gainesville to work with students in the School of Theatre and Dance to teach classes, create choreography, and share his work with the University. Coulibaly's training encompasses West African and European contemporary dance practices, and his work has been seen internationally.

Points of Contact: Peter Carpenter, Director, School of Theatre + Dance; Trent Williams, Associate Professor of Dance, School of Theatre + Dance

Creative Gator at the Harn Museum of Art
Open to all UF Students, the Creative Gator at the Harn Museum of Art will create an inclusive and welcoming space with artmaking, mindfulness activities, demonstrations, tours, and performance. Students will get to know their local art museum through an interactive daytime program featuring exhibitions, local artists and performers, and a variety of activities.

Points of Contact: Allysa Peyton, Student Engagement Manager, Harn Museum of Art; Eric Segal, Director of Education and Curator of Academic Programs, Harn Museum of Art

Points of Contact: Morgan Yacoe, Research Coordinator, Center for Arts in Medicine; Anne Donnelly, Director, Center for Undergraduate Research

Fine Arts Undergraduate Research Course
Looking to develop your research skills this summer and contribute to an innovative community-based initiative? Enroll in the HUM4912 Fine Arts Undergraduate Research Course, class number 21019, in Summer B, meeting weekly on Fridays from 2-4:30 pm via Zoom. As part of the UF Center for Arts in Medicine's Interdisciplinary Research Lab, you will focus on analysis of a new place-based initiative called SPARC352. SPARC352 aims to establish a knowledge and empowerment hub that promotes arts, cultural engagement, entrepreneurial integrity, and community capacity building while also striving to enhance health, wellbeing, economic agency, and social connectedness in our community. To learn more about this course, please contact cam@arts.ufl.edu.

Point of Contact: Ferol Carytsas, Acting Program Director, Assistant Director and Lecturer, Center for Arts in Medicine

History

Creative B

Established in 2010 with support from the UF Office of the Provost, Creative B is a summer program for UF students that brings together creative resources and energies across the campus to provide unique opportunities for incoming freshman and existing students during the Summer B term. Historically, Creative B activities have included a variety of live cultural performances like SwampDance and community band, interdisciplinary activities like movie nights and student art workshops, and unique experiential courses. With the common goal of creative synergy, these programs engage UF students and provide cultural offerings open to the public.

For 2023-2024, the College of the Arts has consolidated and reimagined the Creative B and Creative Campus programs. The result is a thematic program to engage students in Summer B through diverse, creative, innovative, and imaginative activities, leading up to production of a 2024 biennial summit around the two-year theme of Arts & Recovery to center UF as a national hub of innovation and emergent interdisciplinary creativity. In Summer B 2023, the UF School of Theatre + Dance will be hosting Puerto Rico-based theatre company Y no había luz, along with guest dance choreographers from New York Live Arts as residency artists to engage with students on the concept of Disaster and the Body.

Creative Campus
The UF Creative Campus initiative was established in 2010 under the leadership of Provost Joseph Glover in partnership with Dean Lucinda Lavelli in the College of the Arts, showcasing the University of Florida as a leader among educational institutions in forging a “Creative Campus”. The UF Creative Campus Initiative established educational settings that foster creativity in all disciplines, promoted new interdisciplinary interactions, and encouraged new ways of solving problems and formulating ideas. These in turn, fostered UF as an educational institution in which creativity, innovation, collaboration and empathy permeate academic life and impact education. Creative Campus Initiative projects included the Creative Campus Committee that granted Creative Catalyst and Scholar-on-Residence awards for interdisciplinary and inventive activities across campus, the Creative B summer program for students, and other activities that engaged the University of Florida campus and the larger community in unique and transformative ways.

Contact
The Creative B Summer Program is directed by Stephanie Silberman, Strategic Events Manager in the College of the Arts. Please direct questions to creativeb@arts.ufl.edu.