For the first time, the arts and humanities have been officially invited into the professional space explorers global meeting place: The International Astronautical Congress in Glasgow. At the congress, The Arts Catalyst, Leonardo/OLATS and I-DAT at the University of Plymouth will host "Less Remote: The Futures of Space Exploration," September 30-October 1, 2008, an arts-and-humanities symposium "in the context of our current understanding of social, economic and technological imperatives." Artists, thinkers and writers will contribute to debates about going back to the moon and on to Mars, living in space, art in zero gravity, the future of the International Space Station and the search for life and human origins in scientific missions. "Less Remote" features presentations by artists who have worked either with space agencies or in the space context recently.

Stockholm artists, architects, political scientists and filmmakers have organized a "storytelling" project called "Informal Cities: The Stockholm Urban Think Tank," September 6-8, 2008. The exhibition and symposium focuses on the fastest expanding city structures in the world: areas with no city planning or communal infrastructure. "The formal city might have something to learn from the slum, where people have started to organize themselves both in local networks and internationally," say the 16 organizers, postgraduate students at Stockholm's Royal University College of Fine Arts. They have spent three years studying urbanization, informal living and socioeconomic structures with inhabitants of Rio, Sao Paulo, Durban, Johannesburg, Mumbai, Manila, Nairobi, Lilongwe and Blantyre. The exhibition includes films, sound, drawings, models and other documentation from the sites. Twenty guests from communities whose voices are rarely heard will talk about their work and lives.

Americans for the Arts has announced a series of Webinars with leaders in the field of community arts, September-December 2008. Topics for the 90-minute online seminars include arts-education program evaluation, local emerging leaders networks, creative aging, leadership evolution, new technologies in professional networking, rural arts communities, and leadership in tough times. This new media platform enables you to get a high level of interaction with the presenter, other attendees and the content without leaving your desk. The registration fee allows participants to invite an unlimited number of colleagues to participate in a presentation at one location by watching the Web and using speaker phone to hear the audio and to display handouts and power-point presentations with enhanced content-delivery options.

Today CAN brings you "Community Conversations through the Arts: Artistic Response After the Virginia Tech Tragedy" by Shannon Turner. Turner was a graduate student in the arts and public dialogue when the shooting rampage broke out at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007. She joined a disparate group of Blacksburg residents who formed HERE: Honoring Experiences, Reflections, and Expressions. They wanted to create a healing artistic response to the shattering events. Turner takes the reader through a year in Blacksburg, as HERE presents many community arts events that memorialize and examine the tragedy, culminating in "Community Conversations through the Arts," a creative showcase intended to give local, amateur performers an opportunity to perform on Blacksburg's Lyric Theatre stage on the first anniversary of the shootings. She also interrogates HERE's process and its criteria for the success of the project. Shannon Turner is a member of CAN's advisory board.

New films by teens from the Florida Film Institute's filmmaking programs are on YouTube; don't miss "Bop It Out," about a boys v. girls dance contest. "Bop it Out," by students of the City of Miami Summer Film Camp, is on view, along with award-winners like Turner Tech High School's "Brother's Keeper," Coral Reef Sr. High School's "Safe," and Miami Northwestern High School's "A New Love." This year, the Florida Film Institute (FFI) kicks off its 16th season, having mentored nearly 5,000 Miami-Dade and Broward County middle- and high-school students through its CINEMA (Cinematographers in Education and Media Arts) programs in local schools and community centers. The workshops provide an in-depth look at script writing, location shooting, cinematography, acting on screen, lighting, directing, editing, sound, wardrobe and makeup.

There's a floating city on the Hudson River right now, part of an art project called “Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea." Julie Bloom in the N.Y.Times (8/17/08) says the fleet of seven handmade ships "with junkyard roots" is on its way down the Hudson, from Troy through New York Harbor to Long Island City, where the fleet will dock at Deitch Studios as part of an exhibition beginning Sept. 7. Created by a collaborative led by the artist Swoon, the project is "part floating artwork, part performance, part mobile utopia and seemingly part summer camp for grown-up artsy kids." Made entirely of recycled materials, the flotilla totes a band and a play, performed by crew members at stops along the way. "Swimming Cities" is reminiscent of Swoon's 2006 “Miss Rockaway Armada" on the Mississippi.

Artist Suzane Lacy will be the keynote speaker at "Public Art and Democracy," a conference at the University of MInnesota, September 26-27, 2008. The conference sponsor, the Institute for Advanced Studies, describes it as "occasioned by the confluence of four important events affecting the Twin Cities: Speaking of Home, artist Nancy Ann Coyne's photographic public artwork exploring the meaning of home, acculturation, and alienation for new Americans in the Twin Cities; the thirtieth anniversary of Forecast Public Art, a Twin Cities-based non-profit organization; the need for conversations about public engagement with the political process which will doubtless arise in the wake of the Republican and Democratic National Conventions; and the Minnesota Sesquicentennial." Lacy is one of the foremost scholar/practitioners in public art and community art. Conference participants include Forecast's Jack Becker, who wrote the overview essay on public art for CAN.

Portlanders will investigate the concept of "clothing as home" during a workshop with Sojourn Theatre, August 16, 2008, as part of Sojourn's new project, "BUILT." The workshop, "What to Where" by Sojourn costume designer/ensemble member Courtney Davis, will have explore "the person as building block for city" as participants build their own functional costumes "for a very specific person using the unique materials provided. Be inspired by a pre-fab house, an inner tube, a porcupine, a raincoat, a seatbelt, a hamster ball. Get ready to tape, staple, hot glue, and sew, if you can." On August 23, Sojourn will lead a workshop/conversation called "The Future of Housing in Portland" with developers, representatives for the homeless, urban planners and civic leaders. The events are part of Sojourn's BUILT Public Engagement Series at the South Waterfront Artist in Residence Program.