Michigan: Creating Connection MI Radio Series

The Girls Rock Detroit program is among the life-changing programs featured in the Creating Connection MI broadcast. Photo courtesy of Long Haul Productions

The Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs (MCACA) recently launched a five-part series on Michigan Public Radio featuring stories about how creative expression brings people and communities closer together. Each segment of Creating Connection MI is a meditation on the connectivity of the arts and the positive roles that culture and creativity play in our personal and social lives. MCACA partnered with Long Haul Productions, a company that has worked for StoryCorps and ESPN, to collect intimate, first-person stories that speak to the power of creativity in people’s daily experiences. The stories include reflections from a woman coping with the death of her husband through jewelry making, a teen struggling with anxiety and depression regaining her confidence and sense of self-worth through a youth arts program, and a young girl channeling the support of her rock band to muster the courage to come out to her parents. Through the project, MCACA is advancing the concepts and messages of Creating Connection, which is a national movement led by Arts Midwest and Metropolitan Group to make the arts and culture a recognized, valued and expected part of everyday life. For more information, contact Arts Midwest Program Director Anne Romens or MCACA Director Alison Watson.