"...I think this sense of what it means to be a social persona and the fact that every
social person has a private person inside is vital to the sense of community and to
any meaningful sense of 'public' - of public service. The way to get to those issues
sometimes is organizational and structural, but often it has to do with compassion,
with play, with touching the inner self in every individual who recognizes that the
next individual has a similar self. And it is that community, whether literal or
metaphorical, that is in fact the real public that we as artists might address."
Alan Kaprow

Who Are We?

History

     The Bauen Camp, Inc., was founded by Jessica Holt in the fall of 1999, incorporated in February 2000, and received its 501(c)(3) non-profit status from the IRS in April, 2000. A volunteer Board of Directors and Advisory Board who represent both art practitioners and other professions was organized in 2000. The Executive Director serves as an ex-officio member of the Board of Directors. The campsite is the space and place of the Bauen Camp and is owned by and is the home of Jessica Holt.

How did the idea for The Bauen Camp come about?
     The concept for The Bauen Camp grew out of Holt's three years of research at Colorado State University, Fort Collins (MA, Philosophy, 2000). Her thesis explores the optimum methods for artists to employ to foster social change.

The thesis argues that:
     (1) Liminal experiences (non-instrumental experiences, those without identified outcomes, functions, or purposes) are necessary for any kind of change to occur because they provide “other ways of seeing”; they maximize the opportunity for change.
     (2) Liminality cannot happen without variable behavior, which is defined as ‘ play'. Variable behavior provides many realities, multiple realities, suggesting that play is about the real world; play acts and mind sets are not ‘non-realities' just because they might be imaginative. Rather, they are different realities.
     (3) Play and art and ritual have the possibility of providing liminal experiences.
     (4) Experiences that join art and play and ritual provide the optimum opportunity for reflective critical thinking and human agency; and
     (5) It is such reflective experiences and their related actions which form the basis for creativity.

     From this research, and other documented research, the mission of the camp and learning environment of the new Bauen Camp were established. We have conducted successful camp sessions in 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004 and 2005. 2007 will be our seventh season of operation.

     The word ‘bauen' has its roots in the German noun ‘bau', meaning building. Bauen also means ‘to grow a crop', evoking the idea of sowing, nurturing and bringing to fruition. It is this same notion of nurturing and building which The Bauen Camp seeks to provide youth, encouraging young campers to fully address the connection between the arts and the world about them.

Mission of The Bauen Camp

     Mission of the camp: The mission of the Bauen Camp, Inc. is “to teach youth how the arts can be used to build social creativity and responsibility. The Bauen Camp provides a beautiful and safe place for young people from around the world to grow their art and life skills for the purpose of building stronger communities and a better world. Our four-fold learning environment provides the vehicle to carry out our mission. It includes multi-disciplinary arts-based learning, play-based learning, service-based learning, and nature-based learning in a youth-led environment where young people are the active force in identification, design, development, and implementation of the projects.

Goal of The Bauen Camp

The goal of the Bauen Camp is three-fold:

•  to build a camp community that is creative, diverse, socially responsible, democratic and nurturing.

•  to build a social entrepreneurship network, a 'can-do' group of exceptional young artists working to improve their communities.

•  to mobilize this network to build awareness of the arts' power as vehicles for social development locally, nationally and globally.

Objectives of The Bauen Camp

The objectives of the camp are:

•  to provide a successful art education model in a summer camp venue that combines formal classes and training with creative problem solving and community service;

•  to provide an outreach and scholarship program in selected focus areas for disadvantaged youth who exhibit leadership potential and potential in the arts;

•  to provide training and teaching experience to educators and artists from communities where we are active; and,

•  to support replication of the Bauen model.

The individual outcomes which we seek for each camper are addressed in the EVALUATION Section.