Evolution: Inspiring a movement in learning
After three years of deep reflection, the Academy has emerged with a new vision, visual identity, and expression of our work in the world. Learn more in our community update.
In 2020, the Academy paused to reexamine how we express our mission and vision, and we asked ourselves: Are we creating the change we wish to see in the world? After three years of reflective work, we have evolved into a new vision: to reimagine and transform how and where learning happens.
Our new vision is not only a path forward for the Academy but also an invitation, a call to action, for like minds in learning. Learning Exchanges, our new work form, are learning partnerships between the Academy and organizations, groups, and individuals. Together, we explore how transformational learning emerges and is practiced across communities, and our exploration is guided by learning questions — or inquiries into what catalyzes and sustains the co-creation of new learning ecosystems. By sharing what we experience and find out, we aim to inspire a movement in learning. This new vision is at the heart of two recent initiatives: an updated logo that reflects our vision, and the Seed Syllables Learning Exchange.
Our new logo and color palette, pictured above, depict our goal of inspiring a movement. We reimagined our visual identity to signal our intention of connecting with like minds and exploring how and where learning happens. The concentric circles represent reflection, interconnection, and transformation, emerging both within and without the Academy. Possibility, curiosity, and who we have yet to learn from are conveyed by the single, stand-alone circle. We invite you to explore our new visual identity and work in the world.
The Seeds Syllables project, which is pictured above, is one new expression of our work and how we are learning in community.
On June 3, 2023, we gathered with 32 community activists and artists for the Seeds Syllables culminating event. Over the course of three years, Academy Faculty Fellow Chrissie Orr and Meena Natarajan, co-director of Pangea World Theater in Minneapolis, facilitated conversations with activists and artists from all over the world in order to make sense of the disorientation of 2020 — with the hope of discovering emergent images of positive, new possibilities. Thirty-two conversations were distilled into sixteen poems, reflections on being, belonging, identity, and visions for the future. In the culminating event, each poem was read as an incantation, a call to collective healing and meaning-making. The gathering concluded with a reflection question: What is your Seed Syllable — your emerging and growing hope — for the future?
To learn more about our new vision and Learning Exchanges, subscribe to our reimagined newsletter, Notes from the Learning Field, below.
