About
Department of Public Transformation is an artist-led nonprofit organization that works to develop creative strategies for increased community connection, civic engagement, and equitable participation in rural places.
We believe that rural people and places have the answers they need to address community challenges, but economies of extraction and narratives of deficit have fragmented many of our communities. This prevents us from reimagining our rural spaces and sharing the knowledge, skills, and resources we have to dream and build an equitable and just future. We seek to support rural communities in identifying and leveraging resources through artist-led, creative, cross-disciplinary, and radically inclusive programs. We believe in celebrating rural culture and cultural workers by uplifting small-town stories and connecting people to each other and their places. In doing so, we are working to shift damaging dominant narratives of what it means to live and work in rural America.
