Improvising Communities: A Retrospective Exhibition marks the celebration of a significant milestone in the emerging field of Critical Studies in Improvisation.

The founding of the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (IICSI) at the University in Guelph was facilitated by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Grant, awarded in 2012. The Partnership Grant set in motion a decade of robust research and creative outputs generated by a team of scholars, researchers, community partners, and arts practitioners on a local, national, and international scale.

This exhibition illustrates the formalization of improvisation as a field of academic inquiry over the ten+ year period of the SSHRC Partnership Grant in which the institute was named (2012 to 2022) and narrates how IICSI has evolved into a central source for the collection and dissemination of research on the social implications of improvisational practices.

Improvising Communities invites you to explore, inquire, investigate, and play with a curated selection of sample projects generated by IICSI’s network during this extended period, from practice-based community programming to accessible new media technologies. The exhibition encourages you to consider one of IICSI’s central research questions: can improvisation be a vehicle for positive social change?

This exhibition takes places Oct. 16–21, 2023 in Massey Hall.