WHAT IS SPARK!?

We Value Artists - Artists are our storytellers, and their services are vital to spark our collective imagination.

We Value Diversity - A wide range of perspectives is essential to our work.

We Value Belonging - All of you is welcome here.

We Value Equity - Every person should have easy access to engage with the work that we do.

We Value Creativity - We approach challenges from a place of curiosity and imagination.

We Value Collaboration - We thrive by recognizing and learning from the strengths of our partners, audiences, and artists.

SPARK! Creative Lab employs the arts as a tool for individual and social well-being.

We envision a world where compassion is wide-spread and creative contributions are recognized as essential.

SPARK! believes that the transformative power of the arts can heal, unite, and empower communities. By investing in local artists and creating unique spaces and experiences that foster connections among diverse individuals, SPARK! aims to build a more imaginative, equitable, and compassionate society. Through interactive and participatory performances, SPARK! creates opportunities for people to come together, reflect, and find meaning, ultimately fostering a sense of belonging and community. By promoting diversity and inclusion through diverse artist representation, SPARK! aims to create a positive impact on the lives of individuals, encouraging emotional connections with themselves and others they might not ordinarily interact with. The organization's goal is to create vibrant, light-hearted, and radically inclusive events, providing spaces where people can connect, heal, and be inspired.

In summary, SPARK!'s theory of change revolves around leveraging the arts to create transformative experiences that connect people, promote diversity and inclusion, and foster a stronger sense of community and belonging. Through these efforts, we aim to bring about positive social change and build a more equitable, compassionate, and connected world.

SPARK!’s journey began as a 2021 project by an individual artist to leverage an available creative workforce to spark community healing and cohesion in a time of isolation, pain and division. In the middle of a pandemic, a dozen OKC artists were given living wages to innovate for the common good of the Oklahoma City community, who responded with wild enthusiasm.

OUR FOUNDING ARTISTIC STATEMENT

We need spaces to heal from the trauma of isolation, division, inequity and loss brought or revealed by the past year.

Live performance is uniquely poised to foster belonging, meaning and unity. But to do so effectively, I believe we've gotta rethink and transcend both the idea of shared space and the transactional, passive entertainment we've become accustomed to.

Throughout my career as a collaborative performing artist, I have seen, time and again, that creating a performance together, in a public space, has the power to activate vibrant, light-hearted and radically inclusive engagement. In fact, studies have proven this - the evolutionary psychology concept of positivity resonace explains why our heartbeats synchronize when we gather: collaborative, shared co-experience of positive emotion is the most elemental building block of love.

I feel called at this moment in our lives to share the expertise I've honed in NYC and Europe with my hometown of OKC. Intentionally applied radical collaboration, leveraged with the beautiful diversity of the OKC community, can help us come together with curiosity, compassion, joy and play. That's what SPARK! is all about."

Nicole Poole, Artist & Founding Executive Director

SPARK! CREATIVE LAB