Beyond the Material: Art as a Framework for Civic Engagement and Building Democracy

Join us for an inspiring afternoon with Milenko Matanovic, a renowned community activator, artist, and founder of the Pomegranate Center. Over the past 40 years, Milenko has developed and practiced a creative, collaborative approach to community-building that centers art, culture, and inclusive dialogue. Through his “Pomegranate Method,” more than 60 gathering spaces have been co-created by residents across the Pacific Northwest, San Diego and beyond, transforming not just physical spaces, but relationships and systems of decision-making.

As we face urgent challenges like climate change, housing shortages, and changing economies, how we gather to address systemic issues matters more than ever. During this session, we will explore how to design more effective, trust-building community engagement processes. Milenko will share stories and strategies from his decades of experience, including new insights from his work mentoring governments and nonprofits. He will share how the Pomegranate Method can help communities move from conventional meetings to spaces of connection and collective wisdom.

Participants will leave with practical tools for strengthening social bonds, bridging divides, and creating the collaborative infrastructure needed for long-term, community-led progress.

Target Audience

Arts & Intersections is a gathering place for any funders working directly in arts and culture as well as those whose work intersects with the myriad needs of the broader creative economy. This session is open to Catalyst member funders and nonmember funders.

If you are not a funder and interested in attending this session of the Arts & Intersections Funder Collaborative, please contact Kamaal Martin. 

Speakers

Milenko Matanovic | Artist and Community Activator

Artist and community activator Milenko Matanovic was born in 1947 in Ljubljana, Slovenia (then the republic of Yugoslavia). His unique, art-centric facilitation process for uniting multiple voices around a common goal began in the 1960s as a founding member of the Slovene neo-avant-garde movement OHO (later to become the OHO Group) — a collaborative of visual artists, writers, filmmakers, musicians and theorists. Using visual poetry, drawings, paintings and objects, Milenko challenged the status quo of what art was and how we experience it.

In recognizing nature and landscapes as art in their own right, he realized that everyone, by way of everyday interactions with their surroundings, was an artist. This viewpoint, which flew in the face of traditional definitions of art and artists, quickly graduated to conceptual projects, actions and happenings where he explored how democratizing art fostered equality.

Milenko’s art has been featured in high-profile exhibits including at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Ljubljana, the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York, and the Venice Biennale. The Matanovic family recorded a number of albums including Good Morning Good Night, which won a Parent’s Choice award in 1987. He has served as an Affiliate Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Washington, College of Built Environments since 2013.