community collaboration
capacity- and community-building interactive experiences
Significant Developments works with a lead group of participants from your community to develop interactive, creative experiences in which self-identified considerations and challenges are explored directly and indirectly. When possible, the experiences themselves prototype solutions.
Working through difficult circumstances or defined problems requires trust and a sense of belonging to the work together. Through collaborative experiences, your community can engage real and perceived barriers in new ways which disrupt ingrained assumptions, opening up space for fresh perspectives rooted in deeper, interpersonal understanding.
Mississippi Department of Transportation
Working with the Directors and elders of the six City of Jackson Senior Centers, johnson led a team of artists to hold storytelling engagements with over 100 participants followed by workshops where elders painted their own compositions to accompany their stories. Four sessions at each center insured that participants were not rushed in their process.
johnson collaborated with the Jackson Medical Mall Environmental Services crew to host an exhibition of the paintings displayed alongside the text of their stories. All elders were transported to the mall for a reception.
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Working with the Directors and elders of the six City of Jackson Senior Centers, johnson led a team of artists to hold storytelling engagements with over 100 participants followed by workshops where elders painted their own compositions to accompany their stories. Four sessions at each center insured that participants were not rushed in their process.
johnson collaborated with the Jackson Medical Mall Environmental Services crew to host an exhibition of the paintings displayed alongside the text of their stories. All elders were transported to the mall for a reception.
Building off the curriculum of the Audubon Center, johnson built a community project with 8th grade students from St. Martin Middle School which invited their friends and neighbors to see themselves as members of the Coastal Streams Watershed community. johnson led field trips of the Audubon Center wetlands discussing the impacts of climate change on the immediate watershed and neighborhoods, then developed a week-long art engagement alongside the students which was then held at the Walter Anderson Museum studios. johnson and the students developed press molds to create a series of watershed sculptures they could gift to their community at an interactive presentation at the museum which included story sharing, watershed education, a gifting ceremony, and an interactive Uno-derived card game to win additional sculptures! Five months.
This project was part of Wide Horizons, a program of art, science, and action for 8th grade students on the Gulf Coast. The program’s activities blend marine science, environmental history, geography, and multimedia self-expression in order to deepen understanding about the environmental and societal importance of the Gulf of Mexico, its landscapes, and its wildlife.
Mississippi Department of Transportation, 2017
Working with the Directors and elders of the six City of Jackson Senior Centers, johnson led a team of artists to hold storytelling engagements with over 100 participants followed by workshops where elders painted their own compositions to accompany their stories. Four sessions at each center insured that participants were not rushed in their process.
johnson collaborated with the Jackson Medical Mall Environmental Services crew to host an exhibition of the paintings displayed alongside the text of their stories. All elders were transported to the mall for a reception. Four months.
This project was part of the ArtPlace Community Development Investments. ArtPlace worked to enlist artists as allies in equitable community planning and development.
This project was part of the ArtPlace Community Development Investments. ArtPlace worked to enlist artists as allies in equitable community planning and development.
This project was part of the ArtPlace Community Development Investments. ArtPlace worked to enlist artists as allies in equitable community planning and development.
This project was part of the ArtPlace Community Development Investments. ArtPlace worked to enlist artists as allies in equitable community planning and development
Signifi
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nificant Developments facilitated the Mississippi Museum of Art
Mississippi Department of Transportation
Working with the Directors and elders of the six City of Jackson Senior Centers, johnson led a team of artists to hold storytelling engagements with over 100 participants followed by workshops where elders painted their own compositions to accompany their stories. Four sessions at each center insured that participants were not rushed in their process.
johnson collaborated with the Jackson Medical Mall Environmental Services crew to host an exhibition of the paintings displayed alongside the text of their stories. All elders were transported to the mall for a reception.
![]()
Working with the Directors and elders of the six City of Jackson Senior Centers, johnson led a team of artists to hold storytelling engagements with over 100 participants followed by workshops where elders painted their own compositions to accompany their stories. Four sessions at each center insured that participants were not rushed in their process.
johnson collaborated with the Jackson Medical Mall Environmental Services crew to host an exhibition of the paintings displayed alongside the text of their stories. All elders were transported to the mall for a reception.
Mississippi Department of Transportation
Working with the Directors and elders of the six City of Jackson Senior Centers, johnson led a team of artists to hold storytelling engagements with over 100 participants followed by workshops where elders painted their own compositions to accompany their stories. Four sessions at each center insured that participants were not rushed in their process.
johnson collaborated with the Jackson Medical Mall Environmental Services crew to host an exhibition of the paintings displayed alongside the text of their stories. All elders were transported to the mall for a reception.
Working with the Directors and elders of the six City of Jackson Senior Centers, johnson led a team of artists to hold storytelling engagements with over 100 participants followed by workshops where elders painted their own compositions to accompany their stories. Four sessions at each center insured that participants were not rushed in their process.
johnson collaborated with the Jackson Medical Mall Environmental Services crew to host an exhibition of the paintings displayed alongside the text of their stories. All elders were transported to the mall for a reception.
Mississippi Department of Transportation
Working with the Directors and elders of the six City of Jackson Senior Centers, johnson led a team of artists to hold storytelling engagements with over 100 participants followed by workshops where elders painted their own compositions to accompany their stories. Four sessions at each center insured that participants were not rushed in their process.
johnson collaborated with the Jackson Medical Mall Environmental Services crew to host an exhibition of the paintings displayed alongside the text of their stories. All elders were transported to the mall for a reception.
Working with the Directors and elders of the six City of Jackson Senior Centers, johnson led a team of artists to hold storytelling engagements with over 100 participants followed by workshops where elders painted their own compositions to accompany their stories. Four sessions at each center insured that participants were not rushed in their process.
johnson collaborated with the Jackson Medical Mall Environmental Services crew to host an exhibition of the paintings displayed alongside the text of their stories. All elders were transported to the mall for a reception.
Significant Developments produced Core Sample as part of the museum’s annual community art series. Approached as a research and development exercise for their series C3: Creativity. Conversation. Community, Significant Developments wove together converging ideas from the museum’s Marketing, Participation, and Education staff to create an integrated engagement prototyping new program and exhibition formats alongside new state-wide outreach and museum classroom participation strategies. With interviews of the entire staff, assessments of organizational and programming documents, and two state-wide listening tours, our team designed a project which activated an ongoing assembly-line style art engagement in the museum studios with supplementary programming adaptable to the themes and goals of local organizations while yielding a 12-foot tall wind chime in The Art Garden featuring the handiwork and marks of over 1000 Mississippians from 60 different cities across the state. Eight months.
cultural production
creative capacity strategic advancement
Significant Developments builds relationships within and among the communities unfolding from the heart of your organization; interweaving the ongoing experiences of disparate groups - staff, neighbors, members, patrons, visitors - to discover the multi-faceted narrative of individual and collective actions carrying you forward.
Through a series of interconnected activities and performances the threads and patterns of your organization emerge, their visibility creating possibilities for new alignment and agency among the participants. Following the direct engagements with community, some clients commission a Final Report documenting the aspirations and assumptions at play among community stakeholders, and most importantly, the intersections among them worth leaning in to. This report includes practical short term and long term visioning action steps alongside community narratives and data sets collected in the course of the project.
Mississippi Center for Cultural Production, Jackson-Hinds Comprehensive Health Centers, and Town of Utica, MS, 2024
Significant Developments built capacity between the three partnering institutions to work together in a sustainable way led by members of the Utica community. Addressing the community-defined challenge of “food access”, Significant Developments worked with a Community Advisory Group to develop a community-led movement to bring groceries to their rural town.
After a 18 months of organizing and enacting small projects, the formation of the Utica Food Club in August 2023 formed a resident-led container for:
- sharing community stories of food.
- collective purchase research to identify direct producer relationships.
- a workshop series focused on bargain shopping, food storage techniques, food as medicine, and homesteading.
- community collaboration in the creation in four food-themed public art works: a school residency, a new town mural on the library, a quilting project examining family recipes & remedies, and a resident portrait/interview project highlighting those working on the Utica Food Club.
- the formation of a leadership team to conduct monthly member ordering and produce deliveries to Utica while pursuing the formation of a consumer grocery cooperative.
A culminating celebration, Homegrown Utica Fest, was a broad effort to invite more community to step into this continued work together as a celebration of rural self-determination and artistic voice in the Utica community. Thirty months.
This project was a part of Arts for Everybody, a national campaign to prove how the arts can lead to healthier people and healthier communities.
City of Jackson Planning Department, 2020
The Fertile Ground project at Galloway Elementary included nature-based arts-integration curriculum development, classroom farmer visits, student & community design facilitation for the Mississippi State University School for Landscape Architecture in their design of a new learning garden, the design of a new school mural, and the development of a community steering committee for the entire slate of projects. Significant Developments coordinated all partners, ensured community collaboration in all aspects of the work, and worked individually and in groups with teachers to develop arts-integrated, nature-based curriculum for their classrooms. Thirteen months.
This project was a part of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Public Art Challenge seeking to showcase the potential of artists to act as civic leaders, drawing attention to and encouraging dialogue around pressing problems.
Mississippi Museum of Art Center for Art & Public Exchange (CAPE), 2019
Over the course of 2019, johnson wandered Lafayette County, MS, holding conversations curious about exchange, transaction, and equity. Guiding this progression was the passage of daniel from one person to the next, and also a search for clay. johnson created small clay tokens from five different sites of memory in Lafayette County, gifting a token to each person who listened and shared. A homestead for a young couple homeschooling their five children, land of a local civil rights pioneer now in limbo split among siblings, the woods where William Faulkner wandered, the backyard of the Black woman who raised Faulkner, the clay ridge at the end of the county road where the hideaway beach is - clay from each becoming shaped and fired tokens traded and traveling and holding a story.
The tokens and their stories became tentpoles for a range of community members to share their current work shaped by the concepts of land & power. Twenty-three community members came together to present Land & Power: The Summit featuring performances, panel-discussions, academic presentations, experiential learning experiences, art exhibitions, and a shared meal. Ten months.
This project was a part of the CAPE In-State Residency Program. CAPE’s purpose is to use original artworks, exhibitions, programs, and engagements with artists to increase understanding and inspire new narratives in contemporary Mississippi.
Jackson Medical Mall Foundation, 2018
Our team listened deeply throughout the nested social layers of the Jackson Medical Mall - internal staff, tenants, mall walkers, neighboring residents, visitors - to identify the intersections of assumptions, frustrations, and visions for the future where the Foundation could lean in over the next decade. Storytelling engagements over coffee with mall walkers, facilitating neighbors recognizing neighbors with hand-crafted awards at a Neighborhood Night Out, shadowing and interviewing the personnel who maintain the mall’s public spaces, and lunch engagements with tenants were some of the ways the Significant Developments team entered into community to discover the common visions circulating and conflicting narratives causing dissonance.
Alongside this work, we crafted frameworks for bringing local artists to the table at every level of the Medical Mall’s work to further their goal of weaving arts and culture throughout their everyday operations and programs. Seven months.
This project was part of the ArtPlace Community Development Investments. ArtPlace worked to enlist artists as allies in equitable community planning and development.
advancement retreat
capacity-building engagement
Teams need to step outside of their everyday work rhythm to get a fresh look at their process, communications, relationships, and pathways to intended outcomes. In sessions ranging from an afternoon to a weekend, Significant Developments facilitates colleague communities to unveil the core narratives which connect them to the work and to those they impact. Through the process, a common language and understanding emerges which reinforces work relationships, ignites individual passions for the daily task, and provides new insight for fulfilling the mission of the team.
next steps and beyond
strategic coaching
Clarifying grand visions and dreams into a series of action steps is a process. daniel johnson provides a critical lens from an outside observer; asking key questions and unspooling potential scenarios to ensure your goals don’t remain on the horizon.
Touchstones for success in our process are financial, physical, and emotional sustainability while shaping final goals into innovations as unique as you are.
Available in person and online.
Significant Developments, LLC provides a unique and highly intentional service, and daniel johnson works with passion and profound integrity. In an hour-long coaching session with daniel, I was able to gain new frameworks for considering my work and its value. I left with five more hours that day of thinking, talking, and writing with others to process the shifts that had occurred after hearing daniel's perspective. "All of this happened in an hour?" my husband asked, astounded by the impact it had on me and the future of my work.
That conversation was invaluable and will have ripples of personal and professional impact for me. I've known daniel for years and have always noticed that his mere presence, use of language, and way of moving through the world provoked a lot of thought and curiosity from me. I've often left his side questioning cultural norms in a way that feels liberating, that opens up new options I never considered. My professional experience with Significant Developments, LLC accomplished that and more. I left with more focus and direction in my work, aware of numerous streams of untapped potential, and felt just plain good about the interaction and what we had accomplished. I highly recommend Significant Developments, LLC to any group or individual seeking a greater impact in their work and a movement toward increasing alignment of values, action, and outcome.
– Catherine Gray, www.unsilencedwoman.com
That conversation was invaluable and will have ripples of personal and professional impact for me. I've known daniel for years and have always noticed that his mere presence, use of language, and way of moving through the world provoked a lot of thought and curiosity from me. I've often left his side questioning cultural norms in a way that feels liberating, that opens up new options I never considered. My professional experience with Significant Developments, LLC accomplished that and more. I left with more focus and direction in my work, aware of numerous streams of untapped potential, and felt just plain good about the interaction and what we had accomplished. I highly recommend Significant Developments, LLC to any group or individual seeking a greater impact in their work and a movement toward increasing alignment of values, action, and outcome.
– Catherine Gray, www.unsilencedwoman.com
Significant Developments, LLC provides a unique and highly intentional service, and daniel johnson works with passion and profound integrity. In an hour-long coaching session with daniel, I was able to gain new frameworks for considering my work and its value. I left with five more hours that day of thinking, talking, and writing with others to process the shifts that had occurred after hearing daniel's perspective. "All of this happened in an hour?" my husband asked, astounded by the impact it had on me and the future of my work.
That conversation was invaluable and will have ripples of personal and professional impact for me. I've known daniel for years and have always noticed that his mere presence, use of language, and way of moving through the world provoked a lot of thought and curiosity from me. I've often left his side questioning cultural norms in a way that feels liberating, that opens up new options I never considered. My professional experience with Significant Developments, LLC accomplished that and more. I left with more focus and direction in my work, aware of numerous streams of untapped potential, and felt just plain good about the interaction and what we had accomplished. I highly recommend Significant Developments, LLC to any group or individual seeking a greater impact in their work and a movement toward increasing alignment of values, action, and outcome.
– Catherine Gray, www.unsilencedwoman.com
That conversation was invaluable and will have ripples of personal and professional impact for me. I've known daniel for years and have always noticed that his mere presence, use of language, and way of moving through the world provoked a lot of thought and curiosity from me. I've often left his side questioning cultural norms in a way that feels liberating, that opens up new options I never considered. My professional experience with Significant Developments, LLC accomplished that and more. I left with more focus and direction in my work, aware of numerous streams of untapped potential, and felt just plain good about the interaction and what we had accomplished. I highly recommend Significant Developments, LLC to any group or individual seeking a greater impact in their work and a movement toward increasing alignment of values, action, and outcome.
– Catherine Gray, www.unsilencedwoman.com
That conversation was invaluable and will have ripples of personal and professional impact for me. I've known daniel for years and have always noticed that his mere presence, use of language, and way of moving through the world provoked a lot of thought and curiosity from me. I've often left his side questioning cultural norms in a way that feels liberating, that opens up new options I never considered. My professional experience with Significant Developments, LLC accomplished that and more. I left with more focus and direction in my work, aware of numerous streams of untapped potential, and felt just plain good about the interaction and what we had accomplished. I highly recommend Significant Developments, LLC to any group or individual seeking a greater impact in their work and a movement toward increasing alignment of values, action, and outcome.
– Catherine Gray, www.unsilencedwoman.com
daniel spent an hour consulting with me and my collaborator, Jenny Hillenbrand on how to best develop a new project. We are still using the insights gained from our time with daniel to propel our project forward more than a year later. His questioning and mediation of our discussion gave us clarity and multiple avenues to pursue with our creative decision-making, crucial to us in that moment. I highly recommend the services of Significant Developments as I've seen firsthand the impact of their services and the positive growth in the communities with which they've worked. Do not hesitate to involve SD in your future endeavors whether it be creative projects, community based outreach, team building, or consultations! They can do it all and tailor their approach to your needs.
- Kristen Tordella-Williams,
www.kristentordellawilliams.art
Significant Developments helped me tremendously in the planning and way finding of an organization I've been thinking about for years. daniel johnson is incredible at what he does and the organization is top notch and provides an invaluable service that has to be experienced to truly appreciate.
– Roderick Red, Red Squared Productions
more than art
creative ally sessions
Whether invigorating an artistic practice or instilling a creative spark in your traditional work day, principal artist daniel johnson provides critical feedback and avenues for aligning your core principles, considerations, and curiosities into a vital creative practice.
Sixty minute one-time and recurring sessions for individuals wanting to:
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connect their creative practice to all aspects of their life.
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instill a creative spark in their career.
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begin a fulfilling creative practice they have always wanted.
Best in person but available online.
daniel@significantdevelopments.us