Welcome to Polycultural Institute
Polycultural Institute is the Think-and-Create Tank of Chicago’s Silk Road Cultural Center. We generate art and ideas that promote polyculturalism and connect people, cultures, and communities.
What is Polyculturalism? (not to be mistaken with multiculturalism)
Polyculturalism is the theory that cultures continuously evolve and transform through dynamic interchange. It assumes that cultures are fluid and flexible, not static and fixed and that as cultures interact, they redefine themselves.
Polyculturalism promotes the understanding that cultural communities — and the multifaceted individuals that comprise them — share challenges and needs that spawn alliances and spur coalitional politics.
Who Inspired the Idea?
The term “polyculturalism” was initially coined by historians Robin D. G. Kelly and Vijay Prashad, and expanded upon in Kelly’s essay “People in Me” (Colorlines Magazine, Winter 1999) and Prashad’s book Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting: Afro-Asian Connections and the Myth of Cultural Purity (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001).
Kelly and Prashad proposed an alternative to multiculturalism that emphasized the commonalities that cultures share, not the differences that divide them. They amplified the belief that cultural interchange propels human connectivity and that when people are connected, they work to advance mutual interests.
What is Polyculturalism Synonymous With?
Polyculturalism is mainly synonymous with interculturalism. However, it’s more intentionally and overtly political in that it aims to shape discourse and inspire activism.
Why does Polycultural Institute exist?
Polycultural Institute exists to promote cultural interchange, expand civic and social connectivity, and challenge the tribalism and extreme polarization that undermine American society. We know instinctively that diversity is America’s strength only if it brings us together.
What is a Think-and-Create Tank?
A traditional think tank is a community of academics and analysts who conduct research and advocate for solutions via public policy recommendations.
A think-and-create tank is a community of artists, scholars, and activists who conduct research and advocate for solutions via storytelling and public discourse.
What is Silk Road Cultural Center?
Our Mission
Silk Road Cultural Center is a Chicago-based interdisciplinary arts organization rooted in the modern communities of the historic Silk Roads, including our diaspora communities. We embrace the arts as a catalyst for connecting people, places, histories, and futures.
Our Vision
At Silk Road Cultural Center we know that representation matters; it shapes perceptions, informs conversations, and influences policies. In our increasingly diverse American society, we view representation as key to having a “seat at the table.”
Understanding that cultures are inherently linked and not ranked, our artwork explores the intersections of cultures without undermining the specificities of cultures. In striving for a society that values art over ideology and inquiry over dogma, we welcome the complexities and contradictions of our human experiences.
We embrace storytelling in many forms, including theatre, film, digital media, music, dance, literature, visual art, and food. At Silk Road Cultural Center, art is both a crossroads and a destination; a sanctuary for healing ourselves, our communities, and our world.
How are Polyculturalism and Silk Road Cultural Center Related?
We like to say that our Silk Road journey was born of multicultural politics that quickly migrated to polycultural aesthetics — “aesthetics” and “politics” being somewhat synonymous for us. If our initial impulses were multicultural, creating space for Asian and Middle Eastern American stories and artists, they pivoted toward decidedly polycultural instincts, exploring connections and possibilities within and between cultures and communities. “By us, about us, for us” became “by us, about us, for all.” We traded cultural silos for cultural bridges and embraced identities and experiences that exist in the midst, on the margins, and in flux.
