Catalytic Projects

By approaching difficult water challenges in new ways, namely using arts and culture, the District hopes to enhance the possible outcomes.

Catalytic projects are creative works, events, and/or opportunities intended to:

• Provoke community conversations around water and water stewardship through shared water stories.
• Build a deeper understanding of how all water adds value to and plays an essential role in our lives and communities.
• Identify new ways to express the District’s mission to “protect public health and the environment” and its vision to “enrich life through clean water and resource recovery.”

This work is guided by the US Water Alliance’s Advancing One Water through Arts and Culture: A Blueprint for Action, and is being supported by their Water, Arts and Culture Accelerator Program.

Both the Accelerator program and the Blueprint stress the importance of building relationships and building capacity. To do this, we take a lesson from chemistry – catalysts. They help kickstart and/or speed up a reaction. To springboard programming and activate the space, the District will develop, fund and execute a series of catalytic projects guided by a team of creative collaboration advisors. 

A final report synthesizing the District’s work with the creative collaboration advisors will guide the first catalytic projects.