The Compassion Project is pleased to present, “Finding Your Compassionate Voice,” on April 15, 2019 at the Emerson Center for the Arts & Culture. The Compassion Project (TCP) is designed to bring the greater Gallatin County community together through education in and outside the schools around compassion. This event serves to spark deeper conversations around compassion - what it means, how to recognize it, the realities of it as a practice, and why it is important in our current society and social climate.

In a society starkly divided, some would argue that compassion is needed more than ever to find common ground. Research shows that compassion as a skill can help to see other points of view, cultivate empathy, and foster increased feelings of connectedness. However, in daily life, this is often easier said than done. During this two-hour event, a series of local storytellers will share their struggles with compassion, followed by an in-depth panel discussion on compassion’s limitations and challenges. Included on the panel is writer, pastor, activist, and author of Hope and Other Superpowers, John Pavlovitz. Featuring musical performances by Permafunk and the Montana Women’s Chorus and a sneak peak of TCP’s art installation, this event may leave you with more questions than answers, but a deeper understanding and reflection.

Questions to be explored include: what are compassion’s limitations? When we talk about compassion, who is it for and who is expected to give it? When is it the right time to act compassionately? Is it possible to be compassionate to everyone? When do our best intentions outlast our actions and actually end up causing harm? How does compassion look differently from person to person?

This event is free and open to the public. The Emerson Grill will host a cash-bar cocktail hour beginning at 5:30 pm in the Emerson Ballroom. This pre-event will include an early preview of The Compassion Project’s Partner Artist pieces that will be auctioned at the first Bozeman Art Walk in June. Doors to the Emerson’s Crawford Theatre will open at 6:10 pm.

The Compassion Project is a non-partisan, non-religious organization and project currently managed by MSU’s College of Education, Health & Human Development. TCP has spent the last two years leading school and community lessons and workshops on compassion which involved over 6,000 local participants. Upon completion of the lessons and workshops, participants received wooden blocks to create their own artistic representation of compassion based on what they learned. The final output of this project is an art installation officially opening on April 16 in Bozeman. The majority of the artworks will be displayed in the Weaver Room, West Wing, and upstairs of the Emerson Center for the Arts & Culture, with other installations at Sola Cafe, Red Tractor Pizza, Fork and Spoon Homestyle Kitchen, and the Bozeman Public Library. For more information, please contact Kayte Kaminski, katherine.kaminski@montana.edu, or visit the TCP Facebook events page (www.facebook.com/thecompassionpject).