The first CHAT Festival (February 2010) was hosted by the Institute for the Arts & Humanities at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At that time, Duke University and North Carolina State University agreed to host subsequent festivals, with the hope that the event would be a regular venue for showcasing the innovative work being done at our institutions, and the surrounding area.
One goal of the festival is to reflect back to ourselves the rich community of practice already existing in the Triangle and Piedmont region. We are all familiar with the phenomenon of only learning about the interesting work our colleague across the hall – or on the neighboring campus – is doing by hearing a talk at a national conference. Our hope is to build up sustainable conversations within the community through this event, to seed the growth of collaborative, project-based work in the arts and humanities, and foster reflection on the implications of this kind of work for teaching, research, and public arts and humanities efforts.