Staff Member Chosen to Attend the Transatlantic Network 2020

Shawn Renne Lent, who works in Columbia’s Center for Community Arts Partnerships, will join about 100 others from 16 different countries at the end of this month in Belfast and Dubin as a member of Transatlantic Network 2020.

TN2020 is an annual program that selects leaders from various countries who are between the ages of 25 to 35. Its goal is to bring these young and established community leaders together to break down cultural and ethnic stereotypes, engage in political discourse and repair the cultural and political divisions that have been created over the years.

Lent joins individuals from Canada, the UK, Germany, Belgium, Finland, France, Greece, Italy and other countries. Participants include a Los Angles police officer who works with gangs, an immigration activist in Portugal and a woman in Greece who works with young refugees by running an asylum and guest house.

Lent said her work with young Muslim men in London during the September 11, 2001 attacks influenced her decision to apply to the program. “September 11 changed my relationship to politics transatlantically,” she said. “That was in the back of my mind when I applied for graduate school [and] it’s why I applied for the program.”

While attending the summit, Lent will work with people from her group in community shelters and on art projects. She said those in her group will use making art as a means to talk about issues that would otherwise be taboo.

“Our group looks at community art-making as a way to work through conflicts,” she said.

Lent is the arts integration program specialist at Columbia, and served as the assistant editor for AIMprint: New Relationships in Arts and Learning. She holds an MA in Arts Management with a concentration in Arts in Youth and Community Development. And, between 2001 and 2003, she worked in East London as a youth worker and dance critic.

During the eight-day, all-expenses-paid summit, Lent and the other participants will engage in outdoor events, a live taping of BBC world, cultural events and have breakfast with the president of Ireland.

She said she sees this conference as an essential step in helping those participating breakdown stereotypes and work together despite cultural, ethic and religious differences.

“We have a tendency to work in stereotypes as a way to function in the world,” she said. “We sort of have an idea of what the French are like, what an English person is like, what a Muslim person is like. If you don’t break those stereotypes early, then it could be a scary world if stereotypes escalate.”