Founded in 2002 by Omi Osun Joni L. Jones and produced by The John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, The Austin Project (tAP) is an art-based process for social change that engages the primary principles of the Jazz Aesthetic: rigorous honesty, presence, virtuosity, and community accountability. Descended from the explorations of Dianne McIntyre’s Sounds in Motion Studio and the writing of Aishah Rahman,  and enriched by the teaching practice known as Unlearning Racism, the Jazz Aesthetic is a way of making work that insists on the importance of Spirit to activism, scholarship and artistic creation.  It puts the artist in the service of meeting the community’s deepest needs, community organizers in the service of their calling as artists, and scholars in the service an engaged pedagogy.

Designed to enliven strategies for social change and to disseminate artistic approaches outside of the art world, tAP encourages women of color scholars, artists and activists and our allies to work with and through art to see the social and political possibilities for their work. Since 2002, more than 40 women – emerging and established scholars, artists and activists - have participated in tAP under the guidance of anchor artist and award-winning playwright Sharon Bridgforth and producer Omi Osun Joni L. Jones. Together, participants engage in collaboration over an eight- to twelve-week process that includes creative writing, personal and interpersonal transformation, community performances and the development of new and innovative works of art and scholarship. During the process, TAP participants also have special opportunities to work with other renowned artists of the Jazz Aesthetic including Laurie Carlos, Daniel Alexander Jones, Carl Hancock Rux, Robbie McCauley, and Helga Davis.  

In 2010, the University of Texas Press will publish Experiments in a Jazz Aesthetic:  Art, Activism, the Academy and The Austin Project – a collection that includes scholarly essays, interviews and original creative work produced during the tAP collaborations.  This book offers materials by the producer, the anchor artist, guest artists and participants in the Austin Project as inspiration for anyone seeking to use the power of artmaking to transform the work of social change.