2026 Class Applications are Now Open
Apply now to be a part of the 2026 Community-Centered Design Class.
2026 CCD Sessions
Download the 2026 CCD Sessions flyer to learn more.
2026 CCD Info Session - Meet the Co-Facilitators
For 2026, Rosten Woo and Roshani Thakore will be co-facilitating in-person sessions August – October in three phases:
Phase 1: What's Possible
Thursday, August 20 and Friday, August 21
9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m, location TBD
Participants will learn more about the work from local artists in the class, connect with each other, and learn about innovative community engagement from guest speakers from across the country. The second day will be a ideation and prototyping workshop learning to co-design community-engagement projects with four community organizations from the metro-Atlanta region.
Phase 2: Co-Design
Wednesday, September 9 – Friday, September 11,
9 am – 5 pm, location TBD by selected community partner
Through a class discussion, one community organization will move forward as a community partner to co-design and execute a community-engagement project in October. Over 3 days, the class will work in small groups to research, ideate, prototype, and evaluate collaboratively on shared projects. The class will have a finalized plan for the projects by the end of the last day.
Phase 3: Public Engagement and Reflections
October dates and location determined by selected community partner
The community-engaged projects will be implemented with the community partner to interact with the public on a land use or transportation challenge. The following day the class will evaluate and reflect with the community partner on the project and next steps.
Learn more how this class will be helpful for your work! Contact Roshani Thakore at [email protected].
After finishing the 2025 CCD, I have been trying to incorporate art components in all our community-engagement events. We set up a vintage typewriter and asked folks to write messages, love letters, or poems to Atlanta. Kids, in particular, absolutely loved using and playing with the typewriter, as they had never seen one before, and we gave folks the opportunity to recite the poems and messages on a platform.
The 2025 CCD class inspired me to become more involved in my community. I am an active member of the Midtown Infrastructure Committee, have continued to assist ARC through Community Forum as a supporter of artist leads, joined the board of local non-profit Ground Up Collective, and have since been admitted to Georgia Tech’s Masters of City and Regional Planning program.
Meet the Community Partners
Austell Local Food Task Force
The Austell Local Food Task Force serves the City of Austell and the neighboring communities Powder Springs and Mableton. We provide garden plots for our members at no cost. We are focused on promoting sustainability working with communities at our local schools to our seniors citizens. The Task Force came out of the 2024 Austell’s City Agriculture Plan supported by Food Well Alliance.
Build a Better Blacksville
Blacksville is a historically Black, unincorporated community located within McDonough, Georgia, in Henry County. It is experiencing rapid growth with new residential developments while undergoing a Historic Preservation & Planning Initiative to preserve its Reconstruction-era roots, including former mill houses. Build a Better Blacksville is a CBO working to improve the quality of life for Blacksville’s residents through impactful programs and community engagement. It was a community partner in ARC’s 2025 CDAP for a small area plan.
The Ke'nekt
Located in Westview, The Ke’nekt is a hyperlocal community think tank of Residents, Legacy Black Businesses, Creatives, Micro Start Ups & Solopreneurs where global ideas are not only explored in theory but developed and invested into by the very community in which they live. The Ke’nekt participated in the 2024 CCD class.
South River Watershed Alliance
South River Watershed Alliance is a river and community focused environmental justice organization serving communities along the river's entire 60-mile length. In 2023 SRWA worked with ARC's CDAP program staff to develop plans expanding recreational access to communities in the river's urban headwaters, City of Atlanta and south DeKalb County, through our South River in the City initiative.
Meet the Co-Facilitators
Roshani Thakore
Roshani Thakore (she/her) is a socially engaged artist and the director of community engagement and culture programming at ARC. She leads initiatives including integrating culture into long-range planning efforts and designing innovative and inclusive engagement practices that center under-represented voices in planning. Through her art practice, she has collaborated with social-justice organizations, universities, arts organizations, planners, incarcerated men, students, youth, older adults, and more. She is passionate about the intersection of art, organizing, and public spaces in Metro Atlanta.
Rosten Woo
Rosten Woo is a designer, writer, and educator living in Los Angeles. He produces civic-scale artworks and works as a collaborator and consultant to a variety of grassroots, non-profit organizations, and local governments such as Los Angeles Poverty Department, the Black Workers Center, as well as the city of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County. His work has also been exhibited internationally at art and design institutes as well as public housing developments, tugboats, shopping malls and parks. Woo is also the co-founder and former executive director of the Center for Urban Pedagogy, a New York Based non-profit organization and winner of the national design award for institution achievement, dedicated to using art and design to foster civic participation.
Meet the Community-Engaged Artists
Four community-engaged artists and graduates from CCD will help lead the co-design process with our class:
Jasmine Carter
I’m a visual storyteller and educator based in South Atlanta, working at the intersection of film, community design, and cultural storytelling. Through my production company, BeanPole Entertainment, I develop character-driven projects that center lived experience, identity, and social impact. My background in education and communications shapes how I design narratives that are both engaging and rooted in real community insight. I’m especially interested in building systems and stories that reflect how people actually live, learn, and connect.
I was drawn to CCD because it formalizes the kind of work I’ve already been building—using storytelling, design, and lived experience as tools for community engagement and systems change. As a lead artist, I’m excited to create work that doesn’t just represent the community, but is shaped with them in a way that feels honest, useful, and participatory. This role also gives me the opportunity to deepen my practice by working alongside planners, residents, and creatives to build something that has both cultural and structural impact.
Symone Gaskin
Atlanta native, Symone Gaskin, believes that art possesses a strong unifying power within our current divisive culture. She is intrinsically motivated by the idea of developing creative and artistic solutions to support vulnerable groups and communities. To Symone, art is a tool for people to recognize their unlimited nature, once they summon the courage to take the first brushstroke. Above all, through her art and character, Symone seeks to be a source of positive change and empowerment for her community.
Having already been a part of the Community Centered Design cohort, I am excited to have a deeper involvement in the planning and execution of our projects. Learning from others is inevitable and exciting! I am looking forward to working with like-minded individuals and creating art that means something!
Charity Hamidullah
Charity Hamidullah is a Rochester-born, Atlanta-based artist and current Midtown Alliance resident whose murals and public art celebrate identity, culture, and community. With over two decades in tattooing, her outdoor practice extends into collaborations with the ARC, Microsoft, and Target, using art to inspire belonging and empowerment. In 2025, she affirmed her presence in the city’s art scene exhibiting in the Atlanta Art Fair with Artful ATL, Spruill Gallery and The Bakery. In her studio, Hamidullah’s mixed-media collages continue this dialogue—layering stories of self-proclamation and collective strength into spaces that both heal and connect.
I’m excited to step into the Lead Artist role for CCD this year because it aligns deeply with my commitment to community-centered storytelling and creating work that feels both personal and collective. During my experience with CCD, I had a powerful reflection that showed me we have the ability to design as a community within ourselves, but also as a whole together. I’ve seen the foundation of our future leaders, and I want to play my part in nurturing that space. CCD taught me that we all have the capacity to help plan and design something far bigger than ourselves, and with this opportunity, I’m committed to paying it forward—supporting the program and the next cohort of artists to build an even deeper foundation for our next chapter in community-driven planning and design.
Aysha Pennerman
Aysha Pennerman is an Atlanta-based artist and muralist creating work that centers community, storytelling, and impact. Her murals across the city use movement of lines, bright colors, and portraiture to reflect culture, spark conversation, and bring people together. She collaborates with communities, organizations, and schools to turn everyday spaces into something meaningful.
I decided to take this opportunity because CCD deeply aligns with how I approach my work, co-designing with communities is one of the most meaningful parts of what I do. So much of that practice was shaped and inspired through my experience with CCD, so I’m excited to step into this role in a fuller way and help create space for community voices.
What will students take away from this class?
- Learn best practices on community engagement through access to a network of local and national experts, practitioners, and other socially-engaged creatives.
- Access to the CCD alumni network to learn and share successes and challenges in implementing creative community engagement in local planning.
- Improve your ability to engage diverse stakeholders that haven't been involved in your planning processes through an immersive learning experience.
- Improve your ability to access ARC grants and technical assistance that require creative community engagement (LCIs, CDAPs, Local Food System Plans)
Who is this class for?
This class is for:
- organizers interested in creative practices,
- architects, planners, and designers, consultants
- elected officials and individuals working in local government, and
- community members with experience in community-based work.
- artists interested in civic engagement,
- culture bearers,
Our Sponsors
This program is supported in part by Georgia Council for the Arts through the appropriations of the Georgia General Assembly. Georgia Council for the Arts also receives support from its partner agency – the National Endowment for the Arts.
