In a new pairing between the University of Michigan Ford School of Public Policy and U-M Museum of Art, students are learning how to develop human-centered experiences to guide public policy.
This approach takes a step back from a traditional emphasis on economic growth and focuses on policies that prioritize human relationships, dignity and sustainability.
The public policy course “We Should Talk: Using Art and Culture as a Tool for Repairing the Social Fabric” combines the human social flourishing research of Jenna Bednar, Ford School professor and faculty director of UMICH Votes, and a new physical manifestation of the research curated by Philippa Pham Hughes, social practice artist and visiting artist for Art & Civic Engagement at UMMA.
Bednar’s research suggests that current governance that focuses on economic prosperity, measured by metrics like gross domestic product—the inflation-adjusted value of everything produced in a country—fails to address deep societal issues that can be more difficult to measure, such as inequality, social alienation and climate change.
She favors a shift toward a more relational-leading model based on four pillars—dignity, community, beauty and sustainability—that emphasize collective well-being and social connectedness over individualistic competition and material success.
Bednar’s theory of human social flourishing revolves around the idea that humans thrive not through competition and material accumulation, but through collaboration, shared purpose and meaningful social connections. Her four pillars are representative of essential aspects of a meaningful life encompassing respect for others and oneself, environmental stewardship and communal relationships.
“Governance should move away from the transactional perspective and toward the relational perspective, in terms of the way that public policy thinks about our needs,” Bednar said. “That we are not just individuals, but individuals within a society, and recognizing that we, as independent beings, need to have agency—some capacity to do and to produce—and that we have a deep need for belonging.
“Leadership should build policy in a way that recognizes those needs that we have, not just our ‘material’ needs, but our ‘psychological’ needs—for agency and for belonging; our need to be needed.”
Enter Hughes. Her current gallery exhibit at UMMA, “Hey, We Need to Talk,”—part of the museum’s VOTE 2024 initiative—is informed by Bednar’s four pillars using prompts to encourage discussion in each area.
She calls the space a “social sculpture,” which is only complete when meaningful dialogue is taking place within its walls. With seating positioned as “little living rooms” to encourage conversation, and tables for eating and studying—not typical for a museum gallery—every aspect of the space was thoughtfully curated to encourage discourse.
“I want this to be a space to have conversations and form connections in a world where many people refuse to talk to each other,” Hughes said. “We can’t even begin to solve societal problems through policy if we don’t talk to each other. And then I think about how we can do that in fun, delightful ways. For me, art is a fun, delightful thing.”
She also leans on research around “awe.”
Hughes often sits in the gallery observing responses as visitors step off the elevator into her gallery space, watching them gasp as they take in their surroundings. She commissioned a larger-than-life, brightly colored floral wallpaper featuring the state flowers of all 50 states by Detroit-based artist Louise Jones to wrap the entire room, symbolizing national unity and the diverse beauty found across America.
“When people feel a sense of awe, they feel more connected to humanity. They feel a sense of smallness, in the sense of being part of something bigger, which makes people feel more connected to each other,” Hughes said. “One way you can create that feeling is through art—through bigness and a great sense of beauty. The artwork on these walls, the scale of the floral wallpaper, creates a sense of awe that accelerates the process of connection.”
This sense of awe serves as a mental palette cleanser, a reset, from which to enter important conversation, she says.
An aspect of Bednar’s research that particularly resonated with Hughes was the application of relational thinking to public policy.
“That is really speaking my language, because I believe we need to apply relational thinking to every discipline. It is necessary everywhere,” Hughes said. “I had already been thinking about flourishing, and then I met Jenna. I literally took her paper and turned it into this.”
Hughes’ students meet each week in the gallery, the course culminating in the creation of a policy-influencing relational solution.
“They were instructed to figure out a way to have people who might not normally meet talk meaningfully about an actual policy issue,” she said.
Two of her master's of public policy students, Nicholas DeChant (MPP '25) and Harrison DeChant (MPP '25), say engaging communities is relevant and should be a regular aspect of public policy development. "We are in a decidedly new and necessary era where relational solutions, though challenging in practice, are so essential for informing future policy work."
They continue, "This course has re-emphasized the importance of valuing public spaces beyond traditional economic evaluations. We are often limited by the metrics in which we measure the value of certain policies or projects, especially as monetized and efficiency-focused performance measurements often miss the intended goal of serving the public effectively. Placing value on projects or policies that build community, increase interaction in the public square, and create opportunities for social flourishing, allow us to resist the transactional pulls we feel in society today. We, as public servants, are not called to create an efficient sociallowsety; rather, we are called to help create a society that flourishes, dedicated to the public good.”
Hughes herself is leading an example of this type of solution with her Common Sense Diner. Also held in the UMMA gallery space, Hughes hosts free meals on Thursday evenings and Friday afternoons to strengthen democracy through “art-driven dialogues that aim to repair the social fabric of our country.”
“It is a politically diverse table, and it can start out kind of awkward,” Hughes said. “But then, by the end, people are exchanging numbers, it’s hard to get them to stop talking; it works. Even people who never go to museums or are skeptical about the process … I think the artworks create the openness to have these conversations.”
This approach leverages community involvement in order to foster prosocial norms, collective action and, in time, more inclusive governance structures.
“Philippa and I share the same goal: to find a way to rehumanize and ‘de-other’ those who vote differently by recognizing common ground,” Bednar said. “Philippa’s genius was to take the four pillars from my article and use them to create a space where we can start talking about things that we all care about. They are abstract, but you can start attaching specific ideas to them. And by doing that, and then sharing these ideas with others, you connect in a very human way by sharing things that matter to you, then someone else saying ‘that makes a lot of sense.'”
Hughes hopes to expand this project to other college campuses, or to have a permanent, dedicated space for social flourishing and conversation on campus in the future. U-M hosted a gathering of Big 10 art galleries this month to encourage similar projects across the conference, and to discuss inviting this type of dialogue on campus.
“This is bigger than a museum exhibit,” Hughes said. “We are bolstering democracy, and these conversations and teaching future policy makers how to foster these conversations, is such a foundational part of that work.”
“Hey, We Need to Talk!” is free and open to the public, on view at UMMA through Feb. 9, 2025.
Written by Jamie Sherman Blinder
