Starting with a brief description of the culminating participatory arts and dialogue event, "Don't[strikethrough] Talk With Strangers," the author then backtracks to describe the rationale and process for a new community engaged arts course centred on dialogic artmaking. The course was designed for undergraduate and youth artists with diverse social, cultural and artistic backgrounds to work in collaboration as part of an arts-based action research study. In particular, the author is invested in better understanding the meaning making and civic learning student artists gain from engaging in these distinct practices. Inspired by Grant Kester's conception of the dialogical aesthetic and his expansive views on the role of the artist that move away from self-expression towards facilitation of communication and exchange, this article shares the challenges, points of resistance and pedagogical insights gained from giving student artists, early in their education, a hands-on experience with such practices.