Empathy is about listening to others, being aware of their feelings and sharing your own feelings as well. 
It's creating an environment of empathy.
I've been starting to envision a project organized around this quality.

There is an organization and process that gets large groups of people (50 - 70) together to talk about a topic.
It was developed here in the Bay Area and is called the World Cafe.
It also has an artistic quality in that they use pictorial brainstorming for capturing ideas.  

Here are some videos on the process
World Cafe Dialogue Workshop
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cv82Yl0H7M

 The World Cafe - BK Business Book by Juanita Brown & David Isaacs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MUHShsxJE4

World Cafe Guidelines & Principles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrTKD8NpApY

World Cafe website
http://www.theworldcafe.com/
 

The Idea
What about a series of these cafes over several months at the different Richmond Community Centers on the theme of empathy? 
The World Cafe group has a turnkey set up.
I heard they have tables, even vases and flowers for making the environment look nice and inviting.
They have a great deal of experience with this process.
Doing these Cafes on the theme of empathy could be a way of starting to build community support and true personal involvement for empathy.  
It gets the local community involved.

The Discussion Cafes in and of themselves are a form of public art.
It's about the art of listening and sharing - which is the essence of empathy.
These Cafes would embody empathy.

The approach uses pictorial brainstorming, so a lot of drawings and art get created. 

Ideas could come out of the World Cafes for other art works or projects.
The Cafe could also be a forum for some local artists to get inspiration for doing some artwork exploring empathy.

A final exhibit could be created with artwork from the Cafes included.

There would be a team of people to help facilitate this.

1. World Cafe group
http://www.theworldcafe.com/
They have a turnkey set up. I heard they have tables, even vases and flowers for making the environment look nice and inviting. They have the expertise to formulate and guide the questions and discussions.

2. Empathy Group - The empathy group that I organized of about 10 people, see
http://CultureOfEmpathy.com/Meetings.htm

3. Richmond Organizing for America
I attended an event at the Nevin center, that was put together by Organizing for America. They brought together volunteers, community activists, and local non profits that needed volunteers. We could invite this same group to take part.  They had talked about planning another event. This could be part of their follow-up event. see this short video of the event.
Community Action Mixer - Richmond CA - Nevin Center - March 5,2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVnDp2IyAjs

4. Bay Nonviolent communication group
   http://www.baynvc.org/
They have a lot of practical hands-on experience with empathy and they have signed on as partners with the East Bay Stores of Empathy project. I'm sure they would be interested in taking part.

5. Other Groups
I'm sure there would be other groups that would like to get involved.

The basic framework could be developed and refined.
There would be a lot of room for inspiration and creativity within this framework.

A Basic Outline

 >  3 or 4 World Cafes on the theme of empathy
 > some local artists attend, get ideas for some projects
 > a final exhibit of art or event from the cafes and from local artists
 

Outline of a Cafe
 > Introductory Presentation
        - a short video about empathy
         - maybe a poem or word art presented on empathy.
 > question 1 posed
 > question 2 posed
 > question 3 posed.
 >several videographers tape the conversations.
> etc

Other ideas
I'm sure a lot of ideas could be generated in the Cafes.
Here's one that just popped into my head as I watched the World cafe video.
In this clip I saw an artist had created  stands with a large banner on it.
 It has words written on it.
 How about doing something like this with the word Empathy in large letters on it and artwork, ideas, etc from the cafes on them.
They could be placed around Richmond.
World Cafe Dialogue Workshop
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cv82Yl0H7M