From Idea to Action: Using artistic activism to engage and empower

Hey,

It’s spring here in the northern hemisphere and time for making things happen! We just got back from the Balkans, and we’re headed out to work in Ghana this week. We’re also tinkering and building all kinds of stuff in between and we hope you are too. 

Ready to work on a “massive level”? Interview by George Perlov with Gan Golan

This excerpt is from a C4AA interview by George Perlov with Gan Golan about how artistic activism can empower the public to move towards action. Golan is an artistic activist and author of the bestselling children's book parody "Goodnight Bush" and "The Adventures of Unemployed Man," the critically-acclaimed graphic novel about the economic crisis. Golan discusses the importance of movement narratives and calls for artists and activists, alike, to figure out ways to measure what a movement means to the public.

Reports from the field

C4AA in Macedonia

We were back in Macedonia this month, working alongside a new Creative Action Team in the making. They reminded us that even simple artistic interventions can help unify people who might think they’re alone in their frustration. The Macedonia Creative Action Team produced this public intervention that points out a fatal road problem unfixed for 3 years. (If you know La Linea, the ubiquitous Italian cartoon character, you may have a sense for what the action pictured below is all about).

The goal of our work with the Macedonia Creative Action Team (MCATs) is to help people who are marginalized from traditional power structures to find methods, through art and culture, of speaking out about infrastructure and environmental issues that plague their communities within a corrupt political system.

C4AA in Ghana

This week we’re headed to Accra, Ghana where the West Africa Creative Action Team (WACAT) is just starting up. 

Though we’ve been working with artists and activists in both West Africa and the Western Balkans for years, Creative Lab Hubs are a new global project to connect artist activist trainers around the world to each other. These cross-continental collaborators will share methodologies, curriculums and lessons learned as they work in their regions activating new emerging artists and activists working for human rights and social change. 

This project is so exciting for us, and perfect as the C4AA turns ten years old. It means that we’re taking the past decade of our work to create ripple effects. A “train-the-trainers" model allows us to reach many more people than we could train personally, so exceptional artistic activism can be led by local practitioners in the situations they identify as important and needed. 

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From Actipedia: What a dump!

Drawing attention to illegal garbage dumps, our MCAT collaborators, the Contemporary Center for Arts in Macedonia,  took the novel approach of erecting signs and declaring them historical monuments.

From Actipedia, our user-contributed database of creative actions from around the world.

Opportunity: Open Call for funded mentorship program

About a Worker, mentees 2018, first collection with workers from Mode Estime, St Denis

From Council, an open call the 2019 mentorship program of AFIELD, a program that supports artists, researchers and other creative activists engaged in long-term social action. The fellowship is awarded to two fellows who receive $7000 and can in turn support mentees with their advice. 

The Narrowing of Museum Imagination

C4AA Board member, Laura Raicovich, is the inaugural recipient of Hyperallergic’s Journalism Fellowship for Curators.  Check out her first article “The Narrowing of Museum Imagination” where she connects Anand Giridharadas’s latest book on philanthropy and late-capitalism with useful questions about how cultural institutions function today. She features Steve Lambert’s piece “Capitalism Works For Me! True/False”.

Ok, you made it to the bottom. You get a treat. Here’s a peek at some recent articles we’ve been sharing amongst ourselves at the C4AA.

• Wanna cringe? Read what happens when Brett Easton Ellis encounters a real journalist that does their job.
• Could it happen here? The Decriminalization of Sex Work Is Edging Into the 2020 Campaign
• The way this campaign from "Pack the Courts" is approaching this goal head-on is worth paying attention to this.

In the Spirit of Little Actions Every Day

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