Attend the workshop on September 24th from 7-8:30 ET / 6-7:30 CT / 5-6:30 MT and 4-5:30 PT on Zoom.
I have always loved cultural organizing, creativity + community organizing, art + activism. I love so many people who find a sweet spot of mixing the two. I have lots of taurus in my chart and always want more beauty in the world. I’ll be hosting a workshop called Artist as Activist + Activist as Artist on September 25th from 7-8:30 ET / 6-7:30 CT / 5-6:30 MT and 3-4:30 PT on Zoom. Sign Up here. At it’s bare bones, this is an interactive writing workshop in which we will explore the symbiotic relationship between art and activism. We will delve into some of my favorite political artists and activists who live and work at the intersection of the two.
I’m also offering the workshop as an adaptable stand alone workshop for an organization, one person, a group of friends, or a classroom of high school or college students. Contact me today so we can adjust the workshop to meet your needs!
The main topics include:
- 1 – Manifesting Through Activism: exploring the creativity of activism and organizing.
- 2 – Visioning the Future We Want: using imagination to inspire our art and activism
- 3 – Art Reflecting Activism: examining how art can paint a picture of the movement
- 4 – Art Enhancing Activism: using poetry, puppets, visuals, or dance to enhance protests, campaigns, or organizational work.
During movement moments when I have been deeply engaged in community organizing, I seek out music that reflects the feeling in the air: Janelle Monet’s Say Her Name or Pynk, Macklemore’s Hinds Hall, Beyonce’s Formation, or Halluci Nation’s Land Back are some that hit my heart at the right time. I have always been nurtured and inspired by the intersection of culture and creating a new world. I love beautiful banners at protests, I love visual art that conveys a message and a feeling of the political moments we go through. I love books and poems that open our pain into flowers.
During my MFA program earlier this year I was able to develop and teach a class called, Artist as Activist + Activist as Artist. The workshop pulls on some of my favorite political artists, and examples of how I have seen art and community organizing overlap. At the core both creating art, and community organizing, are creative processes.
Art and activism go hand in hand to usher in the concrete improvements we need in people’s lives. Art can inspire personal transformation, individual and collective action, and cultural change. It can point us toward the future that we want to live in and clarify our message. Art can be used to sustain activism and organizing by making our rallies and actions more powerful with visual art and spoken word poetry. Or we can use an essay, a poem, or a piece of fiction to bring more imagination to our organizational meetings.
Brenda Radchik, fellow writer, testimonial:
“I had the privilege of attending The Artist as Activist + Artist as Activist workshop by Z! and I loved it. The course offered us, as writers, new ways in which we can become activists as well. They invited us to reflect upon which social issues we’d like to touch on more in our writing. Manifestation is also a big part of this course. “Everything great started as a thought,” Z! tells us. If you can’t visualize something, it’ll never be. Through guided visualization, we learn how to manifest things and take action to make this world a better place.”
PS – this is a poem that I published about envisioning the world that we want to live in, with visual art by Ali Brooks.. This Is The Place.