Are you an artist or creative practitioner interested in challenging public perceptions about sex work in South Africa? If so, please apply to attend our Art Action Academy in May!

In collaboration with SWEAT – Sex Workers Education & Advocacy Taskforce and Sonke Gender Justice, we invite artists (and creative practitioners of all kinds) interested in challenging dominant narratives about sex work to apply for a 5-day Art Action Academy to be held in Johannesburg from the 24th to 28th of May 2017.

Many artists want to create work that has a social impact. Unfortunately, organizing a successful social-change campaign often isn’t part of an artist’s education. The Art Action Academy (AAA) will help socially-engaged artists make their work more impactful and better evaluate the effect of their work.

Using a range of contemporary examples of organizing and activism from around the world, participants will study the ways cultural creativity has been employed for social change. We will explore ideas from cultural theory to cognitive science to mass communications. We will learn to apply these ideas through a mix of classroom style presentations and practical exercises designed to unlock our imaginations from the prison-house of the possible – and then to figure out how to make the impossible into reality, through new strategies and tactics. The workshop will culminate in a collaborative creative action on the 28th of May.

The goal of the AAA is not merely to impart knowledge, but to access, organize and operationalize the creative, cultural and political resources possessed by artists themselves. In brief, the goal of the AAA is to have participants own their method to further develop as successful artists and effective activists.

The workshop will be led by the Center for Artistic Activism and draw on the experience of SWEAT and Sonke in implementing creative activism in their advocacy to decriminalize sex work.

Applicants should be based in South Africa and able to commit to participating for the full duration of the workshop.

Travel, accommodation and meal costs for selected participants will be fully covered.

Apply Online by the 10th of March

This Art Action Academy is supported by the Open Society Foundations and Open Society Foundation for South Africa.