Many artists want to create work that has a social impact. Unfortunately, organizing a successful social-change campaign is not often part of an artist’s education. The Art Action Academy (AAA), now in its second year at Queens Museum, helps socially-engaged artists make their work more impactful and better evaluate the effect of their work. This free workshop is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and implemented by the Center for Artistic Activism, in partnership with the Queens Museum as part of its Open A.I.R Artist Services Program.

If you are hungry to learn more about about engaging audiences through creative work that has social impact, or if you work with a community organization and want to incorporate more creativity into your work, this is the workshop for you.

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.

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 and activists themselves. In brief, the goal of the AAA is to have participants own their method to further develop as successful artists and effective activists.

We invite artists (and creative practitioners of all kinds) to apply for this free, six-day, three-weekend Art Action Academy.

Participants must commit to attending the Art Action Academy on Sat Oct 7th, Sun Oct 8th, Sat Oct 21st, Sun Oct 22, Sat Oct 28 and Sun Oct 29 from 10am-4pm each day.

Apply Here – Applications closed

To apply, please fill out the application by August 28, 2017 at 6pm.

The Arts Action Academy is a program of the Center for Artistic Activism and will be led by the C4AA co-founders, Stephen Duncombe and Steve Lambert.

Stephen Duncombe is a life-long activist and professor of Media and Culture at New York University. He is the author and editor of six books, including Dream: Re-Imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy and the Cultural Resistance Reader.

Steve Lambert is a conceptual artist and professor of New Media at SUNY Purchase. His art has been shown everywhere from marches to museums both nationally and internationally, has appeared in over fourteen books, and four documentary films.

The Open A.I.R. Artist Services Program at the Queens Museum draws on the institution’s resources, staff expertise, and networks to provide workshops and lectures that help artists grow their practice, advance their career, and develop sustainable lives as artists.