Alfredo Jaar is an artist, architect, and filmmaker who lives and works in New York City. He was born in Santiago de Chile. Jaar has realized more than sixty public interventions around the world and more than fifty monographic publications have been published about his work. He became a Guggenheim Fellow in 1985 and a …
Author Archives: The Center for Artistic Activism
Webinar #22: hilariOUCH
Steve and Steve get to hang out with Marlène Ramírez-Cancio, co-founder and co-director of Fulana, a Latina satire collective whose videos have been shown internationally at film festivals, museums, and universities, and whose members lead satire and parody workshops for emerging artists. Marlene talks about how satire can successfully be used to change the world through critical …
Webinar #21: Corruption Master Class
How do we win against corruption? We met Oluseun Onigbinde at our workshop in Guinea a few months ago. The workshop brought together artists from all over West Africa to learn creative activism strategies to combat corruption, the most significant problem facing West Africa today. Oluseun gave a fascinating presentation about how corruption works, and …
Exam – Planning A Campaign
The Exam Excerpted from the upcoming book How To Win: The Art of Activism by Stephen Duncombe and Steve Lambert “Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul”. ― Edward Abbey Time: a Morning, Afternoon or Evening STEP 1: Pepare You’ll want to do a few things to get ready for this exercise. For …
Imagining Utopia
In order to change the world we live in we need to be able to imagine the world we desire. Through the Imagining Utopia workshop, CAA faculty work with groups – ranging from elementary school students to seasoned grassroots activists – to stimulate their imagination of what could be. Beginning with presentations of dreams of …
Æfficacy
Effect (v.) “To bring about (an event, a result); to accomplish (an intention, a desire).”Affect (v.) “To have an effect on the mind or feelings of (a person); to impress or influence emotionally; to move, touch.” (Oxford English Dictionary) When it comes to bringing about social change, effect and affect are intertwined. Artistic activism aims …
Axes of Art and Activism
The terrain of artistic activism and activist art is vast, and there is no one coordinate of success. In order to map some of this landscape we’ve created the following axes where one might situate particular practices and thereby better determine relative success. A work-in-progress. You can download the PDF here. Risë Wilson, George Perlov, …
Report on interviews with trainers & field-defining organizations
Download: Report on Interviews with Trainers Field-Defining Organizations March 2017 Background Following the development of a literature review last year on measuring the impact of artistic/creative activism, The Center for Artistic Activism (C4AA), conducted interviews with artistic activism trainers and other “field-defining” organizations to expand the learning for this part of the Æfficacy project. This …
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Æfficacy Project
Measuring the Impact of Artistic Activism AKA “The Æffect Project” In 2015 the C4AA teamed up with George Perlov, former VP of Research at the Ad Council, and currently with George Perlov Consulting, to study the æffect of artistic activism. What we’re looking for are answers to the question “Does Artistic Activism Work?” and what …
Æffect Advisory Board
Artistic Activism Efficacy Advisory Board Kenneth Bailey — Founder, Design Studio for Social Intervention Luis Camnitzer — Independent artist James Chung — Founder, Reach Advisers Brett Davidson — Program Director, Open Society Foundations Kathy Eldon — Founder, Creative Visions Deborah Fisher — Executive Director, A Blade of Grass Jessica George — Executive Director, Revolutions …
Literature Review
Center for Artistic ActivismMeasuring the Impact of Artistic ActivismLiterature Review ReportDRAFT March 25, 2016 Background Social change is hard. Over the years, social issue campaigners and activists have employed a variety of marketing and communications efforts to attract public interest to their issues and causes to varying degrees of success. More recently, activists have turned …
Join Actipedia
Actipedia is an open-access, user-generated database of creative activism. It’s a place to read about, comment upon, and share experiences and examples of how activists and artists are using creative tactics and strategies to challenge power and offer visions of a better society. Actipedia draws case studies from everywhere: original submissions, reprinted news articles, snippets …
How to Win #15: Make the News
We’ve all been there: you’ve done a brilliant, funny, creative action but no one except some passersby and a handful of your Facebook friends have any idea it happened. Or maybe worse yet, you get some press coverage but the journalist completely missed the point. Well, we’re here to help. We’re bringing in the press …
C4AA’s Steve Lambert talks Artistic Activism on Al Jazeera
Steve Lambert was a panelist in-studio on Al Jazeera’s The Stream on Monday and Tuesday’s show. It aired internationally and the topic was “Art and Activism.” He was a guest with Molly Crabapple, Annya San, and Rajkamal Kahlon. You can watch archived versions of the shows below or on the Al Jazeera site. Monday: Art …
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Rebecca Bray joins the C4AA
We’re growing! We’re excited to announce our new manager, Rebecca Bray. Rebecca joins us from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History where she has been the Chief of Experience Design. But Rebecca isn’t new to artistic activism. Back in 2002 she was one of the producers of “The Meatrix” an online animation about factory farming …
Felicia Young
My theory is one of creative collaboration and joyous affirmation — activating change through the inspirational power of the arts and affecting the individual on a deep emotional level, which can be imperceptible, as well as through more visible and public, celebratory and collective community action. People may look to statistics and metrics, such as numbers engaged and gardens saved, which we …
Amin Husain
“Art actions relevant for today come from a place of vulnerability and radical love, from fighting back. They push back and it creates a little space, and that little space could be something more meaningful, if only for a second. And then you do it again. And it gives you that breath of fresh air.” …
No Longer Interested
In 2014, Center Co-Director Steve Lambert was asked to contribute to A Blade of Grass’ ‘Growing Dialogue‘, a series of practitioner-led articles and opinion pieces circling around questions of the affect and effect of art and social practice. Steve’s contribution was No Longer Interested, which you can read below… No Longer Interested I’ve worked to strike …
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY FOR ‘TRUTH IS CONCRETE’
In 2014, Stephen Duncombe and Steve Lambert were invited to write an introductory essay for “Truth is Concrete: A Handbook for Artistic Strategies in Real Politics“. It includes essays from, among many others: Andy Bichlbaum, Reverend Billy, Andrew Boyd, Tania Bruguera, Andrea Fraser, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Hans Haacke, John Jordan, Kalle Lasn, Leónidas Martín, Antanas Mockus, …
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On Utopia
Keri Smith is a long-time friend of the Center, and even sits on our Advisory Board! For her 2014 book, The Imaginary World Of…, Center Co-Director Steve Lambert was asked to write a few words on Utopia, so he did… (Also – check out her latest book, “The Wander Society“) On Utopia The problem with …