Webinar #17: Intelligent Mischief and the Culture of Black Liberation

In this webinar, Steve Lambert has a great talk with Terry about how he uses satire, story, surrealism, comics, video, stickers, art exhibits, products, and so much more to create transformational experiences. We love how Terry talks about fearless creative experimentation, world-building, and diegetic prototypes to help move forward any progressive idea. Terry has been …

Webinar: Guerrilla Futures

Our new webinar season launched December 1st, 2017 with Stuart Candy and Jake Dunagan of Guerrilla Futures. They use future studies to understand how we can all use visionary thinking to imagine and create better tomorrows. While many futurists engage in thinking about the future theoretically, these guys actually experiment. Their Experiential Futures work using …

We Got a “Silver Medal” at the World Democracy Forum!

On November 8 – 10, 2017 C4AA was invited to present to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg France at their annual World Forum for Democracy. The Council of Europe is the continent’s leading human rights organization. C4AA Co-Founder Steve Duncombe made the case for artistic activism as a way to defeat right-wing populism, describing …

West Africa Training in December

West Africa Art Action AcademyDecember 17 – 21, 2017 OSIWA (Open Society Initiative for West Africa), C4AA (The Center for Artistic Activism) and Association Culturelle La Muse invite artists to apply to participate in a 5-day Art Action Academy from December 17-21, 2017 in Conakry, Guinea. The workshop is open to artists from West Africa …

Press: We Make Money Not Art on Center for Artistic Activism

Yesterday, We Make Money Not Art featured our webinars and one of our favorite examples of truly artistic activism, the occupation of Alcatraz Island by Native American activists in 1969. We talk about this in our trainings as one example of fully realized creative activism that incorporates spectacular story, imagery and humor in a strategic …

What Would Jesus Do? (as a Creative Activist)

By C4AA Co-Founder Stephen Duncombe My proselytizing here is of a political rather than religious nature. It isn’t the divine figure of Christ I am interested in but the purely historical Jesus, a radical Mediterranean Jewish peasant building a revolutionary movement two millennia ago. Jesus of Nazareth was an activist, and, judging by the two-thousand …

How to Win #14: Learn from Hollywood

With a savvy entertainer in the White House, we need to really understand how entertainment works, and wield that knowledge like a flaming sword on a windy but beautiful hilltop. With a savvy entertainer in the White House, we need to really understand how entertainment works, and wield that knowledge like a flaming sword on a windy but beautiful hilltop. What …

Artistic Action: Sex Worker Rights in Dublin

As part of our Arts Action Academy in December 2016 in Dublin, sex workers, artists and activists created and performed this creative action to raise awareness about, and fight against, laws that criminalize sex workers. All of this was conceived and implemented by the Academy participants in 24 hours as the last day of our intensive AAA training. …

5 Ways to Up Your Artistic Action Game

Here are 5 things you can do if you want to make change in the world: 1. Steal from the Past Borrow from successful creative movements (video). Make time to be inspired by others (check out Actipedia). 2. Know How to Manipulate Change Minds Use cognitive and behavioral science to understand how to make change starting …

How to Win #13: Learn from South Africa

While having an autocratic, erratic and narcissistic madman as a president might be new to artistic activists in the US, this is standard operating procedure for activists in other parts of the world. In this webinar we talked with veteran South African activists Ishtar Lakhani and Marlise Richter to learn how to navigate, and effectively operate in, …

How to Win Webinar #11: Recalibrate Reality

Why Recalibrate Reality? Should artistic activists use our work to hold a mirror up to reality to make the invisible visible? Or should we use our talents to imagine new possibilities of what reality could be? Or can we do both? Steve and Steve give a brief course on the latest aesthetic and cultural theory, and …

How To Win Webinar #10: Make Your Meetings Inventive

Why a Webinar about Meetings? We’ve all been in a lot of action planning meetings lately, and some of them… are less than productive. This training is on how to lead Action Planning Meetings that don’t suck and are super creative and effective. Steve Lambert and Steve Duncombe give you tricks from their years of artistic …

Apply for the Johannesburg Art Action Academy

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 …

How to Win Webinar #9: Mine Pop Culture

How can progressives borrow and steal from pop culture to make real change? Pop culture can be read as a map to popular desire. In this video of our live webinar, Co-founder Steve Duncombe and Chair of our Board Pat Jerido of Leadership Matters Consulting show how to read the map and exploit the phantasmagoric …

How to Win Webinar #8: Change Minds

Our founders (The Artist! The Historian!) got deep into the Slap Chop, the Snuggie, and the Ginsu 2000! They shared what they’ve learned from infomercials (and some heavy communications theory) and revealed some simple tools to better understand audiences and communicate persuasively to people who don’t already agree. Notes from the webinar Lambert will be …

C4AA Fundamentals #7: Stay Hopeful & Avoid Burnout

In the Star Trek universe, Vulcans like Dr. Spock always think objectively and rationally. We’re not Vulcans. Human beings have a tendency toward self-deception – a trait that was a valuable part of human evolution and helped us survive over centuries. But fight or flight responses aren’t as needed or useful in everyday 2017. Steve …

Artistic Activism at the UN

Steve and Steve were at the United Nations this week, where they gave a presentation to the Arts and Culture Exchange of the UN Development Program. Ostensibly about “new communications strategies to sell old ideas, like the UN”, the Steve’s presentation introduced the audience of largely UN communications staff to artistic activism, and led them …

The Creators Project Recommends Center for Artistic Activism to Artists

The fantastic Creators Project just posted a new story on us: “Need More Activism in Your Art? Look No Further Than This Center.” A lot of artists might be thinking about how to incorporate more political activism into their practices right about now, and if you’re one of them then you’re in luck, because there …