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The Center for Artistic Activism Reading List

Update: We wrote a book! The Art of Activism: Your All Purpose Guide to Making the Impossible Possible Here, in dazzling red and black words and pictures, is an all-purpose guide that shows how to bring about effective social change by combining the emotional power of the arts with the strategic planning of activism. Join …

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Phoebe Davies

In this interview, C4AA research fellow Sarah J Halford talks with Phoebe Davies, a social practice artist based in London. In it, Davies discusses her work on constructing social spaces that provide an environment for productive, and often difficult, conversations about politics, sex, gender, and more. She also shares her thoughts on the importance of more collaboration and thoughtful reflection in and around art and activism.

Owen Griffiths

In this interview, C4AA research fellow Sarah J Halford talks with Owen Griffiths, a social practice artist based in Swansea, Wales in the UK. Griffiths shares his strategy for using art projects as tactics to enter into publicly-owned spaces. He collaborates with others to transform these spaces into beautiful and useful landscapes that are co-authored by people in the community. Ultimately, he argues that the art is used to beautify the space, create community buy-in, and keep the space in the hands of the people – rather than sold to a private corporation.

Pam Korza

In this interview, C4AA co-director Steve Duncombe talks with Pam Korza about methods of evaluation in artistic activism. They consider the resistance that some artists have to quantitative evaluation, as well how we might evaluate the work from a perspective of aesthetic excellence. Korza also shares her extensive knowledge as co-director of Animating Democracy, an organization that fosters art for social change projects, and the six outcomes that she looks for when evaluating the success (or failure) of a project.

Marlène Ramírez-Cancio

In this interview, C4AA co-founder Steve Duncombe talks with Marlene Ramirez-Cancio, Associate Director of Arts and Media at the Hemispheric Institute. They discuss the elusive nature of evaluating artistic activism through qualitative frameworks. What is the vocabulary for doing so? And why is that vocabulary so difficult to find? Marlene shares her thoughts on these questions and challenges arts funders to become more comfortable with metrics that measure qualities beyond material successes.

Gan Golan

In this interview, George Perlov talks with Gan Golan, artistic activist and author of the bestselling children’s book parody “Goodnight Bush” and “The Adventures of Unemployed Man,” the critically-acclaimed graphic novel about the economic crisis. Golan discusses the importance of movement narratives and calls for artists and activists, alike, to figure out ways to measure what a movement means to the public.

Favianna Rodriguez

In this interview, C4AA co-founder Steve Duncombe talks with Favianna Rodriguez, prolific art activist and Executive Director of CultureStrike. She shares her creative process behind the “Migration is Beautiful” butterfly, an image that has been widely adopted as a symbol of the migrant rights movement. They also discuss Rodriguez’s theory of change, which involves a strategic focus on cultural change over policy change, as she argues that policy is “the final manifestation of an idea,” that stems directly from culture.

Alumni Spotlight: Ibrahima Amadou Niang, IBOU

Ibrahima Amadou Niang (@IbrahimaANiang) is the Head of the Guinea Country Office at Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) and participated in C4AAs 2016 School for Creative Activism in New York City. The following year he performed at two major literary festivals. Originally from Senegal, Ibou works on social justice issues through his work as an NGO activist and through his writing.

Alumni Spotlight: Victoria Catalina

Victoria Catalina brought her creative activism and graphic artist skills to C4AA’s 2016 Art Action Academy in Dublin, working to decriminalize sex work and workers, and has been working as a graphic designer and illustrator since then, often going back to sex worker rights and other activist themes in personal and commercial projects. Catalina has been designing for the Dutch sex workers union PROUD, and P&G292, a health organisation for sex workers in Amsterdam, among other collaborations.

Alumni Spotlight: CODO Cédric Wilfrid

Art Action Academy alumni Cédric Wilfrid Codo has been using media for social change, working with African youth, women and girls. “I am working on a cultural education project for girls and children in schools, on the presence of women in culture and sport (promotion and training) and finally on media that gives visibility to all this. I am convinced that the projects of the future will be projects that will bring together Anglophones and Francophones on projects in French. It will change the world.”