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. …
Continue reading “Artistic Action: Sex Worker Rights in Dublin”
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, …
This is one in a series of webinars. You can see all of them here. You don’t need to watch all of them, or watch them in order, and they’re open to everyone – please share! See the list of all of our webinars. Feel free to share with friends. Donate to keep these webinars free.
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 …
Continue reading “How to Win Webinar #11: Recalibrate Reality”
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 …
Continue reading “How To Win Webinar #10: Make Your Meetings Inventive”
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 …
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 …
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 …
Continue reading “C4AA Fundamentals #7: Stay Hopeful & Avoid Burnout”
Stephen Duncombe and Steve Lambert give some pointers on developing a creative practice. In arts and activism the product gets all the glory. In the art world, an artist’s talent is judged by what she has created: the painting that hangs on the wall of a museum or is sold in a gallery, or the …
The co-founders of the C4AA discussed human cognition – how people think and process information. The Questions Why is it that people don’t seem to care about truth and the facts? Why is it so hard to change people’s political opinions? How do we introduce new ideas in audiences when their way of thinking doesn’t …
Stephen Duncombe and Steve Lambert dug back into social movements through the ages. What did they discover? All successful activism has been artistic activism. Through examples, going back thousands of years, we examine the lessons from creative movements of the past, finding the kernels of ideas you can apply in your work today. Many workshop …
Continue reading “C4AA Fundamentals Webinar #4: What we’ve learned from history”
Founders of the Center for Artistic Activism answer the question, what do we mean when we say “artistic activism” anyway? Through looking at disparate examples, we expand our thinking on the the ways creativity can affect power. (Many past participants cite this section as one of the most inspiring.) But we’ll also talk about common …
Continue reading “C4AA Fundamentals Webinar #3: What is Artistic Activism?”
Founders of the Center for Artistic Activism discuss how an effective campaign for change is structured. We cover goals, objectives, tactics, and strategy and how you can use these concepts in your creative practice and/or collective organizing. C4AA Fundamentals is a free webinar series is designed to cover the core concepts of artistic activism for …
Continue reading “C4AA Fundamentals Webinar #2: Building a Creative Campaign”
The founders of the Center for Artistic Activism discuss some basic principles of using creativity in organizing and pitfalls to avoid. This webinar is designed to provide some structure to your thinking and planning around how to creatively, and effectively, respond in the weeks to come. The webinar is done and we have a video …
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We don’t agree with his policies, but this ad is funny and very effective: Gerald Daugherty, a Republican county commissioner in the Austin-area Travis County, has produced one of the best ad-spots of the season, depicting him as a politics-obsessed public servant whose long-suffering, side-eyeing wife can’t wait for him to be re-elected so she …
This short video includes some of the work the C4AA collaborated on with the Sex Work Education and Advocacy Taskforce
Working with several advocates for the decriminalization of sex work, we took over the controversial sculpture “Perceiving Freedom” in Cape Town. The action was the culmination of our School for Creative Activism workshop in Cape Town. Selected Press This is Africa – Sex Workers Protest African Seer – Sex At the Specs – Sex Workers …
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There’s a Massive, Illicit Bust of Edward Snowden Stuck to a War Monument in Brooklyn While most people slept, a trio of artists and some helpers installed a bust of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in Brooklyn on Monday morning. The group, which allowed ANIMAL to exclusively document the installation on the condition that we hide …
Continue reading “Edward Snowden monument placed (and removed) in New York City”
“In response to stereotypes and intolerance, one man — with a flowing beard and bright blue turban — dashes around the Big Apple in a Captain America uniform.” Learn more about the project by visiting: http://www.redwhiteandbeardfilm.com/
