How are artists trained to work as activists? How are activists trained to use the arts? What are the upsides and downsides of books, in-person workshops, and online resources? In this report, I consider three modes of teaching and learning in order to be better, stronger, more creative, and more engaged arts-based community activists.

 

On the Page

Though I have stood before countless activists' bookcases and run my fingers along the spines of shelves-worth of books about arts activism, I find that Beautiful Trouble: A Toolbox for Revolution, assembled by Andrew Boyd (2012), concisely captures the most useful tactics, principles, theories, and case studies related to progressive social justice work today. This book is a must-have for educators working with novice activists, for artists hoping to push their practice towards activism, and for activists seeking new, creative approaches to igniting positive social change.

Boyd begins the book with more than thirty different tactics, so simply articulated that nearly anyone could follow the step-by-step guides. Each tactic, contributed by a different activist or activist collective, includes a description of how it is commonly used, a list of practitioners who have mastered it, and related theories and case studies. Ranging from flash mob to image theater to artistic vigil, the contributors provide a dizzying array of options for how to achieve your action goal. Later sections of the book that investigate principles and theories present the "why" following the "how." Written in simple, jargon-free language and bedazzled with photographs and quotations from the battlefields of the Republican National Convention to Occupy Wall Street, these sections offer enough substance to ground the tactics in their social political contexts.

This is the kind of book you want to toss in your suitcase for your organization's board retreat or add to your syllabus as a resource guide. Chocked full of simple, easy-to-follow ideas and stories, Beautiful Trouble will ensure that no activist need ever whine, "I just don't have any ideas for how we can take action." The book is a toolbox at its best and possibly its worst, containing every tool you could need to get the job done without a set of principles for selecting one rather than another. Organized alphabetically, the toolbox can feel like a randomly assorted mix, without any order or direction. Dip your hand in and grab a handful—you might get a hammer, a glue gun, or a clown wig, and it is up to you the reader to know what job the tools will tackle.

 

In Person

In a room too small for the scores of bodies perched on chairs, sitting in circles on the carpet, and leaning against the walls, an energetic team of arts activists shared their crafts. Creative Action Training, held over a bitingly cold weekend at New York University in February 2014, was a first-time coming together of three innovative, creative, action-oriented organizations. Beautiful Trouble, Yes Men/Yes Lab, and The Center for Artistic Activism together attempted to train a room bursting with artists, activists, and organizers hungry to learn new skills, tricks, and language and to connect with each other across diverse issues, disciplines, and experiences.

The organizers received hundreds of applications from people eager to participate in their intensive, two-day, arts-infused activist workshop. They accepted 50 people, myself included. Because participants were at varying levels of experience, training, and education in arts and/or activism, the facilitators wisely began in small groups, engaging in conversations about personally successful and unsuccessful actions. The draw for me—and for many of the participants—was the community-building component of this training about community building. In alignment with the content, the facilitators included performative, arts-based activities. After sharing stories in a circle, we were charged with staging short vignettes that captured the heart of one of the actions we had discussed, and presenting them to the full group. The difference between reading a book about tactics and hearing first-hand accounts from people about how the tactics worked (or didn't) on the ground was invaluable.

A facilitator from the Center for Story-based Strategy (www.StoryBasedStrategy.org) introduced a useful exercise called "Points of Intervention" (http://www.storybasedstrategy.org/sites/smartmeme.drupalgardens.com/files/201306/CSS_POINTSINTERVENTION_WORKSHEET.pdf), which is designed to "help grassroots activists identify points of intervention in both physical and cultural/idea space where they can take action in order to make change." These could be points of production, consumption, or decision, depending on the specifics of the campaign. We also discussed other methods such as developing concentric circles identifying close allies, potential allies, and enemies. Though useful for many folks in the room, some of the training techniques veered into lectures, PowerPoint presentations, and charts—techniques not particularly different from reading about the strategies in a book or on a webpage. Because so much was crammed into two days, at times the energy in the room was too focused on disseminating information rather than igniting dialogue or collectively deconstructing action tactics.

The highlight of the training was a long-form activity presented by the tag teaming, dynamic duo Stephen Duncombe and Steve Lambert, co-founders and co-directors of the Center for Artistic Activism (http://www.artisticactivism.org). They led us through their brilliant flagship activity, Imagining Utopia, beginning with a quite personal interrogation of one of the participants, pushing her to articulate the details of her perfect world. They had asked us all to imagine our vision for the world if the crises we were fighting to fix suddenly were fixed. They then asked us to think beyond and imagine a bolder vision when the next round of issues were fixed. And the next. And the next. Until we were invited and challenged to articulate Utopia. We split into working groups according to content issues from our day jobs or freelance, midnight activist work. Each group was given colored markers and a large sheet of white paper and invited to draw and color our visions as opposed to articulating them with language. The activity included a comprehensive, thought-provoking sequence of drawings which started in one corner of the poster board, doodling our issue as it exists today, drenched in its detailed pains and struggles. In the opposite corner, we drew our ridiculously utopian, not-needing-to-conform-to-laws-of-physics-or-society dreamscape. The heart of the activity was strategizing how to get from A to Z. Creative, innovative, smart, and doable strategies emerged from each group. The combination of sharing and passing around purple, green, and orange markers as the participants in each group imagined the impossible allowed us to crack through the monotonous predictability of so many strategy sessions where the same ideas get tossed back and forth. "A petition!" and "A street protest!" were replaced by "Amnesia pills!" and "Time travel! "And somehow in the space between absurdity and reality, innovation erupted.

The weekend also included media training, action-pitch practice, and other group and partner activities providing a broad survey of approaches. Because of the time-crunch, we moved quickly and urgently from facilitator to facilitator and from activity to activity, which in itself presented insights about different styles of facilitating community engagement. As an arts activist who often facilitates workshops, teaches classes, and directs rehearsals, I cherish and recommend taking advantage of all opportunities to be participants and observe and learn from diverse presentation formats and styles. I realized that even beyond the content I consumed, I was surrounded by formats and experiences that will prove useful for years to come. Bouncing from activity to activity, I wished that more time could have been allocated to providing space and time for the people in the room to network and share resources. It was such a rare opportunity to surround myself with so many arts activists, that I wanted to make connections between people, not just between theories.

 

Online

An online resource is about to launch that could enhance the way we work as community artists and organizers. The Action Switchboard "will be a human-staffed online platform bringing users together for creative direct actions ('schemes'), each of which will support a specific campaign goal of interest to one or more NGOs" (http://yeslab.org/actionswitchboard/). As part of the Creative Action Training, we had the opportunity to beta-test this resource with a potential group action project. I was blown away. Part OkCupid, part Kickstarter, part Craigslist, this new website could accelerate change from 3-speed bike mode to rocket ship speed. The premise is simple. First, imagine your dream action project. Then build a page for your project on the site, articulating your goals and strategies. Identify the issues your action tackles, such as racism, gender inequality, or climate change. Then list the skills, supplies, and funds you need for your "scheme" to happen. And then wait. But likely not for long. For in our dream future, hundreds, thousands, millions of creative activists will have their own pages and profiles on the Action Switchboard and links will link to more links. People will connect with others committed to the same causes and join or replicate schemes they read about on the site. Isolated video editors loaded with skills but hungry for connection will discover projects in need of their expertise. The Action Switchboard is not the first website designed to facilitate new activist partnerships, but it seems to be the most interactive and user-friendly. Though it is too soon to evaluate its impact, its potential is thrilling.

Reading is a solo activity. Workshops are face-to-face, involving selected groups of people in a contained space and time. The Internet is global. Each of these interfaces offers necessary and important structures and potential for arts activist training. Together, they will help us arm ourselves with the tools, vision, strategy, and community to transform our world.

 

Work Cited