At Global Action Project (G.A.P.), we use media as a strategic tool for creatively engaging young people in community struggles for justice. Young people, specifically those most affected by systemic inequalities, are the next generation of cultural workers and leaders who can and will, with the right training, make media that supports progressive social movements. We are intent upon giving them the kind of training they demand, which will help them position themselves to disrupt dominant narratives, tell untold stories, inspire public debate, and support popular action.

G.A.P.’s Media in Action is just such a training, designed as a national workshop series for organizers, activists, educators and youth who want to gain analytical, technical and creative skills for making and using media to advance their social justice campaigns. But more importantly, they want to use media as a way to increase youth participation and leadership in their organizations by having a creative and fun avenue for young people to contribute to organizing efforts. Media in Action also features traveling workshops and a year-long local NYC program for youth organizers.

A free, cross-generational workshop series, Media in Action takes the best of what we have to offer as a youth media arts organization and offers visual storytelling, basic production, and an advanced analysis that examines media’s power and relevance to social movements. Since we began this initiative, Media in Action has reached over 200 individuals from 100 organizations, and most recently with those organizing for immigrant justice.

To share and exchange practices, ideas and strategies with those of you who engage with art, media, and culture to build community power, we offer this description of Media in Action as a way to generate critical feedback, questions and suggestions for assessing the impact media can have on the long-term social change goals of those on the ground.

Our Recent Training: Telling Stories. Building Movements.

During the last three days of July 2008, immigrant justice organizers from across the country gathered in New York City at our space in midtown Manhattan to explore how they could use media to energize their base, engage young people in their work, and increase the impact of their campaigns. Participants included staff members and youth organizers from the Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights (COLOR) from Denver, CO; Khmer Girls in Action (KGA) from Long Beach, CA; Latinos Progresando from Chicago, IL; and the New York State Youth Leadership Council (YLC).

Facilitated by a team of G.A.P. staff and youth, Media in Action kicked off after a welcome dinner and a morning of team-building. On the first day, participants were introduced to G.A.P.’s popular education approach to youth media, and explored the relationships between power, media and ideology. Specifically, they focused on mainstream media’s negative framing of immigrant communities and its power to shape public perception and policy, and took their analysis into a production activity that had them interview people on the streets of New York. On the second day, they developed their own media power by using G.A.P.’s media strategizing tool to identify their audience, sharpen their messaging, and define impact. The third day was dedicated to one-on-one resource clinics in which each organization developed an implementation plan for their media work.

Many participants walked away from Media in Action with a renewed sense of urgency and conviction that their organization must prioritize media as a key creative strategy for engaging young people in campaign work through a vibrant use of art for impact. And since their training, here’s what some participants from our immigrant justice-focused Media in Action institute have been doing:

1) New York State Youth Leadership Council is gearing up to share what they learned through Media in Action with their media committee and is applying for a grant to expand their media work.

2) Khmer Girls in Action is using G.A.P.’s “Framing & Messaging” tool to work with their youth to produce a commercial for a teen health campaign.

3) COLOR used G.A.P.’s “Framing & Messaging” tool to plan a 10-year anniversary film that they will produce this fall. They will also present a Media Justice workshop at the Latina Health Summit using tools and techniques from Media In Action. COLOR now actively integrates media activities (e.g., exercises, definitions, explanations, and energizers) into their youth workshops.

The Future of Media in Action:

While we are very excited about the progress made to date, there is so much more to do and learn if we are going to develop a sustainable model of how to use youth media as a compelling, creative pathway for youth engagement in community-based social justice campaigns. One of our biggest challenges in integrating media work into organizing is dealing with capacity issues. Organizers are busy enough, and taking on more work can be very taxing. And certainly, producing media, though potentially rewarding, is time consuming. To understand what “success” looks like over time--do young people take on more media work inside their organizations? is media being used to further campaign work? is it well crafted with stories that are compelling?--we will follow up with these groups to see what has been of value, and how they think about and create media differently as a result of the workshops.

About G.A.P.:

Based in NYC, Global Action Project works with young people most affected by injustice to build the knowledge, tools and relationships necessary to create media for community power, cultural expression and political change. G.A.P. plans to facilitate more national institutes in the upcoming year. Please contact our outreach director, Binh Ly, if you are interested in learning more (binh@global-action.org). Media in Action has been made possible with support from The Nathan Cummings Foundation, The Ford Foundation and the Surdna Foundation.

A creative and participatory exchange of ideas about democracy will flourish in Denver and the Twin Cities during the political conventions through two nonpartisan arts events: Dialog: City, in Denver, and the UnConvention in the Twin Cities.

"These conventions are one of the most active places where the two parties reach into the space of the cultural imagination. And that is a place that we as artists have a claim to and also have a responsibility to be present to," said Sharon Hayes, an artist participating in events at both conventions, quoted in a New York Times article about the events.

Sponsored by the city of Denver, Dialog: City catalyzes civic discourse by inviting internationally renowned artists and designers to create participatory, interactive, and dialogical site-specific works in neighborhoods across the city of Denver for citizens and audiences of the greater Denver region. From political Karaoke, digital projections of Veteran stories from a Humvee, and a technology hip-hop opera on the climate impact on Antarctica - Dialog:City is a cutting-edge convergence of art and public life.

In the Twin Cities, The Uncovention, a non-partisan collective of citizens, have come together to create a forum in which to promote the democratic and free exchange of ideas on important issues. It includes Liberty Parade, a full-scale art and music celebration and a march in support of democracy and freedom of expression; Solutions Volume 3, a celebration of ideas from the Twin Cities most cutting edge designers, artists, activists and progressive thinkers; My Yard Our Message, a yard sign competition, and I Approve This Message which invites people to create short videos with their own political message. Partners include Intermedia Arts, Walker Arts Center, and Carleton College.

Many artists and cultural organizations across the country are creating work that stimulates civic dialogue in the run up to the 2008 elections. BrushFire, for example, is the national public arts initiative of Provisions Library, with events across the country in highly visible public settings such as state fairs, suburban shopping centers, public parks and recreational areas. Brushfires projects engage social issues such as immigration, the war in Iraq, food, sustainable energy, housing, the electoral process, the economy, health, and the environment. Artists include The Beehive Collective, The Floating Lab Collective, Futurefarmers, Ligorano/Reese, and Jon Winet. BrushFire will culminate in an exhibition at The American University Museum in September called Close Encounters: Facing the Future, along with a DC-wide festival of exhibitions and arts events on key social issues.

On October 4-6, 2007 the Arts & Democracy Project and Alternate Roots co-hosted a three-day conversation on cultural organizing as part of the 4th Annual State of the Nation Festival in Jackson, MS. The State of the Nation Festival is dedicated to strengthening relationships and supporting collaboration between artists from Louisiana and Mississippi who are committed to addressing social, political, and economic justice issues facing the region. The festival is a project of Alternate Roots, a network of artists from the Southeastern U.S. that supports "the creation and presentation of original art which is rooted in a particular community of place, tradition or spirit."

Throughout the year, the Arts & Democracy Project has been organizing gatherings across the country that bring together artists and activists to think about what they need to increase the impact of work that connects art, culture and activism. Several of these gatherings have focused on cultural organizing, including a national retreat for rural cultural organizers taking place in Northern California, and sessions at the first ever U.S. Social Forum (USSF) held in Atlanta, GA and at the 75th anniversary celebration of the Highlander Research and Education Center in East Tennessee. We have worked with local and regional organizers on each of these gatherings in an effort to address local concerns while undertaking the challenge of facilitating an on-going national conversation.

State of the Nation Festival organizer, Carlton Turner, participated in three of the previous gatherings and was eager to bring this conversation to the Deep South where art and culture have played such a critical role in social justice movements. He invited the Arts & Democracy Project to co-facilitate a cultural organizing session as part of the State of the Nation Festival, which proved to be a productive venue for this conversation. The gathering was hosted at the International Museum of Muslim Cultures, the first museum of its kind in the country.

About twenty folks participated in the cultural organizing session at the State of the Nation Festival including Caron Atlas (Arts & Democracy Project), Okolo Rashid (International Museum of Muslim Cultures), Amelia Kirby (Appalshop), Cynthia Ramirez, Bertha O'Neal, John O'Neal (Junebug Productions), William O'Neal (Junebug Productions), Kiyoko McCrae (Junebug Productions), Nayo Watkins (Alternate ROOTS), Jordan Flaherty (Left Turn), Gabe Barry (Homecoming Center), Casey Pritchard (Homecoming Center), Nick Slie (Mondo Bizarro), Tufara Muhammad (Highlander Center), Stephanie McKee (Neighborhood Housing Services), Bruce France (Mondo Bizarro), Owen H. Brooks (Veteran of the Civil Rights Movement), Kathy Randels (ArtSpot Productions), Sabir Abdul-Haqq (ACLU of MS), Carlton Turner (Alternate ROOTS/M.U.G.A.B.E.E.). We met for six hours a day and shared some of what we talked about during an open community dialogue on the third and final day of the festival. The group was made up mostly of community-based artists from Mississippi and New Orleans, many of whom were performing in the festival. There were also activists and organizers, primarily from Jackson, whose work explores the intersection of art, culture and organizing. Many of the people who participated in the session had long standing relationships and this fostered a level of trust and openness within the group that allowed for a frank and rich conversation.

With two days ahead of us, we spent the first morning getting to know each other and learning about how each of us came to this work, whether artistic, political or both. That afternoon and the following morning we listened to presentations by Sabir Abdul-Haqq (ACLU Digital Storytelling Project), John O'Neal (Junebug Productions/Free Southern Theater Institute), Tufara Muhammad (United African Caravan to the WSF), Stephanie McKee (Neighborhood Housing Services), Nick Slie and Bruce Frances (I-10 Witness Project). Following their brief presentations the presenters had the opportunity to have the group help them think through particular questions and challenges they were facing in their work. We concluded with a group discussion about the issues raised during the two days of conversation.

I went to Mississippi with some ideas and many, many questions about art, activism and cultural organizing that have been raised throughout the year at other gatherings or through individual conversations with artists and activists.

Some ideas: That cultural organizing is about placing art and culture at the center of an organizing strategy, it is about organizing from who we are (as a people), where you are located, it is about organizing from a particular identity, from one's worldview. While many of us have never called what we do "cultural organizing," it is something that we have been doing for a very long time, for generations even.

Some questions: How do we have an on-going conversation, across time and space that deepens and expands as it moves and keeps people connected and engaged? How do we have an intergenerational conversation that allows us to learn from our different experiences and that sheds light on the concept of a social movement? How does cultural organizing foster and support leadership? Where do we place value in this work?

These ideas and questions helped initiate the conversation in Jackson in a setting that allowed us to go deeper into our exploration of the challenges of work that exists at the intersection of art, culture and activism. It has been over a month since I returned home, and the stories, insights, challenges, and visions shared continue to reverberate in my mind, providing fertile ground for reflection.

Below are some quotes from what people said in Mississippi that have stuck with me, followed by my reflections.

" (This work) is not a job, it is not a box, it is the many experiences that make up our lives, it is a journey."

Cultural organizing is not a fixed, rigid or static practice. It is transformational in nature and as we grow, change and evolve, the practice grows, changes and evolves. It is different for each and every one of us.

"Who could have marched from Alabama to DC without a song?"

While a song alone cannot create social change, political struggle alone is not sustainable. Art and culture are vital ingredients for sustaining us through struggle and for creating the world we want to live in.

Marching thousands of miles is a powerful political act, in part, because it is an act that requires tremendous sacrifice and commitment. But we would cave in under the weight of such sacrifice alone. Song, dance, story, image can all function like buoys in the water, lifting us up, giving us the energy we need to go on.

"Art for life's sake"

Where do we place the value of art? Some have declared that art is valuable for its own sake; others believe that art is only valuable when it is used in the service of a particular moral, political or social agenda. The struggle between the independent value of art versus the value of art for the greater good can feel like a set up for those of who live at the crossroads between art and politics. Why should we have to choose? Art for life's sake places art at the center of life itself and offers us an expansive way to think about the value of art that includes a broad spectrum of artistic expressions including the explicitly political, the community-based and the experimental.

"Stories are more valuable than arguments. We need to spend more time talking to each other."

Cultural organizers privilege storytelling over debate. We value taking time with each other, listening to each other's stories and learning from one another's experiences. This allows us to find common ground and opens up new possibilities for connection and relationship building based on our shared humanity.

"The people are the leaders; organizers (role is to) help to develop leadership."

This work whether we call it "cultural organizing" or something else places value in cultivating leadership by the those most affected by the political and social conditions we are committing to changing. It is a grassroots, bottom-up approach to organizing in which the artists and organizers role is to listen, provide support, offer resources rather than set the agenda.

"(It often feels like we are) throwing small pebbles into big ponds."

It is easy to feel discouraged when we are aware of the gravity and immensity of the injustice and cruelty we are up against. At times our work feels small, disconnected and insignificant. We want to do more, we want to have a greater impact, we want to throw boulders not pebbles! Still, we need to pay attention to the ripples we make with our pebbles when assessing the impact of our work.

--Javiera Benavente, Cultural Organizer, Arts & Democracy Project

The Rural Cultural Organizer Gathering (April, 2007) was cosponsored with the Main Street Project /Raices, Center for Rural Strategies, and the Humboldt Area Foundation. This was a small 1.5 day-long strategic national gathering of rural cultural organizers who included, in addition to the cosponsors: Alternate Roots, Appalshop, Central Valley Partnership for Citizenship, Llano Grande Center, Feral Arts, United Indian Health Services, and Northland Poster Collective. The gathering offered participants an opportunity to share their place and culturally based strategies and methodologies with one another in the areas of community development, community organizing, education, communications, health, philanthropy, media, and the arts. Topics included: capacity building, generational transitions, policy change, strategic communications, cultural organizing, rural voting, organizing in the Gulf post-Katrina, civic dialogue, youth organizing, rooting your work in place and cultural identity, digital storytelling, and community and cultural mapping. The gathering sparked various collaborations and will be documented through a series of dialogues between participants and a commissioned essay. The gathering took place in Klamath, California and included an exchange with Native cultural leaders from the area. Resources from the gathering are included on the Resource List.

(Photos top to bottom: Searching for whales, the Mouth of Klamath, and some of the gathering participants)

Cosponsored with the Highlander Center and Alternate Roots. This session built on previous discussions and followed a one-day institute on cultural organizing as part of the 75th anniversary celebration of the Highlander Center in New Market Tennessee. The Highlander Center was founded in 1932 to serve as an adult education center for community workers involved in social and economic justice movements. The goal of Highlander was and is to provide education and support to poor and working people fighting economic injustice, poverty, prejudice, and environmental destruction. The Center helps grassroots leaders create the tools necessary for building broad-based movements for change. Presenters included: Co-facilitators Anasa Trautman, Highlander Center, Caron Atlas and Javiera Benavente, Arts & Democracy Project; Amelia Kirby, Appalshop; Carlton Turner, Alternate Roots; Michelle Miller, SEIU; Mathew Jones, SNCC Freedom Singers, and Baldemar Velazquez, Farm Labor Organizer Committee.

Judi Jennings, Director of the Kentucky Foundation for Women, and a participant in the gathering, wrote about the celebration in The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judi-jennings/a-human-rights-revival-in_b_66656.html

Photos top to bottom: Highlander 75th Anniversary logo, Hot 8 Brass Band, and Maurice Turner, Highlander Board Chair and Carlton Turner, co-founder of M.U.G.A.B.E.E

On Thursday, June 29, 2007 the Arts & Democracy Project hosted a session on cultural organizing at the first-ever USSF held in Atlanta, GA. Over 60 people came out to participate in this conversation. The session explored the power of cultural organizing to expand who is included in organizing and how they are included to creatively frame and communicate visions of change to encourage critical thinking, break down fear, and humanize polarized issues. Presenters shared a range of experiences, demonstrating the diverse approaches and models being developed in this field in both rural and urban contexts, involving both youth and adults, and engaging various artistic media including performance, video, and visual art. The presenters included Amalia Anderson, Co-Director of the Raices Project, a program dedicated to building and strengthening a broad-based movement for political participation within Latino communities; Michelle Miller, a Senior Producer in the Community Strength Department at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU); Thenmozhi Soundaraajan, a filmmaker, singer, grassroots media organizer and the director of Third World Majority, a women of color, Media/Tech Justice training and organizing institution based in Oakland, CA; Anasa Troutman, an artist, producer, political strategist and activist-organizer who is currently coordinating the 75th Anniversary of the Highlander Center, a popular education and research center located in New Market, TN; and Carlton Turner, the Regional Director of Alternate Roots, an organization dedicated to supporting community based arts, and M.U.G.A.B.E.E., a multi disciplinary arts group based in rural Mississippi.

"Imaging the Frame, Framing the Image?"

On Thursday, March 29th over twenty Bay Area artists, activists, and cultural organizers came together at La Pena Cultural Center for "Imaging the Frame, Framing the Image?" a discussion about the relationship between framing and cultural organizing. The gathering was organized by Ludovic Blain formerly of the New Progressive Coalition and Caron Atlas and Javiera Benavente of the Arts & Democracy Project at the Center for Civic Participation.

While many activists and organizers are working with artists, and others with framers, few are working with both, and rarely do framers and artists work together. Given the numbers of politically engaged framers and artists in the Bay Area, we decided to bring folks together to share best practices, innovations and resources, with a focus on the emerging field of framing as well as the more established artist/activist community. The gathering began with presentations by Jenn Soriano, Youth Media Council, Erik Sahlin of Real Reason and Arlene Goldbard, independent consultant and writer.

Each responded to the question-- how does the emergence of "framing" change the way you think about what political and cultural activists do, and how they can and should work together?--from the perspective of political activist, framer, and cultural activist respectively. Their presentations were followed by a lively conversation where participants elaborated on their experiences with framing and arts-based activism and discussed the similarities and differences between this work.