"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.