Social Justice

In a recent Artsy article, Kemi Ilesanmi, executive director of The Laundromat Project (The LP), discussed the mission and the work of this New York–based, POC-centered organization "that aims to meet the concerns of local communities of color and enact change through public engagements with the arts by actualizing spaces like community gardens, plazas, and, yes, laundromats."

This session shared findings from a partnership between GIA and the Cultural Strategies Council and the National Accelerator for Cultural Innovation to explore how non-arts funders can transform their practice to advance racial justice via cultural expression and the arts.

As another systems practitioner aspiring to transformational systems change (from the public health sector and local government), I greatly appreciated and enjoyed the breadth and sharpness of this panel’s expertise and analysis. First was the reminder by Kiley Arroyo of the Cultural Strategies Council that transformational change involves engaging multiple levers at once—at the foundational level, that of “deep culture” or paradigm change. What happens when we start by decentering the Western, settler colonial, extractive worldview? What happens when we start with a different story?

Coco Fusco writes in Hyperallergic that “equity won’t be achieved by a new biennial, another emerging artist of color survey, or a record auction sale by a Black artist.”

In "The Quantum Nature of Black Revolutionary Theatre" part of Black Theatre Commons' A Call for Revolutionary Theatre 2020 series, Sage Crump discusses how quantum ideas "evident in nature and how our communities organize outside of government control, can support honing the practice of Black Revolutionary Theatre."

As protests for racial justice seethed through Philadelphia, "Philadelphia’s Bread & Roses Community Fund, a grant-making organization with a social-justice mission, received as much in donations — more than half a million dollars — as it would normally get for the whole year," The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

Pillars recently introduced its Muslim Narrative Change Cohort, integrated by Muslim artists, practitioners, academics, and thinkers who, according to the announcement, "are creating a transformative narrative strategy that will offer us the opportunity to change stories, ideas, behaviors and, ultimately, society".

The full transcript of this podcast is published below.
Explore the full GIA podcast.

The full transcript of this podcast is published below.
Explore the full GIA podcast.

The Ford Foundation asked 40 thinkers to reimagine the future of the creative industry in the midst of "the social, racial, and economic reckoning laid bare by COVID-19 and a growing movement for Black lives." Creative Futures: 40 Provocations to Reimagine the Arts, Documentary, and Journalism is the result of that inquiry, a series of short essays that will unfold through the fall of 2020.

"When it comes to racial bias, you either participate in it actively or through silence, or you use your power and privilege to dismantle it. Each day you make this choice – when you serve as a juror, when you call the police or see someone else call and when and for whom you vote. If oppression happens, then we are allowing it to happen and we are all in the position to stop it."