Social Justice

"We are thrilled and delighted to be launching two new Artists At Work (AAW) programs in the Mississippi Delta and Greater Chattanooga Thrive Region," AAW shared in an announcement earlier this month. "We are honored to be championing these artists and their communities as they work together on projects that highlight the positive impacts of artistic civic engagement."

Robin D. G. Kelley shares "Back to the Future: Complex Movements Make Revolution," an essay from memory on a conversation with 2022 Knight Arts + Tech Fellows Complex Movements in Shift Space 2.0, a publication exploring new media landscapes. Kelley recollects, "Radical philosopher Grace Lee Boggs (1915–2015) was the catalyst for Complex Movements, which took its name in 2010 after listening to her invoke quantum theory to explain new directions in organizing."

A new report from Salzburg Global Seminar, The Creative Power of the Arts: Reimagining Human and Planetary Flourishing looks at creative reforms in the target areas of climate, health, education, and justice. According to the announcement, "As the world confronts the compounded impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, climate crisis, and structural injustices, societies are bracing for a protracted and complex period of reassessment, reimagination, and restructuring. The culture and arts sector must be at the table and included in decision-making processes as societies seek to eschew a return to 'normal' and instead reimagine more creative pathways towards human and planetary flourishing."

Playwright Lynn Nottage, director Kate Whoriskey, and Ford Foundation president Darren Walker gather for a conversation about a new production, "Clyde's," at Second Stage Theater. Supported by the Art for Justice Fund, with the goal of ending mass incarceration and underlying racial bias through art and advocacy, "Clyde's" shines a needed light on the importance of 'fair chance' employment opportunities to empower people to rebuild their lives who are returning home from prison face many challenges and this play.

"The Open Society Foundations are proud to announce their Justice Rising Awards, a new investment in leaders working towards racial justice and equality in the Black community in the United States," according to the press release. "The 16 awardees from across the country are being recognized for their long-term contributions to advancing change in their communities, tireless commitment to civil rights, and capacity to inspire, innovate, and mobilize people despite considerable odds."

"When I think of the phrase 'You’re always a day late and a dollar short,' I also think about resilience—the ability to recover from or adjust easily to, despite hard luck or change," writes Helanius J. Wilkins in a poignant essay published in the National Performance Network (NPN) blog. "One of my earliest lessons about resilience came through observing my father."

"I’ve witnessed how public art can draw attention to issues of community safety, awaken empathy, mobilize a community, and even generate dialogue between people holding differing opinions," writes Mallory Rukhsana Nezam, guest editor for Issue 3 of FORWARD, focused on community safety.

“Our work here in Chinatown,” Yin Kong, director and co-founder of Think!Chinatown, says, “Is about place-keeping. It’s about celebrating, strengthening and amplifying,” in an interview with NextCity. The article continues, "For a neighborhood relatively compact in size — Chinatown covers roughly two square miles in Lower Manhattan — it boasts an impressive and dedicated collective of cultural organizers," and more than $200 million announced in public dollars just in the past two years, after decades of "pigeon-holing" and insufficient funding.

"Color Congress, a national collective of majority people of color (POC) and POC-led organizations aimed at centering and strengthening nonfiction storytelling by, for and about people of color in the US, has launched in advance of the 2022 Sundance Film Festival," Filmmaker magazine reported this January leading up to the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. "Founded by documentary impact and field-building strategists Sahar Driver and Sonya Childress, the collective will invite POC-led doc-serving organizations to apply for unrestricted two-year funding from a $1.35 million fund, and later in the year, they’ll be invited to join the Congress and direct over $1 million in grants aimed at addressing field challenges."

In a recent review in Elle Decor, art critic Kimberly Drew surveys the first-of-its-kind period room that presents an imagined Black home in New York City. "The exercise coined by [Saidiya Hartman, Ph.D.] is the work of overlaying historical gaps with imaginative narrative building," Drew writes. "This practice stems from the reality that the everyday lives of Black people have often been underdocumented or plainly ignored."