On Sunday, May 21, a citywide and national network of organizers, artists, media makers, and policy makers gathered for Cultural Organizing for Community Change 2023, co-sponsored with Arts & Democracy, to learn effective ways to deepen work and engage creativity in organizing for community change. The hybrid day, at Mercury Store in Gowanus and on Zoom, included our cultural organizing framework, hands on skill building workshops, case studies from across NYC and beyond, and networking and resources.

Our welcome, Getting to Know One Another, and Cultural Organizing Framework included Hatuey Ramos-Fermín and Caron Atlas, NOCD-NY; Emily Ahn Levy, NOCD-NY; and amalia deloney, Arts & Democracy. Multiple artists and practitioners shared how cultural organizing impacts their work, including several opportunities for the full room of folks to discuss the framework in small groups.

Participants had a momement of activation with Urban Bush Women, then added their favorite cultural organizing resources in a shared chart paper exercise.

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In-Person afternoon workshops included:

Creating Arts & Policy Change in Kentucky with Families of Incarcerated Loved Ones with Judi Jennings, Louisville Family Justice Advocates and Community Artist Layfierre Mitchell

This participatory workshop offered hands-on artmaking and tools for challenging the local legal justice system in Kentucky. Layfierre Mitchell led an original art activity created for children and caregivers in the Visitors Lobby of the Louisville Jail. He demonstrated his evolution as a public artist, beginning with photography, including capturing police activities during the Breonna Taylor uprising, and now music and clothing design. Judi Jennings discussed Health Impact Assessments as a tool for criminal legal change and led a strategic development exploration on creating art, health and local policies to prevent deaths in jails and reduce harm to families with incarcerated loved ones. This provides foundations for decarceration and abolition.

Envisioning De-gentrified Futures: A Cultural Organizing Workshop with Betty Yu, Anna Ozbek and Diane Wong, Chinatown Art Brigade

What is cultural organizing? How can artists and cultural work contribute to de-gentrification, abolition and social change? The workshop explored these questions and drew from facilitators’ own experiences of working with the Chinatown Art Brigade over the course of seven years. The session was interactive and invited participants who wished to learn more about the intersections of storytelling, memory work, and direct action.

Growing Pains & Preserving the Past in Gowanus with Michael Higgins, Social Justice Walks

Eighteen months after the formal approval of the Gowanus neighborhood rezoning, many parts of the community feel like an open construction site. As one streetscape makes way for another, it is easy to lose track and memory of the players, promises and compromises made in the decade of community planning up to this point. This neighborhood walking experience illustrated the many pieces to the puzzle in juggling preservation and development happening in real time along the canal.

Mindful Bodies and Reflective Practices with Danielle Criss, Urban Bush Women BOLD

This participatory workshop focused on self-care, rejuvenation, and (re-)constructing healthful images of ourselves and our communities. As participants moved, shared stories, and discussed holism practices from food choices to daily stress relief, Urban Bush Women BOLD (Builders, Organizers, and Leaders through Dance) offered simple tools for reinhabiting our bodies and reinforcing holism from the inside out. The session brought out and affirmed the wisdom that was already in the group, fostering resource exchange and building community. The goal was to bring participants to balance, thereby bringing families and communities to balance as well.

Performance Tools for Community Change with Vaimoana Niumeitolu & Carly McCollow, Ping Chong and Company

Ping Chong and Company’s theatrical work centers a deep commitment to social justice, exploring the interconnectedness of cultures, identities, and place through artistic innovation, collaboration, and community engagement. In this workshop, PCC artists shared theatrical tools and storytelling practices that can be used anytime, anywhere to engage place-based communities, and advocate for social justice & change.

Reimagining New York City with amalia deloney, Arts & Democracy

Arts & Democracy facilitated an interactive and participatory workshop that used a string of popular education, community education, and liberating microstructures designed to include everyone in shaping next steps. Together, the group built on previous work led by Arts & Democracy and NOCD-NY to re-imagine the city through visioning sessions and learning exchanges in the five boroughs. They explored the potential for healing, recovery and transformation using the wisdom, imagination, and creativity of community organizations, neighborhood residents and artists in transformative change. While focused on NYC, all participants were welcome to bring their experience and knowledge of their home community.

Stories in Place, Stories of Me: a scavenger hunt and writing workshop with Roohi Choudhry

Our personal narratives are a patchwork map of memories, inherited experience, and also, our sensing bodies in the everyday. In this workshop, participants collected their sensory observations and stitched them with memory to tell stories that honored the neighborhoods we move through. The group spent some time wandering the streets of Gowanus and scavenging for stories. Then, they returned for writing and map-making prompts to help turn their found scraps into story treasure. Roohi is a wanderer, researcher, and creative writing teacher. Find out more at brooklynstani.com

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Virtual afternoon workshops included:

Story Sharing as Democratic Practice with Nick Slie

Participants joined theater artists Nick Slie for a session exploring place, embodiment, and story. This session will investigate the rich interconnectedness between landscape, memory and place-keeping. Participants investigated the role of art in layering new visions upon and drawing attention to untold histories of familiar places and used the Story Circle Process of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee’s Free Southern Theatre to explore the stories our bodies are shaped by and hold.

Snapshot of This is what participatory democracy looks like! virtual workshop

This is what participatory democracy looks like! with Participatory Budgeting Project, Democracy Beyond Elections, and Art.coop

Participatory democracy is what happens when we can all participate in the decisions that impact our lives. With Ingrid Haftel, Petula Hanley, Sruti Suryanarayanan and Ebony Gustave, the workshop explored what community-led decision-making looks like in practice across the globe. They used this zine as a guide, and held space for how these practices have deep roots in our Black, Indigenous, and immigrant cultural traditions. Then, the exploration continued as they drew connections to their own lives and practice with some collaborative zine making!

NOCD-NY and Arts & Democracy will host a couple of freestanding Cultural Organizing workshops in 2023/2024, returning again for a full day in Fall 2024. We hope you can join us!

This program was supported by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, National Endowment for the Arts, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Lily Auchincloss Foundation. Thank you to New York City Council Member Shahana Hanif, and you for supporting this workshop.