Thursday, June 30, 2011
12:00pm-1:00pm EDT
Nadine Bloch, creative resistance and nonviolent direct action educator and practitioner, explores how some of the most impactful and memorable moments from civil resistance and nonviolent movements are sung by the masses, printed by the thousands, enacted through craft, painted in vivid color, or performed in traditional dress. This webinar takes a critical look at Creative Cultural Resistance: the broad use of arts, literature, and traditional practices in the service of protest and political and social actions.
Nadine Bloch teases out the strategic powers of cultural resistance. Through compelling examples this talk covers the immense diversity of methodologies that have been employed in resistance, from 2-D and 3-D arts, to sound/music and theater/movement arts. From literature and crafts, to documentation and delineation of space, as well as rituals and language preservation, we will look at the power of cultural work in organizing, mobilizing and grounding actions.
“Often such little small cultural experiments open up space and possibility for the bigger changes to happen. The real seeds for revolutionary changes can grow in artistic practices.”–John Jordan
“Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.”–Bertolt Brecht
“The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible.”–Toni Cade Bambara
Additional Resources
- Presentation slides
- Engineers of the Imagination, Welfare State International, Baz Kershaw and Tony Coult, Methuen, 1983, revised 1990
- The Art of Protest: Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the streets of Seattle, T.V. Reed, University of MN (2005)
- Cultural Resistance: A Reader, Stephen Duncombe, ed. (2002)
- Adbusters ( magazine)
- Theater of the Oppressed, Games for Actors and Non-Actors, Augusto Boal
- Ruckus Society Creative Direct Action Visuals Manual
- The Activist Cookbook: Creative Actions for a Fair Economy (Fair EconoMy Press, softcover, 1996)
- 68 Methods for Puppet MakingHow to videos…
- Making the News: A Guide for Activists and Nonprofits, Jason Salzman
- Wise Fool Basics