CULTURAL ORGANIZING
These writings, workshops, courses, and other resources represent our framework for building a robust practice where culture is fully integrated into organizing.
Cultural Organizing Working Definition and Framework

Workshops

Community Iftar

Cultural Organizing for Community Change 2022
Arts & Democracy and Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts NY (NOCD-NY) presented Cultural Organizing for Community Change, a virtual event on January 8th. Workshop presenters included Jose Richard Aviles, Sage Crump, amalia deloney, Dustin Gibson, Kayhan Irani, Maxine Rebeles, James Rojas, Juan Ruiz, Carlton Turner, The United States Department of Arts and Culture (USDAC), Ayako Maruyama, Urban Bush Women, and Rosten Woo.

Prokash / Reveal
Led by artist Monica Jahan Bose, the bilingual workshop series Prokash/Reveal took place from July - Oct 2021 providing an opportunity for immigrants and first generation youth to bridge multigenerational points of views related to identity, immigration, and biculturalism. The culminating performance on October 9 at the Ave C Plaza in Kensington, Brooklyn featured a community scroll that connected the tapestries created by participants and an open mic.
Northeast , Environment , Human Rights / Social Justice , Immigration , Visual Art , Multi / Inter-disciplinary , Community Engagement
Program

Kensington Cares
Kensington Cares honored community members who led mutual aid efforts in Kensington, Brooklyn. We created this public art exhibition at the Ave C Plaza with photographers Anna and Jordan Rathkopf, Photoville, and ArtBuilt. Programming around the exhibit included a community celebration honoring the groups featured in the photographs and a neighborhood food tour. The exhibit was included in Photoville's fall festival and featured at our October concert on the plaza.
Northeast , Health , Human Rights / Social Justice , Visual Art , Community Engagement
Program


A Quest for Home Upside Down Edition

Cultural Organizing for Community Change 2020
National , Northeast , Multi / Inter-disciplinary , Alliance / Movement / Field Building
Program


We Count!
Every 10 years the constitution of the United States of America requires that every single person living in this country be counted, everyone. It is not merely a head count, it is the basis of our democracy and it informs and influences our lives. As a cultural community we can play a special role to make sure that the communities that we care about are counted in the 2020 census. This Op Ed by The Laundromat Project, Arts & Democracy, and Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts NY is a call to action to the cultural community to make sure that everyone gets counted.

Cultural Organizing for Community Change 2019

A Quest For Home
Every Saturday morning for six weeks, 10 strangers with different paths came together to write away their thoughts. At first, they all believed they had nothing in common. But they all yearned for love and acceptance. They were all on a quest for home. Read here about this journey and download the Zine that grew out of this workshop with Roohi Choudhry.
Northeast , Human Rights / Social Justice , Immigration , Literary , Multi / Inter-disciplinary
Program


Cultural Organizing for Community Change 2018

Above and Beyond Borders
and members of the New Sanctuary Coalition's art wing. It was facilitated by Raquel de Anda, No Longer Empty.
Cultural Organizing for Community Change, Brooklyn 2017

Cultural Organizing for Community Change, Brooklyn 2016

Adda Art
- AddaArt workshop flyer
- AddaArt performance flyer

Story Circle on the Right to Belong

Internet and Social Change: Building Culturally, Politically, and Technologically Connected Communities
Internet + Social Change, Building Culturally, Polically, and Technologically Connected Communities interactive workshop. National sponsors were Arts & Democracy and Media Democracy Fund. Local partners included Behailu Academy, PowerUp NC, QC Family Tree, and The Tribe. Special guests included Center for Media Justice, Color of Change, Coworker.org, and Media Mobilizing Project.
Cultural Organizing for Community Change, Brooklyn 2015

2015 KY Cultural Organizing Learning Exchange
Toolkits for Creative Change
This call featured: Envisioning Development by the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP); Making Waves by The Culture Group; and the People's Creative Toolkit/Herramientas Populares, Arts & Democracy's soon-to-launch collaboration with SEIU Local 26, Rogue Citizen, and Line Break Media.
2014 Cultural Organizing for Community Change, Brooklyn NY
At Groundswell, Reel Works and Spaceworks, 540 President Street, Brooklyn
Organizers, artists, media makers, educators, and policymakers came together to learn effective ways to deepen our work and engage our creativity in organizing for community change. The day included a cultural organizing framework, hands-on skill building workshops, case studies, resources, and networking opportunities.
Co-sponsored with Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts NY (NOCD-NY)

Art Meets Activism: A Cultural Organizing Workshop in Charlotte, North Carolina
October 18, 2014, Behailu Academy, Charlotte, NC
Over thirty artists, activists, neighborhood leaders & youth from Charlotte gathered for a Cultural Organizing workshop, produced by Arts & Democracy in collaboration with the UNCC’s College of Art + Architecture and the Charlotte Action Research Project (CHARP).

Cultural Organizing for Social Change in New Orleans
Two dozen artists and activists from the New Orleans area gathered for the 4th annual Cultural Organizing workshop, produced by Arts & Democracy in collaboration with Junebug Productions.
Cultural Organizing for Social Change, Frankfort, KY
Saturday, May 10, 2014, KY Domestic Violence Association, Frankfort, KY
Over 40 artists, organizers, activists and policy advocates from across Kentucky and beyond came together to participate in this day long workshop focused on Cultural Organizing for Social Change in Kentucky. While the group was quite diverse, they shared a belief in the power of art & culture to advance social justice for all Kentuckians. The purpose of the workshop was to connect individuals, organizations and resources to create and sustain cultural organizing as a statewide strategy.

Culture, Planning, and Community Engagement
This experiential mini-course investigated arts and culture, broadly defined, as a critical part of envisioning and building an equitable and sustainable Atlanta. Through site visits, tours, cultural events, and conversations with practitioners and policymakers representing multiple perspectives, we explored the intersection between arts and culture and participatory planning.

Cultural Organizing for Community Change - Brooklyn
Cultural Organizing for Community Change provided a space where artists, media makers, organizers and policy makers could learn effective ways to deepen their work and strengthen their capacity to connect creativity, culture, and organizing for community change.
Arts and Activism 101: Arts as a Catalyst for Social Change, Los Angeles, CA

Creative Recovery and Cultural Resiliency
Cultural Organizing for Community Change, Frankfort, KY
Cultural Organizing for Community Change (Frankfort, KY) provided a space where artists, activists, cultural workers, organizers and educators from across Kentucky came together to strengthen their relationships, and deepen their capacity to use the tools of creativity, imagination, and culture for social justice organizing. This participatory workshop featured case studies, tools, strategies, networking and relationship building.
Culture, Planning, and Community Engagement Course
This experiential mini-course for Pratt Institute's Programs for Sustainable Planning and Development investigated arts and culture, broadly defined, as a critical part of envisioning and building an equitable and sustainable Chicago. Through site visits, tours, and conversations with practitioners and policymakers we explored the intersection between arts, culture, media and participatory planning.

Cultural Organizing Weekend in New Orleans, Louisiana

Cultural Organizing for Community Change, Brooklyn, NY
Cultural Organizing for Community Change provided a space where artists, media makers, organizers and policy makers could learn effective ways to deepen their work and strengthen their capacity to use the tools of creativity, imagination and organizing for community change. The workshop included cultural organizing framework, skill building workshops, networking opportunities, and an intergenerational conversation with cultural organizers.
- BAC Sample

Participatory Budgeting NYC Creative Resources

Cultural Organizing: Integrating Arts & Culture with Organizing
Cultural organizing is a core practice of the Arts & Democracy Project that exists at the intersection of arts, culture and activism. Cultural organizing integrates arts and culture into organizing strategies. It is also about organizing from a particular tradition, cultural identity, and community of place or worldview to advance social and economic justice. This call will focus on four different approaches to to this practice.
Culture, Planning, and Community Engagement
Cultural Organizing for Community Recovery

Cultural Organizing: Experiences at the Intersection of Art & Activism
This paper explores the power of cultural organizing with examples of groups and individuals placing art and culture at the center of organizing strategies: organizing from a particular cultural identity, community of place, or worldview. It highlights the work of Third World Majority, Raices, M.U.G.A.B.E.E. and Ricardo Levins Morales.
Civil rights , Community / Regional Development , Economic Justice / Labor , Environment , Human Rights / Social Justice , Immigration , Film / Video / Audio / Digital , Traditional Cultural and Spiritual , Visual Art , Multi / Inter-disciplinary , Education / Awareness Raising , Alliance / Movement / Field Building , Political Engagement
Program

Quilt at Hopscotch House
Kentucky Foundation for Women Workshop
BCC: Building Collaborative Capacity - NYC

NOCD-NY (The Naturally Occurring Cultural District Working Group)
- Play the NOCD audio postcard
- Visit the NOCD-NY website

Cultural Organizing Workshop at ROOTS Fest
Artists who are dedicated to social justice often find themselves organizing their communities, their audiences, or even other artists. But what does it mean to be an 'organizer'? This workshop took place during ROOTS Fest's National Learning Exchange and explored the intersection between culture and organizing. (June, 2011)

Cultural Organizing for Community Recovery, New Orleans
Detroit U.S. Social Forum Workshops and Creativity Lab
Creative Recovery: Culture, Planning, and Community Engagement course
Cultural Organizing for Progressive Change session at the National Organizers Alliance Gathering VI
Cultural Organizing for Progressive Change at Michigan Policy Summit
The session explored the power of cultural organizing to expand who is included in organizing and how they are included, creatively frame and communicate visions of change, encourage critical thinking, break down fear, and humanize polarized issues. (Lansing, May 2008)

Atlanta United States Social Forum
The Arts & Democracy Project’s session on cultural organizing at the first-ever USSF in Atlanta had a standing room only crowd of 60 people. (June 2007)

Rural Cultural Organizer Gathering
This was a small 1.5 day-long strategic national gathering of cultural organizers cosponsored by the Main Street Project /Raices, Center for Rural Strategies, and the Humboldt Area Foundation in Klamath, CA, April 2007. Also participating were Alternate Roots, Appalshop, Central Valley Partnership for Citizenship, Llano Grande Center, Feral Arts, United Indian Health Services, and Northland Poster Collective.
Cultural Organizing: A Conversation at the Intersection
Planning the Revolution over Collards
Tufara Waller Muhammad and Javiera Benavente talk about arts and culture in Southern organizing and the danger of spotlighting individuals.
By Javiera Benavente
Regional , Southeast , Civil rights , Community / Regional Development , Economic Justice / Labor , Environment , Human Rights / Social Justice , Music , Theater / Performance / Spoken Word , Traditional Cultural and Spiritual , Education / Awareness Raising , Community Engagement , Political Engagement
Program
