Advocacy and Activism
Ray Smith
Symposium: Workers Struggles in the 21st Century: The Role
of Art
View Art Works' Symposium
website here
Since the 19th century,
workers and labor leaders in this country have turned again
and again to the arts – to music, drama, the graphic arts,
poetry, writing, testimony, and now, increasingly,
photography, video, and digital technology – to tell their
stories, to raise consciousness, to educate, to reach new
audiences, to rile people up, to forge solidarities, to
embolden the fearful, to unleash creativity, to bring people
to their feet, to fight for dignity and justice. This
symposium asks how the arts are being used by workers and
their leaders today. What are the realities of cultural
activism on the ground? How are today’s workers using
artistic and cultural expression to empower, energize,
educate, communicate, organize and mobilize? How are they
using culture in
action? When and how has such action made a difference,
and what difference does it make?
This symposium brings together presentations of
scholars, activists and performers in a variety of genres.
Andy Stern, President of SEIU, and Esther Cohen, Director of
Bread and Roses, will co-present as keynoters at the
conference. In addition, the symposium has
partnered with
local unions on “art-in -action” projects undertaken in the
weeks leading up to the symposium and will be reported on at
the conference: these are writing/photography and graphic
banner projects with SEIU 1199, and a dramatic performance
project with SEIU 200United. The following individuals will
be presenting at the conference. Stay tuned for specific
dates and times.
Graphic Arts:
Mike
Alewitz (muralist, labor activist, professor at Central
Connecticut State University)
Lincoln
Cushing (author, activist, archivist at the University
of California, Berkeley)
Peter Sawchuk (sociology, University of Toronto)
Performance Art:
Worker
Defense Project
Marty
Pottenger (labor artist)
Jan Cohen Cruz (Imagining America)
Documentary Filmmaking:
Kathy Leichter (independent filmmaker)
Vivian Price (California State University)
Writing:
Nick Pollard (Sheffield University)
Anne Marie Taliercio (UNITE-HERE)
Helena Worthen (labor educator, University of Illinois)
Photography:
Esther
Cohen (Executive Director, Bread and Roses)
Gert Danzy (SEIU 200United, Syracuse University)
Tamara
Kay (sociology at Harvard)
Music:
Elise Bryant (labor artist and musician)
Tom
Juravich (labor musician, and professor of Sociology at
University of Massachusetts, Amherst)
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