ART WORKS FOR CHANGE
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Mission Statement
Art Works for Change uses the transformative power of the visual arts, storytelling and game play for positive social change. Our projects and internationally traveling contemporary art exhibitions address critical social and environmental issues.
About This Cause
Established in 2008 and incorporated in 2010, Art Works for Change strives to harness the transformative power of art to promote awareness, provoke dialogue, and inspire action. We seek to address issues of serious concern—human rights, social justice, gender equity, environmental stewardship and sustainability—in creative, inspiring, and positive ways. Our exhibitions have appeared on dozens of cities on six continents. In each host community, we partner with local organizations to create related programming that leverages the artwork to foster awareness and action. In this way, our replicable and scalable projects and exhibitions serve as a crucible where artists, museums, advocacy organizations, and local community unite as a collective force for change. Our current projects include: 1) The Oakland Resilience Biennial: Science, Technology, Architecture, and Art Converge to Examine Resilience, Equity, and Survival in a Climate Change World The Resilience Biennial is a thematic, citywide exhibition that will present visionary artwork addressing vital questions around community resilience in the face of issues such as climate change, population shifts, and income inequality. Adapting a format similar to that of international biennials, Resilience will be presented as a pilot exhibition in Oakland, which we will then replicate in selected cities such as El Paso, Los Angeles, and Detroit. By taking the artwork beyond the walls of traditional museums and locating it in public spaces that already serve the city’s neighborhoods — community centers, libraries, schools, and other venues — we intend to reach a broader and more representative audience than just art-loving museum-goers. With initial funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Nathan Cummings Foundation, AWFC has commissioned new works by internationally renowned artists and architects. Their charge: design shelter for a climate-constrained world, envisioning how to align resilience and sustainability with affordable, easy-to-build habitats. These works will be shown side-by-side with new works —in a range of mediums, and to include narrative and site-specific artworks—commissioned from local artists in each host city, ensuring that the project includes direct ties to the community and art that portrays the full conversation of a resilient and equitable city. Anticipated outcomes include: Increased public awareness and discussion about resilience issues; New programs focusing on issues of sustainability, resilience, and adaptability; Increased collaboration among allied local groups; Increased citizen participation with artists through art-making, educational workshops, and interactive activities; Ongoing community dialogue through mainstream and social media. We are looking for community-based content and expert partners; and fiscal partners. 2) The AWARE/OWARE Video Game for Female Empowerment — there are few electronic or online games that address the empowerment of girls and young women. In 2011, Art Works for Change sought to fill that need by creating the interactive AWARE/OWARE Game, designed at that time as a public artwork and forum for dialogue in Cape Town, South Africa. http://www.artworksforchange.org/awareoware-a-game-for-female-empowerment/ We are now creating a digital version of this groundbreaking game, one that enables players to share real stories of women and girls and their challenges and achievements on their journey to empowerment. The project creates and increased empathy for women and girls, and offers alternative ways of looking at "before and after" empowerment through shared storytelling. 3) The True Stories Project: Oakland and Kathmandu — harnesses the power of art and storytelling, giving voice to adolescent girls — both to those at risk for, and those already survivors of, sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, and gender-based violence in Oakland, California and Kathmandu, Nepal. Over six months, workshops facilitated by AWFC and artist mentors from the local communities in coordination with Girls Inc in Oakland, our Nepali partners, and local educational and advocacy groups to engage the youth in a two-part artistic process: 1.Participants observed and photographically documented their everyday world 2.They turned real-life experiences into visual stories that will be shared in both online and in-person exhibitions, and through community-engaged programming. The project will culminate in an exhibition hosted at the Patan Museum in Kathmandu and other venues within the United States. Participating artists include the workshop participants; artist mentors from the community and high profile artists from around the world whose work resonates with the theme of the exhibition. We are looking for content, fiscal, educational partners and host venues for the exhibition. 4) The Oakland Oral History Project For this ambitious project, the Storytellers Art Collective, created by Art Works for Change and a diverse group of like-minded artists and cultural activists, will draw from existing street art and murals as a launching point to explore the many faces of Oakland and how Oakland has evolved as an activist community. This project will create a bridge between Oakland’s activist past and present. Many of the stories of Oakland have been documented over the years in hundreds of murals found throughout the city. A self-selected demographically representative group of Oakland residents will begin a dialogue interviewing their neighbors to collect stories related to the murals and their themes. These stories will be integrated into the existing mural sites through smartphone-readable QR codes. Continuing the collaboration, the stories will be crafted into a series of new outputs, including walking tours, spoken word and hip-hop performances, a school curriculum, virtual reality videos, and a new mural envisioning the future. Our Collective has direct ties to the 83 libraries in the community as well as the expertise to publish the oral histories in book form and online. This project represents aspirations as big as Oakland itself. Rather than viewed as a city riddled with long-standing systemic problems — violence, poverty, inequity — the project will use art to reframe Oakland’s history and heritage to that of a vibrant, growing and resilient community. It will be a call to engage Oaklanders to understand and learn from one another in creating an inclusive community while celebrating its diversity. We would welcome fiscal partners and tech support for this project. 5) Footing the Bill: Art and Our Ecological Footprint — addresses the urgent need to live sustainably within the Earth’s finite resources. As human population and consumption grow, we make ever-increasing demands upon the forests, pastures, cropland, fisheries, and other biologically productive areas of this planet we call home. Art Works for Change, along with our partners at Global Footprint Network, Earth Day Network, and World Wildlife Fund, invite our audience to explore these issues through the unique lens of contemporary art in an online exhibition. The continuous project is relaunched every Earth Day and Earth Overshoot Day with our partner organizations. We would welcome fiscal and content partners to continue to expand this project and its reach.