DNDA‘s Nature Consortium and ReelGrrls Present ARTS IN SOCIAL JUSTICE SYMPOSIUM
Arts in Social Justice encompasses a wide range of visual and performing art that aims to raise critical consciousness, build community, and motivate individuals to promote social change.
Art is used as a means to record history, shape culture, cultivate imagination, and harness individual and social transformation. It can generate awareness, and be a catalyst to engage community members to take action around any social issue. Social justice art consequently allows people to develop agency to interrupt and alter oppressive systemic patterns or individual behaviors.
The process by which people create and engage with art equips them with analytic tools to understand and challenge social injustices through social justice education (teaching for social justice), community building, and social activism/social movements.
Visual and performing social justice art includes: drawing, painting, sculpture, murals, graffiti, film, theater, music, dance, spoken word, etc. Examples of social justice art ranges from Woody Guthrie, who was well known for performing with a sticker on his guitar that read “This Machine Kills Fascists,” to documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, street artist Banksy, author Harper Lee, famous for her novel on race: “To Kill a Mockingbird,” all the way to Beyoncé, who helped to take Feminism mainstream.
Arts in Social Justice is a one-day symposium exploring social justice artists, and observing history as well the future.
The event includes speakers specializing in film, literature, and visual art, who will share their work and discuss the importance of social justice art education, and answer questions from participants.
Join us March 9th and 10th! RSVP HERE
Meet the Speakers:
1. Joanna Tawfilis – World Renowned Artivist and Inspirational Speaker –is the Co-founder/Executive Director, of The Art Miles Mural Project and Art Miles Shoes of Hope, which has mobilized more than ½ million people from more than 125 countries to paint more than 4,000 murals. Over the past five years, Joanne has also assisted in the facilitation, painting and delivery of thousands of hand painted shoes to disarmed child soldiers, children in need, and victims of human and natural disasters across the globe.Mrs. Tawfilis is a retired UN Executive (Director of Human Resource Management Services, United Nations Environment Program) and former Director of the Women of Srebrenica Project in the former Yugoslavia. She holds a MFA from L’Acadiana Art School and several certifications in Management and Crisis Counseling Intervention. Joanne’s work unifies people through the arts to promote collaboration, understanding, and respect on a global scale with the hope of generating sustainable educational programs and actions that prevent violence and promote peace.
Find more at: www.artmiles.org
2. Elliat Graney-Saucke– documentary filmmaker & cultural researcher-blends cultural equity, intergenerational knowledge exchange, and storytelling as a way to unveil values and assets of organizations and groups. Elliat has produced a body of over twenty short films and one completed feature documentary. Currently in production are two feature documentary films: Boys on the Inside and Art Heart: Children of Riot Grrrl. Since 2000 she has been directing and producing films through Contrast Vision Productions and currently teaches film with Northwest Film Forum, Reel Grrls, Coyote Central, and Three Dollar Bill Cinema. While based in Berlin, Germany from 2009-2015, Elliat gained a Masters Degree in World Heritage Studies and co-founded the trans-disciplinary conference Innovate Heritage: Conversations between Arts and Heritage.
Since returning to Seattle, Elliat has joined the steering committees of S.A.L.T. (Seattle Arts Leadership Team – Office of Arts and Culture), Next Generation National Arts Network (National Performance Network), and theWomen’s Working Group.
Find more at: elliat-creative.com boysontheinside.com contrastvisionproductions.com
3. afrose fatima ahmed – poet and performer – is a hybrid Texan-Washingtonian whose work is deeply rooted in the images present in the natural world and the sensations of the body. afrose has self-published four poetry chapbooks, most recently season’s grievings (February 2017) and is currently working on a full length collection entitled blood gold and honey(some of afrose’s favorite things), which takes the shape of a fictional tarot deck comprised of short poems. she holds an M.A. in Asian Studies from the University of Texas where she studied Urdu literature and translated the poetry of Makhdoom Mohiuddin, a prominent progressive activist in the time of British colonization. Her writing has been published in many journals, including Juked, Ink Node (forthcoming), the Seattle Review of Books, Pontoon Poetryamong others. She is a 2017 Jack Straw Writer.
Find more at: afrosefatimaahmed.com
