Activist Art

I have always found it difficult to separate my art from my activism, and both are informed by my academic research and writing. But during my 25 years of teaching in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University, I made this a priority in my research, teaching, and artist production. The most significant way I promoted activist art was in the founding of the Community Arts Program at York University. The CAP program created the space to connect with many programs both locally and globally, to define and debate what is activist art, and to collaborate and write about its challenges and possibilities.

Resources and publications

Photo exhibits:

⇓ Who Cleans Up After Us
⇓ Attacking the Corporate Tomato
⇓ Making Free Trade Visible
⇓ Cross-Pollinations: Photography and Social Change in the Americas

Photo-stories:

⇓ Woman as Migrant
⇓ Our Lives are on the Line
⇓ Mother Earth
⇓ Homelessness
⇓ Beware the Summer of ’88
⇓ An Intimate Connection

Books:

⇓ Naming the Moment: Political Analysis for Action
⇓ Wild Fire: Art as Activism (editor)
⇓ VIVA! Community Arts and Popular Education in the Americas (editor)

Articles:

⇓ Moment for Movements: Photo-stories from the 1980s Resonate Today
⇓ Photo Voice in Action Research
⇓ Blessings on the Food, Blessings on the Workers
⇓ Catalyzing Creativity: Education and Art Feed the Food Justice Movement
⇓ Rooted in Place, Politics, Passion, and Praxis: Decolonization, Popular Education, Community Arts, and Participatory Action Research
⇓ Dig Where you Stand!
⇓ Remapping the Americas: A Transnational Engagement with Creative Tensions of Community Arts
⇓ Decolonizing Art, Education and Research in the VIVA Project
⇓ Touching Minds and Hearts: Community Arts as Collaborative Research
⇓ Whose Nicaragua: Popular Education Across Eras, Regions and Generations
⇓ Playing with Fire: Art as Activism
⇓ By Whom and For Whom? Intersections of Participatory Research and Community Arts
⇓ Naming, Making and Connecting – Reclaiming Lost Arts
⇓ Cultural Work: Reclaiming the Power to Create

Courses:

⇓ Community Arts for Social Change
⇓ Community Arts Preparatory Workshop
⇓ Community Arts Practicum Seminar
⇓ Cultural Production Workshop

Programs:

Community Arts Practice Certificate (2015 – 2022: Certificate in Cultural and Artistic Practices for Environmental and Social Justice) currently incorporated into the Environmental Arts & Justice (BES) program