the art of campaigning
CLAIMING OUR FUTURE DECEMBER 2016
Introduction ‘Making the resistance really irresistible’ was the title of Claiming our Future’s rst fi Activist Summer Camp in 2015. It captures what the collaboration between arts and activism was about for us: Likeminded activists and artists drawing on each other’s strengths to work out strategies that can shift the values of societies. Change will follow. Our work with artists did not start in 2015. Right from the beginning Claiming our Future used the potential of integrating the arts into its work to help create social, environmental, cultural and economic change. The work evolved over the years. It involved lasting partnerships with artists, collaborative work on projects and a start to drawing upon and building the creative skills and the more general skills of activists.
Why was the artist activist connection so important? We recognised the power of art to move people, to capture people’s imagination and attention, to draw people into seeing new perspectives, and to ‘open eyes’ to alternatives to the status quo. More than this, we recognised art as a power that allows people to express themselves and to imagine different futures. Around the globe activists are using the arts to express protest, to contest issues and to make this action visible in public space. They are breaking out of the conventional tactics of protests and use of advocacy tools. They get attention from doing so, the media needs pictures and the stories can be delivered with such pictures. Claiming our Future wanted to create an opportunity of mutual benefit for artists and activists with the ‘Art of Campaigning’ approach. Activists could learn to recognise and draw upon their creative talents to imagine a better future and create new ways of pursuing social change. Claiming Our Future could tap into a broader community of activists in reaching those artists open to becoming activists. Artists could contribute their skills to issues they care about. The connection with the activist can help the
artist bring focus and meaning to his or her work. Brian Fleming puts it this way: “For artists, we’re always looking for meaning in our work. A builder can look at a house and say ‘I built that and now people can live in it’ but for artists it’s always a bit harder to define your outcomes. We’re also insecure, so we love to feel needed. For activists, the arts give a creative opportunity for selfexpression, they keep people motivated and interested. Art is also something that communities can be very good at and governments are very bad at fighting.”
Integrating the arts in our work In our deliberative events we integrated creative experiences and sought the input of artists as speakers and participants. We hoped, in this way, to energise and inspire those involved with Claiming Our Future. This reached a high point in our 2016 event, Broken Politics, which was prepared and celebrated in collaboration with a group of dancers, musicians and poets. This collaboration was not reserved for our deliberative events. We worked with artists to shape projects such as the Robin Hood Tax Campaign, the Plan B Budget campaigns and the Declaration for a Future Ireland. We used attention grabbing images to drive media
engagement and draw in people to take action. We tapped into our own inner artists. Campaigners developed their own images. However, we also worked with artists to develop ideas. In the Declaration initiative, for example, a group of artists worked collaboratively with the Claiming our Future working group to develop creative ideas and concepts to engage people into the Declaration process. The outcomes in the form of ‘Future News’ were creative, funny and inspiring. Siobhan Clancy, one of the artist we invited to work with us, describes the experience: “The most significant lesson I learned was the value of inviting the artist into the process at the earliest possible stage to establish a collaborative relationship. Good collaboration enables relationships to develop through an understanding of our mutual skill sets. I feel this is vital if we are to be able to trust in the creative process and take risks together. Future News was a risk in so far as it represented a departure from engagement strategies typically undertaken by Claiming Our Future. Those involved were required to work in a new territory in order to inspire creative responses.”
Connecting artists and activists Art and creativity influences us well beyond our ambitions to run activities that tap into the creativity of artists and activists. We sought to develop the capacity of activists more generally and to create networks of learning between artists and activists. In a joint initiative with Blue Drum in 2013 we invited artists and activists to a roundtable discussion to share experiences, challenges and future ideas for using creative tactics and building relationships to help bring about social change. Artists Siobhan Clancy and Garry White Deer shared their experience of being both artists and activists. Joe Murray of Afri reflected on their experiences of working with artists. Participants were excited by the potential of art to draw people in and to trigger values of solidarity and equality. The challenges of the activist’s and the artist’s different approaches were acknowledged. We were left with two questions: What do artists and activists need to work together better? What are the creative strategies that can help create social change? Ed Carroll from Blue Drum recalls that: “The Art of Campaigning and what followed from it helped to explore and amplify how activists and artists
could cooperate and find ways to forge more interconnections. Without more synchronicity across the diversity of the work, we can’t foment new forms of empathy, resistance and solidarity.” We organised a forum with the Advocacy Initiative in May 2014 on “Creative Strategies for Social Change”. This to deepen our understanding of the creative strategies and tactics that can support social change. We brought artists and activists together for a day to connect with each other and we provided peer led sessions to support the capacity development across a range of creative techniques. The closing panel considered the bigger question of the relationship between art and social change.
Building skills This forum tapped into a significant demand for learning. This is where the idea of the ‘Activist Camp’ weekend was born. The idea was borrowed from other countries. We wanted to create an intense learning experience for activist and artists in using creativity to inspire social change. A working group was formed to prepare the first Activist Camp in July 2015. The camp sought to bring artists and activists together to share skills, exchange ideas, engage in dialogue and emerge as a community of like-minded people who will support each other. In
workshops, activists and artists shared skills like street art, spoken word, music, performance art, photography, video making and many more. In plenary sessions, we debated how we can work better together to advance our issues. There was a shared belief that collaborating is of great value to both artists and activists. Limitations in time and resources were identified as problems, as well as the lack of networking opportunities. The strength of the activist camp lay in providing such a networking opportunity. People left the weekends with new connections, ideas and skills. Another strength was to offer the space to reflect on our own involvement in activism and art and the space to support each other both emotionally and by discussing solutions for the challenges in the work we are doing. Participants came from across Ireland and from all age groups. The first camp was a success, so it was repeated in the same two day format in the summer of 2016. Overall, we had 150 participants at the two Activist Camps.
Learning and legacy We made lasting connections between artists and activists and enhanced our creative advocacy capacity. People took new creative skills and personal connections into their homes, work and communities. The value of working
together to find new ways of engaging civil society and of initiating change was never questioned by participants. The relationship building was key. We sought to find effective ways for artists and activists to work together. Our work with artists evolved positively over time. Early attempts to ‘include’ artists into our events and campaigns came from our expectation that the artist would ‘deliver’ solutions. Over time the arts became an integrated part of our process. This culminated in the Broken Politics event in June 2016, where the program was cooperatively developed with a group of musicians, dancers and poets, among them percussionist, Brian Fleming, and dancer, Catherine Young. The artists at this event shaped the discussions with their performances. We got better at it. There are tensions that need to be minded. The work of most activists is often motivated by solving problems and pursuing specific change and solutions. Artists tend not to work towards solutions, their work is more about facilitating and initiating thinking in a more general way. We learnt from each other through these differences. Building meaningful partnerships between activists and artists is not simple. The outcome oriented activist might have to ‘let go’ of some of their control of the campaign in the process of engaging with the artist work. The artist cannot ‘deliver’ creativity within tight boundaries. Only by entering an
open-minded partnership can artists and activists create the new ways of seeking change that we are looking for. Activist and artist both had to learn to acknowledge each other’s strength in the process. The activists can bring the inspiration, facts and the experience to support outcomes, to make sure that what we are doing is leading to something. The artist can bring creativity, working on immediate communication needs such as creating events, campaign and images, and on imagining the possibilities to shift the thinking of people through their arts. Siobhan Clancy acknowledges that learning from these different ways of working can be of benefit: “I feel that artists and activists have a lot to learn from the different ways we critically engage with social issues and affected groups. Sometimes our methods are complimentary. There are conflicts to be aware of but these can also be generative. Sustaining ourselves, financially, emotionally and otherwise, while often working voluntarily on difficult issues is an ongoing challenge.” This challenge of sustainability was discussed at the Activist Camps. If we want the creativity exchanged and fostered at the Claiming our Future events incorporated into our lives, activism and art we have to get better at sustaining our networks and communication outside these events.
However, to organise this sustainability was not as easy as we thought. Practical challenges, mostly to do with time and financial resources, were identified as a real constraint. Working voluntarily can put a lot of strain on people’s resources to make and sustain the connections. We need to find ways to support each other when needed, in an efficient, easy way.
Conclusion Claiming our Future slowly opened itself to new ways of doing activism. Having artists at events was not that new, but gradually we moved to a deeper and more meaningful collaboration. We did get better in making the art an integral part in our work, cooperatively developing events and campaigns with artists instead of expecting to get creative solutions ‘delivered’. We got better at the relationship building by acknowledging each other’s strengths and roles. We initiated a valuable networking space by introducing the annual Summer Activist Camps. We have to continue the respectful dialogue and practical work together. We need to find funding opportunities that bridge the divide between activists’ programs and artists’ programs to sustain shared networking spaces. We
hope this process will continue with the 2017 Activist Camp being organised by a working group and supported by Blue Drum.
This pamphlet was drafted by Nina Sachau and Anna Visser. The publication of this pamphlet was made possible by support from St Stephen’s Green Trust Fund and Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.