ART IS CHANGE: Strategies & Skills for Activist Artists & Cultural Organizers

CALL TO ARTISTS: Share your story: 3 minutes from the fieldAlready doing arts-based work to support free and fair elections, or about to? Record a message of about 3 minutes on your phone and answer three questions:Who are you? Your name, where you are, and what you do.What are you up to? How you are using your creative skills and strategies to support and protect free and fair elections.How come? Why you are doing this. If others can join you, tell us how.Record and send it HERE We'll weave as many voices as we can into upcoming episodes.One-stop election protection directory by stateEvery opportunity in one place: who, what, where, when, and how to reach them. Start with Anywhere in the U.S., then find your state. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov 3, 2026. Entries are nonpartisan unless marked.For any Center for Artistic Activism project without its own link, write to Rachel Gita Karp, [email protected] — she connects volunteers to the local team.Anywhere in the U.S.Civic Culture Club (featured guest: Jiva Manske) — Artists and cultural workers as strategists for election protection, voter mobilization and civil resistance that lasts past Election Day. Host an Election Eve: Rebirth party tied to the organizers' live event in Brooklyn; build a crew with the Sustain the Movement! toolkit; join pre-election calls; share art organizers can use free (Create Joy). When: Election Eve, Nov 2; pre-election calls now. Contact: civiccultureclub.org/take-action (free toolkits, email sign-up); join: form.typeform.com/to/gm3AYc1RPower the Polls — Become a paid poll worker. Where: your county. When: apply now; most trainings close in October. Contact: powerthepolls.orgElection Protection (Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law) — Nonpartisan poll monitor or hotline volunteer. Where: your home state only. When: early voting through Nov 3. Contact: 866ourvote.org/volunteer; lawyers [email protected] hotlines to share — 866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683) · Spanish 888-VE-Y-VOTA (888-839-8682) · Asian languages 888-API-VOTE (888-274-8683)Center for Artistic Activism — Free office hours to plan your own creative voter project. When: doubled through October. Contact: c4aa.org/office-hours, [email protected], (646) 832-2454DJs at the Polls (founder Anton Moore) — Paid DJ sets at polling places. When: Nov 3. Contact: djsatthepolls.org/djsHeadCount — Register voters at concerts and festivals; see the show free. When: through Election Day. Contact: headcount.org/volunteerArt for Democracy (Lena Wolff & Hope Meng) — Free VOTE posters to print and post; never sold or altered. Contact: art-for-democracy.org/downloads; @lenawolffstudio, @hopemengdesignArtsVote (Americans for the Arts Action Fund) — Arts-sector voter campaign; toolkits and 501(c)(3) rules for arts organizations. Contact: artsvote.org, artsactionfund.org/artsvoteFall of Freedom (Dread Scott, Lynn Nottage, Hari Kunzru and others) — Network of artist-run anti-authoritarian events; 2026 weekend was Oct 2–4. Contact: falloffreedom.com, @falloffreedomResistance Revival Chorus — Guidance on starting your own protest chorus. Contact: resistancerevivalchorus.comFranciscan Action Network with Jewish Partnership for Democracy — Poll chaplains trained in de-escalation. Contact: America Magazine reportPostcards to Swing States (partisan, Democratic) — Write GOTV postcards from home. Contact: turnoutpac.org/postcardsA list of Your own deadlines: vote411.orgBy StateArizonaStop the Vote — Yana Landowne's satirical troupe Trillionaires for Trump stages mock campaigns to spur turnout. Where: AZ (also CA, NY, WA). When: through Nov 3. Contact: trillionairesfortrump.orgCounty poll workers — Maricopa, Pima and Yuma counties are hiring. Contact: Power the Polls or your county elections office (guide)CaliforniaDEMOCRATIC SPACE — Polly García (Cosmovision LLC): alien-defector puppets register voters and offer mutual aid. Where: Lake Merritt, Oakland. When: through Nov 3. Contact: [email protected](N)ICE Officers Deployed at Polling Stations — Kristina Wong with director Jenessa Joffe: satirical video and public filming to counter ICE-related voter fear. Where: Koreatown, Los Angeles. Contact: [email protected]'RE WELCOME — L.M. Bogad: "oligarchs" take to streets and seas on California's ballot measures. Where: statewide, details to come. Contact: [email protected] the Vote — Trillionaires for Trump. Contact: trillionairesfortrump.orgArt for Democracy — Bay Area home base of the free-poster project. Contact: art-for-democracy.orgArtists 4 Democracy — LA artists and art educators: campus workshops, art sales, postcard parties, registration drives. Where: Los Angeles, California campuses, swing states. Contact: artists4democracy.com, @a4d_artistsfordemocracyCalifornia for the Arts — Create the Vote — Free 2026 Election Engagement Resource Guide. Contact: caforthearts.orgSan Diego County poll workers — Two-day training; up to 11 days of service before Election Day. Contact: sdvote.comDistrict of ColumbiaLeaving the Party — Living-room theater and deep canvass by ashley sparks. When: dates to come. Contact: substack.com/@leavingthepartyFloridaBaddies to the Ballot — Mel De Miami, Ibis Valdez, Nina Osoria Ahmadi, Bella Lavish: nightlife-scene "I Voted" selfie pop-ups; content in English, Spanish, Haitian Creole. Where: Miami-Dade. Contact: [email protected] Election Protection Coalition — Voting-rights legal monitors with a car. When: Nov 3, 6:30

Who decides There are lots of ways to censor an artist. You can ban the book, close the exhibition, cancel the performance. We know what those look like. But there's another way: you can make the artist wonder. Wonder whether a character will cost the theater a grant. Whether a festival celebrating queer artists is still fundable. Whether a nonbinary actor can play Faust.In this Freedom of Expression Weather Report, we follow a few sentences inserted into the federal arts funding system. We start with the three theaters and the national service organization that took the National Endowment for the Arts to court, and Judge William E. Smith's ruling that the NEA's "gender ideology" policy put an unconstitutional thumb on the scale. Then we listen in on the October 2026 arguments before the First Circuit. And we track how anti-DEI certifications and canceled grants have traveled downstream, from Providence to Boston, from New York to Gallup, New Mexico, where some arts groups signed, some refused, and neighbors passed the hat.If you've ever filled out a grant application and caught yourself editing the art to fit the form, this one's for you.Key ideas:The censor has moved upstream. Censorship doesn't need to storm the theater. It can show up as a checkbox, a vague criterion, or a question that makes artists cut the work before it's written.Negative weight is still a weight. The government doesn't have to ban an idea to suppress it. It only has to make that viewpoint count against you when the money is handed out.Follow the pipes. NEA dollars flow through state, regional, and local agencies, and the conditions attached to them flow along too, reaching organizations that never applied to Washington at all.Listen, then share it with someone who funds, makes, or cares about the art in your community.Notable MentionsPeopleMarta V. Martínez: Executive director of Rhode Island Latino Arts, oral historian, and lead plaintiff's voice in the NEA case.Lynette Labinger: Providence civil rights attorney and ACLU of Rhode Island cooperating counsel in Rhode Island Latino Arts v. NEA.Luis Hernández: Morning host at The Public's Radio in Rhode Island, who interviewed Martínez and Labinger.Judge William E. Smith: Senior U.S. District Judge in Rhode Island who ruled the NEA's "gender ideology" policy unconstitutional in September 2025.Donald J. Trump: President of the United States, whose January 2025 executive orders set the policies at the center of this story.Mary Anne Carter: Chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, who also led the agency during Trump's first term.Andres Serrano: Photographer whose 1987 Piss Christ became a flashpoint in the culture-war fights over NEA funding.Robert Mapplethorpe: Photographer whose NEA-supported retrospective The Perfect Moment sparked national controversy in 1989.The NEA Four: Performance artists Karen Finley, John Fleck, Holly Hughes, and Tim Miller, whose vetoed grants in 1990 led to a landmark lawsuit.Rose Eason: Executive director of gallupARTS in Gallup, New Mexico, which declined NEA-derived funding rather than sign the anti-DEI assurance.April Chalay: Deputy director of 516 ARTS in Albuquerque, who signed the assurance and kept doing the work.Matthew Chase-Daniel: Artist and co-founder of Axle Contemporary, Santa Fe's mobile art gallery.Erin Harkey: President and CEO of Americans for the Arts.Nina Ozlu Tunceli: Recently departed Executive director of the Americans for the Arts Action Fund and the field's longtime voice on Capitol Hill.Organizations & InstitutionsCenter for the Study of Art and Community: Producer of Art is Change, building art-and-community partnerships since 1992.Charles F. Kettering Foundation: Democracy and the Arts: Foundation program exploring how the arts strengthen democratic life, and partner on the Art in Action series.National Endowment for the Arts: The independent federal agency created by Congress in 1965 to support artistic activity and broaden access to the arts.Rhode Island Latino Arts: Providence nonprofit supporting Latino visual art, music, and theater, and lead plaintiff in the NEA case.The Theater Offensive: Boston company creating theater by and for queer and trans people of color.National Queer Theater: New York company celebrating LGBTQ+ theater artists, and home of the Criminal Queerness Festival.Theatre Communications Group: The national service organization for the nonprofit theater field, and a plaintiff in the case.ACLU of Rhode Island: Brought the suit with the national ACLU and cooperating counsel. The case page has filings and updates.The Public's Radio: Rhode Island's public radio newsroom.U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit: Federal appeals court that heard the NEA's appeal on October 7, 2026.New Mexico Arts: New Mexico's state arts agency, which passes NEA partnership funds on to local organizations.KUNM: Public radio in Albuquerque, whose April 2026 report documented New Mexico groups forgoing NEA funds.gallupARTS: Arts council serving Gallup and McKinley County, New Mexico.516 ARTS: Albuquerque nonprofit contemporary art space.Axle Contemporary: Santa Fe mobile gallery and public art project housed in a converted step van.South Arts: Regional arts organization that administered ArtsHERE with the other U.S. regional arts organizations.Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts: Foundation that co-funded emergency support for organizations that lost NEA Challenge America grants.Helen Frankenthaler Foundation: Warhol's partner in that $800,000 relief effort.Americans for the Arts: National nonprofit advancing the arts and

What's So Funny?This episode's guest is Mark Kendall — comedian, filmmaker, and co-founder, alongside Bill Worley, of the Atlanta production company Cool Cool Cool Productions. Mark's path into comedy started almost by accident: a college kid at Northwestern who just wanted to hold a camera, until a summer program built by Chris Rock dropped him into the writers' rooms of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report — and he pitched a joke that Stephen Colbert said on air that night.What he brought home from that summer wasn't just a love of the craft. It was an understanding of how comedy actually works: that behind every laugh is a choice about how much tension to raise, and how much to let go. Mark has spent the years since putting that awareness to civic use — using comedy to talk Atlanta audiences into caring about affordable housing, gerrymandering, and public transit, one absurd, hyper-specific bit at a time.Listen in as we explore:Why Comedy isn't decoration on top of a serious messageThe simple but fragile secret behind every effective jokeHow a comedian's own values are what separates "jokes for jokes' sake" from comedy that moves people.Notable MentionsPeopleMark Kendall — Atlanta-based comedian, filmmaker, and educator; co-founder of Cool Cool Cool Productions and this episode's guest.Bill Worley — Co-founder, COO, and producer/director at Cool Cool Cool Productions alongside Mark Kendall.Chris Rock — Comedian who helped create the Comedy Central summer program that brought young writers of color, including Mark, into the network's development pipeline.Jon Stewart — Longtime host of The Daily Show, where Mark spent a week shadowing the writers' room as a college student.Stephen Colbert — Host of The Colbert Report; aired a joke Mark pitched as a young writer during his Comedy Central summer program.Dr. Lonnie Johnson — Atlanta-based inventor and former NASA engineer best known for creating the Super Soaker; featured in Mark's comedic "Black Sustainability History" video series for PBS's Independent Lens, where he discussed a new heat-to-electricity engine he's developing.Organizations & InstitutionsCool Cool Cool Productions — Atlanta production company co-founded by Mark Kendall and Bill Worley, making comedic and non-fiction content on civic engagement, public health, and community issues.Northwestern University — Where Mark studied film and first got involved in sketch comedy, located near Chicago's improv scene.Atlanta Regional Commission — Regional planning agency covering metro Atlanta housing, transportation, and land use; current partner on a comedy-based community engagement fellowship with Mark focused on affordable housing.Fair Count — Atlanta-based civic engagement nonprofit (founded by Stacey Abrams) focused on census participation and fair redistricting; collaborated with Mark on a comedic Bob Ross-style video about Georgia's redistricting process.MARTA (Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority) — Atlanta's public transit system, the subject of a comedic sketch by Mark exploring NIMBY fears around transit expansion into Cobb County.Open Buffalo — Buffalo, New York-based organization focused on economic, racial, and ecological justice; collaborated with Cool Cool Cool Productions on video content.PBS's Independent Lens — PBS documentary strand for which Mark created short-form comedic content, including the "Black Sustainability History" series featuring Dr. Lonnie Johnson.Shows, Series & ProductionsThe Daily Show with Jon Stewart — Comedy Central news-satire program where Mark shadowed the writers' room during his college summer program.The Colbert Report — Comedy Central satirical news program hosted by Stephen Colbert, where Mark pitched material as a young writer, including a joke that made it to air.The Magic Negro and Other Blackness — Mark's nationally touring solo sketch comedy show examining the depiction of Black men in media and the comedic tools used to unpack harmful stereotypes.Historical & Cultural ContextMuscogee (Creek) Nation — Indigenous nation whose ancestral lands include present-day Atlanta, acknowledged by Mark at the top of the conversation.*******Art Is CHANGE is a podcast that chronicles the power of art and community transformation, providing a platform for activist artists to share their experiences and gain the skills and strategies they need to thrive as agents of social change.Through compelling conversations with artist activists, artivists, and cultural organizers, the podcast explores how art and activism intersect to fuel cultural transformation and drive meaningful change. Guests discuss the challenges and triumphs of community arts, socially engaged art, and creative placemaking, offering insights into artist mentorship, building credibility, and communicating impact.Episodes delve into the realities of artist isolation, burnout, and funding for artists, while celebrating the role of artists in residence and creative leadership in shaping a more just and inclusive world. Whether you’re an emerging or established artist for social justice, this podcast offers inspiration, practical advice, and a sense of solidarity in the journey toward art and social change.

Where do poetry and democracy intersect?In part two of our conversation with Dayton poet laureate, educator, activist, culture keeper, and Kettering Foundation Democracy and the Arts resident artist Sierra Leone, we follow the threads of memory and imagination from a gallery of story quilts in Hamilton, Ohio, to the Legacy Sites of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama.Along the way, Sierra reads American Libation III: Weaving an Amendment for Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, her response to Carolyn Crump's quilt Lovely One. She takes us inside The Belonging Project, where the stories of more than 100 Dayton residents are being harvested and turned into theater. And she shares a new poem born of a week with fellow Democracy Defenders led by Kimberlé Crenshaw in partnership with, a poem about how ideas persist and how thorns of memory grow from the womb of subjugation.If you've ever wondered what poetry has to do with the work of self-government, or how a life of civic leadership actually begins, this one's for you.In this episode we explore:Poetry asks. Democracy asks too. A poem doesn't go looking for answers. It leaves something behind for others to grapple with, and each generation has to decide what democracy will be.The petals that fall to the ground. Every society chooses which stories rise to the surface. Poets pick up the parts that fall and put some wind under them.Belonging becomes theater. Verbatim stories from returning citizens, bankers, fathers, teachers, and teens become a stage for the hard conversations communities need to have.Notable MentionsPeopleSierra Leone: Dayton's first Poet Laureate, playwright, educator, and Kettering Foundation artist-in-residence.Willis "Bing" Davis: Dayton artist and educator, founder of EbonNia Gallery, honored in Sierra's American Libation: Homage to an Elder (part one).Ketanji Brown Jackson: Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court since 2022, the first Black woman to serve on the Court.Carolyn Crump: Houston-based quilt and multimedia artist whose quilt Ketanji Brown Jackson: Lovely One inspired Sierra's poem.Dr. Carolyn L. Mazloomi: Quilt artist, historian, curator, NEA National Heritage Fellow, and founder of the Women of Color Quilters Network.John Coltrane: Jazz saxophonist and composer. Sierra's poem closes on "a love supreme."Angela Siner: University of Toledo faculty member in Africana Studies and Sierra's mentor, who told her, "Choose your approach."Joni Doherty: Senior Program Officer for Democracy and the Arts at the Kettering Foundation. She invited Sierra to accompany her to Montgomery as a guest of the Foundation.Bryan Stevenson: Public-interest lawyer, author of Just Mercy, and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative.Kimberlé Crenshaw: Legal scholar who was instrumental in developing the concepts of critical race theory and "intersectionality" and co-founder and executive director of the African American Policy Forum.Augusto Boal: Brazilian theater artist and activist, creator of the Theatre of the Oppressed.Paul Laurence Dunbar: Dayton-born poet and novelist, one of the first Black American writers to gain national renown.Lucille Clifton: National Book Award–winning poet known for spare, luminous poems of family and resilience.Terrance Hayes: National Book Award–winning poet and MacArthur Fellow, author of Watch Your Language.Jericho Brown: Pulitzer Prize–winning poet (The Tradition) and co-editor of How We Do It.Nikki Giovanni: Poet, essayist, and leading voice of the Black Arts Movement (1943–2024).Sonia Sanchez: Poet, activist, Black Arts Movement pioneer, and Philadelphia's first poet laureate.Maya Angelou: Poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist, author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.Robert Hayden: Poet and the first African American Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.Gwendolyn Brooks: The first Black poet to win the Pulitzer Prize and a lifelong chronicler of Chicago's Bronzeville.Organizations & InstitutionsCenter for the Study of Art and Community: Producer of Art is Change, building art-and-community partnerships since 1992.Charles F. Kettering Foundation: Democracy and the Arts: Foundation program exploring how the arts strengthen democratic life, and partner on the Art in Action series.Fitton Center for Creative Arts: Community arts center in Hamilton, Ohio, which organized the Soul of Black Folks: 250 Years of Creativity, Innovation and Leadership exhibition. The Fitton partnered with the Kettering Foundation to develop the Voices of Black Folks program.Women of Color Quilters Network: International network of Black quilt artists founded by Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi.The Human Race Theatre Company: Dayton professional theater and one of the partners on The Belonging Project.AmeriCorps Seniors: National service program for volunteers 55 and older, among the groups heard in The Belonging Project listening sessions.University of Dayton: Imagining Community Symposium: October 2026 symposium on civic hope and belonging, where The Belonging Project will be presented.Equal Justice Initiative: Montgomery-based human rights organization founded by Bryan Stevenson.African American Policy Forum: Think tank co-founded and led by Kimberlé Crenshaw. They host the annual Democracy Defenders Summit, which in 2026 involved a partnership with the Equal Justice Initiative.U.S. Sentencing Commission: Federal agency that sets sentencing guidelines. Justice Jackson served as its vice chair.University of Toledo: Where Sierra studied and met her mentor, Angela...

Sierra Leone Believes Poetry Is Essential Civic InfrastructureIn this episode we meet Sierra Leone—a poet, educator, activist, and cultural organizer who reminds us that a poem is far more than words on a page. It can become a gathering place, a healing practice, and a way for a community to remember who it is.In this conversation, we explore three central ideas:Presence is a creative discipline. Art begins with showing up, listening deeply, and making space for what has not yet found words.Poetry can become civic infrastructure. A poem can live in a school, gallery, theatre, public square, or gathering of neighbors—not only on the printed page.Belonging is something we make together. Through performance, mentorship, and shared cultural memory, unfamiliar people and art forms can become part of the same nourishing gumbo.Listen for Sierra’s journey from “healing producer” to “creative catalyst” to “culture keeper”—and for her conviction that the artist’s responsibility is not simply to speak, but to build spaces in which a community can hear and learn from itself.Notable MentionsPeopleSierra Leone — Dayton poet, producer, educator, activist, and interdisciplinary artist; the Kettering Foundation’s inaugural artist-in-residence and Dayton’s first living poet laureate.[JD1]Sonia Sanchez — Poet, educator, and Black Arts Movement figure whose advice about making time to write opens the conversation.Gwendolyn Brooks — Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago poet, mentor, and civic literary leader.Amiri Baraka — Poet, playwright, activist, and central theorist of the Black Arts Movement.Haki R. Madhubuti — Poet, educator, Black Arts Movement architect, and founder of Third World Press.Robert Frost — Canonical American poet invoked while discussing narrow public ideas about poetry.Terrance Hayes — Poet cited by Sierra in explaining that a writer makes space for a poem instead of deciding it beforehand.Paul Laurence Dunbar — Dayton-born poet whose life and work remain central to the city’s cultural identity. He was posthumously recognized as Dayton’s first poet laureate.Willis “Bing” Davis — Dayton artist, educator, activist, and curator honored in Sierra’s poem.Kweku Larry Crowe — Dayton oral historian, visual artist, and community activist.Mama Nozipo Glenn — South African-born human-rights advocate and longtime Dayton community elder.Edwin C. Moses — Dayton-born Olympic hurdler and namesake of a prominent city boulevard.James H. McGee — Civil-rights attorney who became Dayton’s first Black mayor, and namesake of a prominent city boulevard.Faheem Curtis-Khidr — Historian and professor whose public scholarship addresses equity and Black history in Dayton.Martin Luther King Jr. — Civil-rights leader whose 1964 Dayton address inspired the Visual Voices project.Colin Kaepernick — Athlete and activist invoked in Sierra’s poem as a contemporary image of kneeling in protest.Joni Doherty — Charles F. Kettering Foundation senior program officer for Democracy and the Arts.Organizations and venuesCenter for the Study of Art and Community — Producer of ART IS CHANGE and a research and storytelling organization focused on arts-based community development.The Charles F. Kettering Foundation — The Charles F. Kettering Foundation, headquartered in Dayton, Ohio, is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, operating foundation with a mission to advance inclusive democracies worldwide by fostering citizen engagement, promotinggovernment accountability, and countering authoritarianism.Democracy and the Arts — The Kettering Foundation’s focus area for integrating thepower of the arts into democratic life locally, nationally, and globally.Home of Urban Creative Arts — Dayton organization co-founded by Sierra to advance education, performance, healing, and community change.Third World Press Foundation — Chicago-based African-centered publisher founded by Haki R. Madhubuti.Dayton Early College Academy High — The school known as DECA High, where Sierra leads student-designed arts and Black History Month work.University of Dayton Theatre, Dance and Performance Technology — University program that helps DECA students prepare original work for the stage.Roger Glass Center for the Arts — University of Dayton arts center where a DECA production was presented.Levitt Pavilion Dayton — An outdoor nonprofit music venue described as Dayton’s “downtown living room.” The Levitt seeks to build community and social interaction among people of all ages and backgrounds through offering free concerts.Benjamin and Marian Schuster Performing Arts Center — Performing-arts complex that housed Signature performances in its Mathile Theatre.The Loft Theatre — Downtown Dayton theatre and longtime home of Sierra’s Signature series.EbonNia Gallery and Black Palette Art Gallery — West Dayton galleries that hosted Visual Voices and its poetry programming.Projects, events, and movementsBlack Arts Movement — The artistic and political movement Sierra identifies as a foundation of her practice.Black Writers Retreat — Third World Press gathering devoted to craft, audience, and cultural responsibility.DECA High Black History Month Production — Annual student-led program combining Black history with original poetry, theatre, movement, and visual art.Signature Levitt Music and Arts Camp — Free intensive camp in which Dayton teenagers create and mount a