What if we regularly spent time making art?

What if we regularly spent time making art? This is one of the many questions we asked ourselves and you at the Innovation Convening last month, where we introduced a new art action around our theme of love, sex, family and community. We asked attendees to write down the burning, important questions they have around each of these themes, to share these questions, and then make art around their questions.

These art playspaces were created in partnership with artists Favianna Rodriguez and Nikki Zaleski (also an alum of both our fellowships) to bring together artists, activists and advocates in artistic exchange and community building, to imagine new futures, explore innovative visions and create new possibilities.

We believe that art and storytelling are part of the work of building a movement – not less than or different from writing proposals or running a program. What if we used art to reflect on and answer our burning questions for the movement?

Learn about each of the art activities we participated in at the Innovation Convening, and some of our participants’ reflections on how the activities resonated with them and the conversations it ignited.
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Love

“These satchels hold ideas of different ways our hearts have been broken, by the movement, by family, by lovers, by siblings, and what we need to mend and heal. It encouraged storytelling, talking about different experiences whether work related, break up, kids... The words we used modeled trusting each other to talk about these stories and, to share these things.”
-Zakiya Luna | Santa Barbara, CA

Sex

“Thinking about what we learned about sex in the past and what messages we need moving forward to tell ourselves, found a lot of healing and affirmative, unapologetic statements about sex. Sometimes the art opens our imagination for the beginning of imaging that future.”
-Favianna Rodriguez | Oakland, CA

Family

“We all felt like a family doing our work together. We talked a lot about families and our community, but also the family of activists and what that looks like. Inter-generational and multi-generational work came up a lot, and a lot of juicy words.”
-Marinah Farrell | Phoenix, AZ

Community

​“We talked about how we liked the framework of being able to do something with our hands and still talk and get to know each other. Sometimes the intellectual work you do at your desk can be kind of isolating, just getting to be here was a good example of community itself.”
-Lauren Zuniga | Oklahoma City, OK

We’re bringing these art playspaces to three cities this year to seed collaboration between artists and activists working to support reproductive rights, pleasure, health and justice. Learn more here.