ART WORKS | A Busboys and Poets Books Presentation
Date and Time
Oct 29, 2023 5:00 pm
Location
14th & V
2021 14th St NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20009
Oct 29, 2023 5:00 pm
14th & V
Ken Grossinger, noted movement strategist, offers a first-of-its-kind chronicling of collaborations between artists and organizers that have been pivotal to the success of social justice movements. Amid an intensifying assault on civil and human rights across the country manifested in recent book bans, attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, fear-mongering about immigrants, and more, Art Works provides a roadmap for how to creatively protect hard-won social gains and produce long-term change by fusing art into organizing efforts.
An artist’s mural of George Floyd becomes an emblem of a renewed movement for racial equality. A documentary film injects fuel into a popular mobilization to oust a Central American dictator. Freedom songs course through the American civil rights movement.
When artists and organizers combine forces, new forms of political mobilization follow—which shape lasting social change. And yet few people appreciate how much deliberate strategy often propels this vital social change work. Behind the scenes, artists, organizers, political activists, and philanthropists have worked together to hone powerful strategies for achieving the world we want and the world we need.In ART WORKS, noted movement leader Ken Grossinger chronicles these efforts for the first time, distilling lessons and insights from grassroots leaders and luminaries such as Ai Weiwei, Courtland Cox, Jackson Browne, Shepard Fairey, Jane Fonda, Elizabeth Alexander, Bill McKibben, JR, Jose Antonio Vargas, and more.
Drawing from historical and present-day examples—including Black Lives Matter, Standing Rock, the Hip Hop Caucus, the Legacy Museum, and the Art for Justice Fund—Grossinger offers a rich tapestry of tactics and successes that speak directly to the challenges and needs of today’s activists and of these political times.
Grossinger is joining us on the Busboys stage to talk about his book ART WORKS: HOW ORGANIZERS AND ARTISTS ARE CREATING A BETTER WORLD TOGETHER in conversation with Bill Fletcher Jr. This event will be hosted at Busboys and Poets 14th & V (2021 14th Street NW) and livestreamed online. Copies of the book will be available for purchase before and after the event, with Grossinger signing after the program. For our livestream audience, you have the option of purchasing a signed copy of the book with shipping to anywhere in the United States via USPS.
This event is free and open to all. Our program begins at 5:00 pm, and will be followed by an audience Q&A. Copies of ART WORKS will be available for purchase before, during, and after the event. Please note that this event is in person and will be livestreamed.
We ask that guests RSVP in order to receive direct updates about the event from Busboys and Poets Books
Ken Grossinger has been a leading strategist in movements for social and economic justice for thirty-five years, in unions and community organizations, and as director of Impact Philanthropy in Democracy Partners. The author of Art Works: How Organizers and Artists are Creating a Better World Together (The New Press, 2023), he also co-executive produced the award-winning Netflix documentaries The Social Dilemma and The Bleeding Edge. He lives in Washington, DC.
Bill Fletcher Jr. is a longtime labor, racial justice and international activist. Fletcher is an editorial board member and columnist for BlackCommentator.com and a senior scholar for the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. Fletcher is the former president of TransAfrica Forum, and is a founding member of the Black Radical Congress. He is the co-author (with Fernando Gapasin) of Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and A New Path Toward Social Justice (University of California Press) and ‘They’re Bankrupting Us!’ And 20 Other Myths about Unions (Beacon Press) and more. Bill lives in Mitchellville, MD.
