Art as Strategy

Artists and culture bearers are essential agents of social change and community collaboration.

Artistic and cultural practices are ancestral technologies* that help us build deep and genuine connection to self, community, and land, so we can move toward liberated futures. Artists and culture bearers push the horizon of what is possible. They connect us to community lived experience, lead us into a critical understanding of the systems we inhabit, and help us imagine futures of possibility and justice.

1SW’s team has artists and culture bearers as facilitators who use art and storytelling as strategies to build new systems and structures with community members most impacted by systemic oppression. Our approach to facilitation and popular education integrates various modalities of art and creativity, and is multi-lingual and responsive to community needs.

*We are inspired by the term ‘future ancestral technologies’ as related to arts and culture, a term and practice coined and honed by artist Cannupa Hanska Luger (Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara/Lakota).

Header Photo by Annielly Camargo. Featuring protest artworks by artist DS Kinsel. 1SW Community Event for Northeastern University's Climate Justice Action Plan. The Huntington Theater, Boston, MA. 2024.

Arts and Self Determination Interventions

35,000 Square Feet And Rising

During our work with Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE), City of Boston Environment, and several other organizations, we led the BERDO 2.0 ordinance community process. In 2022, the ordinance succeeded in the City of Boston. As part of this work, we collaborated with local Boston artists to produce a script and animations about the key issues related to this particular ordinance, informed by the experience of community members. “35,000 Square Feet And Rising” is a 4-part climate justice animated series.

Script by Vatic Tayari Kuumba, Illustrations and Animations by Lily Xie and María Fong, Direction/Production by Shey Rivera Ríos. Sound design by Nicholas Sollecito.

 

Stills from “35,000 Square Feet and Rising” (2021), an animation produced by One Square World. Illustrations and Animations by Lily Xie + María Fong.

 

35ksqft and Rising - Act 1

35ksqft and Rising - Act 2a

 

The Future Stories Project

In collaboration with the Racial and Environmental Justice Committee (REJC) of the City of Providence, our work resulted in the development of the Providence Climate Justice Plan, the first in the nation, and was awarded the Current Topic Award for Resilience Planning in 2019 from the American Planning Association. As part of this work, we led The Future Stories Project, a series of audio narratives by the members of REJC and residents of the City of Providence.