Why Arts Activism & Cultural Organizing are a Pro-Democracy Imperative

A Preamble

Block-Bridge-Build: It's shorthand for key elements in the anti-authoritarian, pro-democracy playbook. They’re often described in a way that suggests a sequence.But block, bridge, build is not a sequence. It’s an ecosystem with each element overlapping, feeding, and depending on the others.

The experience of successful blocking, with both likely and unlikely allies, builds bridges. Bridging, in turn, can generate the kind of community critical mass needed for effective blocking. It also helps develop the collective trust muscles required to build a compelling vision of the future. That vision enables the coalitions necessary to block and bridge. And so it goes.

This isn’t a step-by-step recipe for change. It’s a messy, human, collaborative practice. It’s relationship-intensive—a tangle of imagining, sharing, listening, learning, debating, inspiring, designing, and creating. This kind of creative cooperation is, at once, simple, astonishing, and ingeniously useful.

Simple because it’s so common, an element of our world we barely notice.Like air and water.

Astonishing, because, like air and water, we couldn’t’ exist without it.

Ingeniously useful because it is the road we travel, the engine that propels us, the fuel that sustains us, and the force that holds it all together. We call it culture.

We acknowledge its presence all around us. Yet, even though it’s the air, soil, water, road, and journey that shapes and feeds the stories we tell, and are told about how the world works, and our place in it, we mostly ignore it.

And for those of us trying to influence what people believe and do, we ignore it at our peril.

Those stories—our stories—are powerful, tightly held, and fiercely protected. They’re born from experience and imagination. Our life experiences may feel solid and fixed. But the meaning we make of them—the interpretations we carry in our heads and hearts—those are open to change.

I’m an artist, researcher, and educator. I’ve spent my life shining a light on artists who use their skills to reimagine and recreate the stories that shape our communities. We sometimes say we’re in the imagination business—helping change the stories we need, to change the world.

But that’s not just a clever line. It’s a reality.The power of collective, creative change is that it engages head, heart, and hand. It’s a naturally occurring human function that we all grew up using—something we use every day to make meaning in this mysterious, miraculous, confounding world we share.

Unfortunately, our communities have been changing—in ways that are neither healthy, nor just, nor kind. These changes are being driven by folks who understand the awesome power of story—and are using it to capture attention and hack imaginations.T hey’re speaking to people who feel left out and left behind—people with real grievances.

The result is a potent, poisonous stew of cynical lies, twisted facts, and reality-show fiction. But it’s also meaningful and inspiring to those who believe it. These are not just party loyalists or disgruntled voters. They are “followers”- participants in a successful cultural movement with few precedents in American history.

The American Revolution and the Labor and Civil Rights Movements come to mind.

It’s ironic, and telling—that these stories are under threat today. But it also seems fitting. Because the unfulfilled promise of the American story is exactly what’s at stake.

And that’s where artists come in, not as decoration, but as strategic actors in the movement to protect and reimagine democracy.

The remainder of this piece explores how, in concrete terms, arts activism and cultural organizing function across the block–bridge–build framework—and why they are a pro-democracy imperative.

The Imperative

In an era of increasing authoritarianism and democratic fragility, artists and cultural workers offer not just inspiration, but vital infrastructure for resistance, imagination, and renewal. Arts activism and cultural organizing are not peripheral — they are essential. By reweaving community ties, reframing narratives, and creating spaces for civic dialogue and action, the arts are a powerful force for a pluralistic, participatory democracy. This manifesto outlines how the arts block harm, bridge divides, organize for justice, and ultimately catalyze systemic change. Artists do not wait for permission. They prototype freedom.

Art Is a Democratic Practice

Art is democracy in motion. It is built on freedom of expression, inclusion, shared authorship, and the celebration of diverse voices. Democracy is not just about elections — it is about everyday participation and public work. As Harry Boyte describes, “Democracy is the work of the people,” animated by collective storytelling and shared labor[1].Community-engaged arts practices enact these values by creating spaces of belonging, visibility, and shared power.

Artists help people see themselves not just as individuals, but as co-creators of a larger civic narrative. Story, ritual, and cultural memory become democratic tools—what Scott Nakagawa calls a “lived experience of democracy,” rather than a set of abstract ideals[2].

Exemplar: In Philadelphia, neighborhood residents and artists collaborated on mosaic-covered community lots, transforming neglected urban spaces into public commons[3].

Exemplar: In the Citizenship Schools of the Civil Rights era, cultural and educational practices combined to equip people for participation not just at the ballot box, but in the everyday governance of their lives[1].

Art Is a Blocking Strategy

Authoritarian regimes thrive on fear, dehumanization, and narrative control. Arts-based resistance confronts this by creating visibility, amplifying marginalized voices, and undermining propaganda. Artists provoke what needs to be seen and felt. They reframe the narrative terrain—often before mass action becomes possible.

Exemplar: The Black Panther Party’s newspaper illustrations by Emory Douglas powerfully depicted state violence and community resilience[4].

Exemplar: In Serbia, clown brigades used absurdist performance to mock authoritarian leaders, disarming repression through satire[3].

Exemplar: Post-2020 uprisings in the U.S. saw murals and street projections demand justice—pushing back against silence and state violence[4].

Art Is an Organizing Tool

Art is not just expressive — it is strategic. Artists create shared experiences, visual language, and affective power that galvanize collective action. They help movements tell stories, clarify values, and invite people into participation. As Ken Grossinger argues, organizers can’t do their work without artists, because narrative shift is essential to durable social change[5].

Exemplar: The Freedom Songs of the Civil Rights Movement were not background music—they were tools of organizing and emotional survival[5].

Exemplar: The Laundromat Project places artists in neighborhood spaces to catalyze dialogue and civic leadership[4].

Exemplar: The “Art Is Change” podcast profiles artists creating civic transformation in prisons, housing projects, and divided communities[3].

Art Is a Bridging Practice

In a polarized society, the arts offer an alternative path to connection—without erasing difference. Cultural practices provide rare spaces for witnessing, dialogue, and complexity.

Exemplar: Georgetown’s “In Your Shoes” initiative uses participatory theater to connect ideologically opposed groups[4].

Exemplar: Story circles, Playback Theatre, and oral history projects have bridged divides in border towns and contested urban neighborhoods[4].

Exemplar: Public storytelling festivals in divided communities have fostered intergenerational understanding and civic healing[6].

Art Is Change

Art doesn’t just reflect change — it makes it. Artists lead by imagining alternatives, refusing inevitability, and rehearsing freedom. Their practices help movements stay visionary, joyful, and human. Art becomes a civic muscle—flexible, creative, and essential to democratic survival[2].

Exemplar: The “Art is Change” project highlights transformation—from clown-led protests to mosaic-lot reclamations[3].

Exemplar: The U.S. Semiquincentennial (250th anniversary) presents an opportunity for artists to design a civic ritual of renewal instead of nostalgia[4].

There is a Community of Experienced Creative Change Agents  

“Art and social change, “arts-based community development”, “cultural organizing”, “creative community leadership”, “community arts,” “social practice.” What does all that mean? And how is it supposed to work?  

Some of us have been asking questions like these for the past six decades. And, given all those different labels, (and I assure you there are many more) the answers are equally varied. One thing for sure though, the answer is not: “Just bring on the artists and let them do their magic.”

It’s important to recognize that just like many of our neighbors thousands of working artists in this country woke up on No Kings Day and decided to join in their first protest. My point is that there is a difference between a work-a-day practicing artist who is a movement participant, and an activist artist, or cultural organizer with an art and social change practice. 

Beginning with the WPA, and later in the labor and civil rights struggles of the 1960s and ’70s—spurred on by the CETA-fueled Community Arts movement—these artists have translated their creative skills to the messy, complex demands of social change work.. Many consider it a professional path and have devoted their lives to growing and deepening the effectiveness and accountability of the practice. 

The reason I am saying this is that there are some good-hearted folks in the pro-democracy  universe who don’t know this history. Another thing some are unaware of is that this community arts ecosystem is just that, a big, wide, incredibly diverse creative tribe with multiple approaches, theories of change, and levels of experience.  These range from making inspiring images, like Shepard Fairey, to sparking a movement like the AIDS Quilt, to helping change a national paradigm like the Laramie Project. 

This doesn’t mean that newly inspired artists can’t bring vital ideas, approaches, and energy to movement work. But it does mean that just like others who are just joining in, they have a lot to learn.  It also means that as the anti-authoritarian, prodemocracy movement spreads, we need to explore new ways to integrate more experienced activist artists and cultural organizers into the expanding network. 

Activist Artists and Cultural Organizers Are Strategic Partners

This brings me to the punch-line. Understandably, many people think of artists as makers of things or events. But, activist artists and cultural organizers are not just  image makers storytellers or mobilizers—they are also strategic thought partners.

Their mode of working—experimental, inquiry-based, adaptive, and attuned to uncertainty—is exactly what is required in this moment of complexity and transformation.These practitioners approach problems as creative opportunities, using failure as a generative force and imagination as a compass. They move fluidly across disciplines, weaving the connective tissue needed to build cross-sector networks.

As the Strengthening the Contributions report notes, many of the most effective artists “are hybrids—skilled in arts disciplines and in organizing, policy, education, and care work”[4].Artists are not simply to be deployed—they must be integrated as co-creators of democratic strategy. As provocateurs, facilitators, and architects of imagination, they expand what is possible.

Conclusion

To defend and deepen democracy in the 21st century, we must recognize the arts not as luxury, but necessity — not as afterthought, but strategy. In every town hall, on every street corner, and within every movement, artists are building bridges, blocking harm, and shaping the stories that will define our future.

To quote one of the creators behind this movement: “We don’t yet have a public imagination of the resistance we need.” Artists are building it—image by image, story by story, breath by breath.Art is not ancillary to democracy. Art is democracy.

Footnotes

[1] Boyte, Harry. Awakening Democracy Through Public Work. Transcript excerpt.

[2] Nakagawa, Scott. Re Arts and Culture. Internal document.

[3] Cleveland, Bill. Art Is Change podcast and reflections. Transcript excerpts.

[4] Cohen, Cynthia. Strengthening the Contributions of Arts and Cultural Work. Full report.

[5] Grossinger, Ken. Art Works: How Organizers and Artists are Creating a Better World Together. Transcript excerpt.

[6] Cleveland, William. Bridges, Translations and Change: The Arts as Infrastructure. Essay excerpt.