By Robin gordon, barnett fellow
One month before Ohio’s midterm elections, Ohio State welcomed the New York-based and internationally networked Center for Artistic Activism (C4AA) to its Columbus campus for a weekend workshop titled “Unstoppable Voters: Columbus.” The event was hosted by the Arts & Culture Committee of the Council of Graduate Students. Arts & Culture Committee Chair Robin Gordon developed, proposed and was granted a $14,000 budget from CGS to fulfill her vision of convening members of the Columbus arts community and the Ohio State community to learn and practice effective artistic activism together.
In advance of the workshop, participants received a copy of The Art of Activism: Your All-Purpose Guide to Making the Impossible Possible (2021, OR Books) to familiarize themselves with principles and processes of effective artistic activism. Using borrowed and found materials, Columbus arts leaders and students from across Ohio State then spent the weekend imagining, collaborating, designing, prototyping and critiquing voter registration campaigns.
Lessons from the workshop were immediately applied. The following week, Central Ohio Student Advocates for the Arts (COSAA) leaders Julia Harth, Emily Hutlock and Leigh Ziegler introduced a brainstorming exercise from the workshop in their town hall meeting. Greater Columbus Arts Council (GCAC) Marketing, Communications & Events VP Jami Goldstein convened a group of workshop participants to collaborate on a social media campaign for ArtsVote. At the ArtsVote collaboration, AAEP alum and workshop participant Amy Holihan used an audience empathy activity from the workshop to gain a deeper understanding of what motivates her organization’s members.
To learn more about the Center for Artistic Activism, visit c4aa.org.
