CONSTIMOCRAZY is a story of Africa weaved by an African poet patriot, a slinger wielding the spear, his pen, against treachery perpetrated by history and its cruelty. The same pen wielder rebukes Africa for frying its own beauty, dignity and morality in copper-roasting furnaces of disgrace and despotism. The African poet patriot traverses with us around, from African natural landscapes, up to the climes of the slave master where Africans are bleached in English syntax and spaghetti culture. The poet and his poetry are an experience of Africa, her story and his story. Though the poet seems intoxicated by pessimistic verbal concoction, the poet patriot does not completely relegate the reader to wallow in pastures ridden by slavery nagana, valleys smitten by colonial whooping cough and pathways strewn by African despotism. The poet is a natural wanderer, a traveller of course. Nsah Mala brings to the fore a dose of optimism as he drags us through mystic endowments of Africa and natural wonders of mother Earth, shifting our minds off from tragedies and economic ailments to the mysterious beauty the earth carries in its belly, especially if it was given more time to heal from scars poised by history and bruises of present-day scuffles. The African poet patriot is a master of word economics and a dexter in carving paradoxical verses.

CONSTIMOCRAZY is divided into two parts. This graphical arrangement is supposedly intentional by the writer poet who wants us to follow through his story weaved in poetry like trackers in a journey alongside a great river. The collection is truly great river, whose waters flow both vile and pure: we meet whispering crocodiles, hissing snakes, beautiful fish, gurgling streams, singing birds, dancing mermaids and their rituals, fishermen and their lines, hippos and rotting carcasses, beautiful valleys, gowns of mist, stunning gorges and laughing waterfalls.

Mala interrogates the present day African with a poetic whip in his hand; his pen is his whip. The poem “Refugees” reflects the rot that stinks in the African rondavel: “Out of their abodes, something pulled them: natural – earthquake, flood, eruption, tsunami… man-made – strike, coup, war, terrorism… War and terror are the worst of them all.” The poem grapples with pain, displacement, identity crisis and lack of belongingness. And these are contemporary African crises, which have become generational, even after the calamities of slavery and colonialism. These tragic crises mainly come from within; they are perpetuated by warlords, poor governance, terrorism, banditry, despotism and corruption by the post-independent African leadership. In the same poem, the poet also points out how the angry finger of God contributes to nature-caused tragedies: earthquakes, floods, eruptions and tsunamis. These natural tragedies are not only threatening the African child but also go beyond African borders. However, in Africa they are extremely severe, as they are inherited again from generation to generation due to carelessness, poverty, poor resource management and lack of preparedness and then the refugee tragedy becomes an African totem problem. Mala also reminds Africa to get organized and walk in the path of light as her children suffer as underdogs in alien lands. Most of the poems in the first section exhibit political decadence, economic malaise and moral rot in Africa. In most cases, in the closing lines of his poems, Mala reminds the reader, the perpetrator and the victim that light can still show up if we remain resilient and correct our past hurdles; that we can also reshape our present.

In the poem “Forced into Oblivion”, Mala plays the role of a traditionalist, a griot, a ritualist. He pays tribute to a national fallen hero through a soul-nipping poetry rite. Thus, his role as an African griot, a beacon of religious light. The poem identifies Africa as a hub of religious diversity. Africa is a calabash frothing with super-concoctions of diverse beliefs, traditions and sacred rites we perform for the dead: praises, songs, poems, dances, the animal blood we spill for them and the millet brew we spit on their fresh graves in the spirit that they will rise again to live with us, protect us and be at peace with us. It is again our show of respect to the reputed departed who might be silenced by death but still linger among us. Here the poet becomes a traditional ambassador of his people; he becomes a cultural diplomat who serves the audience with a menu of sacred rituals of a departed family or national hero in his land:

… I trod across seas of dust

to pour on your tomb my buckets of tears

and clear away the labyrinth of aching fears

which have haunted me since you left in 1989

‘coz we did not unfeather fowls on your tomb!

We did not tear family sackcloth after your burial.

We did not tie the gods’ fowl above your corpse.

The African poet patriot in Mala also knocks heavily on the iron-buckled doors, whose tenants are dictators, despots and autocrats, through his poem “Sonnet for Dictators.” In this poem, the African poet patriot renews himself into the African word slinger. The poet is candid and brutally honest; his verses know no sacred cow. He reminds despots that they are a minority and they thrive on using the masses to gain popularity and benefit from power. Because of their negative energy extremes, they munch constitutions and they become constitutions themselves. They squash law under their feet and they become law themselves. The poem is rather ironical on its tail as the poet bemoans the absence of Gadhafi, assuming that he was a better dictator who led a rich country while other African leaders drink and suck everything out of their earth – the real dictators. The poet here plays teacher and counsellor. He is trying to rehabilitate rabid African leaders who have since become unrepentant and infected their countries with deadly autocratic rabies, not so easy to heal, and dictatorship has since become endemic in Africa: “After polls, all governments are a dictating minority,// but chosen by and answerable to an electoral majority.”

In conclusion, Africa is blessed to have birthed the calibre of such candid and brutal-honest word slingers and griots of our black continent like Nsah Mala. Africa will never be the same as the poet rebukes the bastardization of Africa by colonial trendsetters. The patriot poet voices against the tragedy of dictatorship, political and moral decadence. The poet Nsah Mala is a true African patriot, a story teller, a teacher, a cultural activist and an overseer of African dignity.

Mbizo  Chirasha,  is the Originator  of  the Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Campaign( www.tuckmagazine.com/mbizochirasha) ,the 100 Thousand Poets for Change-Zimbabwe Resident Coordinator. 2017 African Participant of the International Human Rights and Arts Festival , New York United States of America, a Global Political and Arts Alliance solidarity Member.Chirasha is  a magazine editor ,blog journals  publisher .He  works  as  a  Poet and Writer in Residence, Arts Projects Catalyst and Opinion maker, www.wikipedia/wiki.com/mbizochirasha

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Mbizo is an exiled Zimbabwéan performance poet, writer, publisher of blogs, project expert and social justice activist. He has been active in many organisations and has been published on more than 400 platforms. He has run  and  founded  a number  of initiatives including the Young Writers Caravan (2004-2006), This is Africa Poetry Night (2006), African Drums Poetry Festival (2007-2008), and the GirlChildCreativityProject (2011 to present), Mbizo is the current Resident Coordinator  of the 100 Thousand  Poets  for Change- Global (USA) and the  Women Scream  International Poetry Festival (Domican Republic).

Can you tell us in a few words about the campaign you just launched? Is there a particular context that gave you the idea for it?

The Zimbabwe  We  Want  Poetry  Campaign is  a strong  intiative on CREATIVISM or Art Activism,  which is a new global  concept for using  art and creativity as tools of resistance, positive transofmraiton and change.  It is not a secret that Zimbabwe is under siege because of the dictatorship, corruption,   hegemony and kleptomania . The ruling regime has  failed  the masses for 20 years and people generally need new leadership. The regime thrives on violence, and abuses of human rights, media rights, and economic rights. I believe it is the duty of any sane citizen, writer, poet, media corporate or activist to speak vehemently and without fear about these vices that continue to haunt my once beloved nation.

What led you to tackle themes of political violence in your work? 

The notion   of writing, speaking your experiences and what you know is a useful one. My first-hand experience is that I personally was politically violated for many years in my country, when we are forced to go to rallies every election season, our women sometimes are raped, young people beaten to death because they don’t support a certain party. The opposition political leader Morgan Tsvangirayi suffered several injuries through political violence. Tsvangirai, opposition politicians, resistance movement  leaders, poets, writers, artists have suffered the brunt of political violence as perpetuated by the regime under this full-time dictator Robert Mugabe. I fled the country because I wanted to live and tell the world about my experiences that had become tough in 2016/17. I am still haunted. I know I have full information of what is happening.  I was tailed most the evenings by details that proved to be of political alignment in nature. I was nearly abducted near Forth street sometime in January, I was nearly killed at a house I stayed at in Harare, I was nearly killed in another suburb while my friend was in another city. The Zimbabwean system does not want critics, they want praise singers.  As we speak right now the regime has since launched a serious social media bombshell through the establishment of the Ministry of Cyber security, Threats Detection and Mitigation in a bid to silence voices and oppress citizen media – if that is not political violence then it is something else.

What relation do you see between politics and poetry? Do you feel a responsibility as a poet to speak out on political issues?

Yes, it has come a time in Zimbabwe when stagnation is not an option but a sign of failure, the fact that we are poets and that we need to be silent is a big mistake. We can’t rot while we watch, we need to call out for bandages and medicine, we need sanity in Zimbabwe. The old man is silencing our voices. Remember poets like Langston Hughes, who made great significance in the quest for change. They effected a perception shift in America through their black consciousness and renaissance writings. Renaissance is one greatest epochs of achievement in history of America that corrected the vices of slavery and racial perceptions. Creativism and Activism are very important concepts for positive transformation, change and resistance. We are adding up our voices against a totalitarian oligarch that is running the bureaucracy of the country in private restaurant meetings, bedrooms and kitchen cabinet gossips. An oligarch that is running the nation in a colonial model, an Oligarch that thrives on kleptomania, violence and looting. Our poetry shall speak and we will never stop, killing the flesh will never stop our voices. As long as dictatorship is present in Zimbabwe, creative resistance will remain.

In an article, you invited “young Zimbabwean artists to speak from wherever they are”. Do you see the Zimbabwean diaspora playing a big part in your project?

They are big players in this kind of campaign, they know everything about our homeland, they are happy with the news of gory events taking place every day, they send money to their kith and kin and that money rot in banks or disappear sometimes. They are many in the diaspora who want to be living in their home country, but the biggest challenge is the messy political economy of this country and other negative factors. These include overstayed leadership, victimisation and violence all these are syphilitic opportunistic infections of a totalitarian Napoleonic regime led by Robert Mugabe. The diasporas have Zimbabwe at heart, but they are failed by the home system -many of them are both political and economic refugees and they wish one of these days to be home again. We have a number of them contributing to our Brave Voices Poetry Journal, Word Guerillas Protest Poetry Journal, and Poets Free Zimbabwe.

What goal do you hope to achieve with your campaign?

This creativism concept seeks to bring sanity in Zimbabwe, politically, economically and socially. The campaign seeks to add voice for the redemption of the majority of suffering Zimbabweans. We need the respect of human rights, media rights, citizen rights and political rights. Zimbabweans need to have Freedom of Expression. We need a new administration that is dipped in democratic leadership ethics, in order for this authoritarian Hitler-Goebbels style of dictatorship dangling its grinding axe in villages and urban streets of Zimbabwe to be stopped.

Following the recent political developments in Zimbabwe, GAPA is proud to publish Mbizo’s poetry.

Madame (satire)

Madame, when the sunrays spark through the rim of hills flanked by our poverty, scratching villages of peasants,

Madame, Toyi-toyi to Nyazvidzi streams and vomit your disease, your anger, vomit your dread and hatred laced heart into the water that your anger helps the river to laugh and reeds to dance,

Madame , i see you smashing kindergartens with your corruption tired, sanctions smitten, ambition gloved hardy, gritty like sand palms,

Madame, i see your anger ridden slogan descending over the cascading, smoky presidium rondavel leaving others to lick burnt scars,

Madame, i see you wielding your slogan like hammer chiseling mercilessly the flesh of the state,

Madame, your mouth is a bitter pot where honey will not drip, your words stink war like in Baghdad,

Madame, your loose verbal saliva laced with acid burnt the hopes of the villagers,

Madame, we lost our country in your foul cracked lips and our dreams in alleys of your seething anger,

Madame, your dance is a magnet to paparazzi and your vitriol is fodder to pen wielders,

Madame, sit down next to the streams, vomit your ambitions and your disease – hatred,

Madame, children and daughters await a better and a new song from you, Sons are tired of baboons alike laughing at your rants and careless vengeful, fistful slogans,

Madame, when the sunrays spark through the rims of hills flanked by our poverty, scratching villages of peasants, trot to the river and vomit your anger, when at night shadows will be your company during the day crocodiles will be your sentry.

Dedication to the First Lady of Zimbabwe after the South African diplomatic gaffe in August 2017

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BBC World Service: Graffiti, Paint and Protest in Europe

What is the role of graffiti today? Steve Urquhart travels to Barcelona, Paris, and other European cities to talk with graffiti artists including including Blek Le Rat (the “father of stencil graffiti”), Roc Blackblock, Suriani and Vegan Bunnies about where their work fits in today’s rapidly changing social, political, and economic climate.

BBC Radio 4’s Front Row: the Cultural Response to Brexit

Arts and culture constitute one of Britain’s biggest exports, and 96 per cent of UK-based artists surveyed took a pro-Remain position before the referendum. But with the narrow Brexit vote now a month behind us, there are already whispers that many of these same artists are planning emergency relocations to Berlin or other cultural capitals across Europe.

Faced with the reality that Britain’s art scene could now take an enormous hit, and with much of the electorate feeling they’ve been left behind, how can British artists and institutions do a better job of representing these communities? Listen now to this panel discussion on how the art world can best respond to Brexit.

Sodajerker on Songwriting: The Lumineers

Affable Liverpudlian songwriting duo Sodajerker present this regular podcast where they talk with well-known artists about the songwriting process (previous guests include Alicia Keys, Paul Simon, and Johnny Marr, among others).

This episode, featuring band members from The Lumineers, is a delightful and insightful discussion about the inspiration behind some of their most famous songs.

The post Audio we love: Graffiti in Europe, Brexit, The Lumineers appeared first on Global Arts and Politics Alliance.

Bristol born and based, Henry is 23 years old and has been drawing dogs for years, imbuing his sketches with brilliantly wry humour. He was studying towards a postgraduate research (MPhil) in Philosophy, focusing on metaethics and empathy, until he had to suspend his studies due to anxiety. Now using this opportunity to channel his energies into a very different interest, Henry is turning a longtime pastime into a cardmaking business called Drawings of Dogs.

We spoke to Henry about what inspires him, why humour isn’t always effective at conveying a message, and about why his is possibly the most-photographed dog in the world…

GAPA: What was the inspiration for Drawings of Dogs? Where did it all begin?

Henry: It began whilst procrastinating for my undergrad finals. I’d been drawing dogs since A-level art and had done a couple of cartoons for friends’ and family’s birthdays. I just tried posting a couple with absurd captions on Facebook and they were well received and I enjoyed it so I did more. Drawing is therapeutic because I consider myself kinda crap at it.

GAPA: Why dogs?

Henry: The most basic reason is that I love dogs. I begged for a dog for years and my parents got me Billie when I was 15 and missed a year of school due to ill health. Their idea was to give me a bit of company and a reason to gradually build up my exercise and sort of re-engage with the world. And it worked. And she’s the most drawn/photographed dog on Earth and a trusted friend and advisor.

But if I was going to get more art-talky I’d say dogs are an interesting subject for art because they reflect us in a really interesting way. Depending on who you ask we either domesticated or coevolved with dogs, but regardless we’ve been selectively breeding them for a long time. And unlike other animals we do this with – usually for food – we’ve bred dogs to be colleagues and companions. And so you can look at dogs and see what it is that we’d want in a friend. We laugh at dogs for being so needy but dogs are so needy because we bred from the needy ones because they were our favourites because we want to feel needed.

Alongside that, dogs, like us, sometimes struggle with contemporary society. They’re little anxious, needy wolves and they sometimes find the little niche we’ve left them difficult. But bear in mind wolves aren’t anything like how they’re often villainously portrayed.

GAPA: There’s a lot of humour in your drawings. What do you think is the place of humour in art?

Henry: To be honest I’m sceptical about the power of humour to change things. I think it tends to be that someone will only laugh at a joke that they already sort of believe in the message of. I also think that cynicism is easy. I love it when someone makes you laugh in a less cynical more optimistic kind of way. If you want to know what I mean look up the cartoons of Liz Climo (though you’ve probably already seen them). Like it’s way easier to write a dystopic than a utopic novel. And so I’d like to do some uncynical art.

GAPA: Your post-Brexit drawing had a particularly wry political message which resonated with lots of people. Do you consider your work in general to have a political element?

Henry: With that one I was just thinking about how some dogs just don’t notice other dogs’ physical appearance at all, they just see another dog they want to play with. It’s overly-simplistic but we need that sometimes. Platitudes are platitudes for a reason.

Political isn’t a label I’ve aimed for but when something is on my mind I’ll try to think of a joke that expresses some aspect of my thoughts around it.

I guess that’s another reason why I draw dogs. You can get more distance than if you draw humans. You can get someone to laugh at something ridiculous a dog might say but hopefully they also connect it to something ridiculous a human might say.

I did philosophy because I wanted to write something that gets people to be slightly nicer to one another and maybe I sometimes try to do that in a very minor way with my drawings as well.

GAPA: You’ve just started to make greetings cards from your drawings, and you print them yourself. What’s the process with that?

Henry: It’s called screen printing. It’s completely fascinating and awesome and I learnt it from youtube. It’s the same process Andy Warhol used to produce the Marilyn Monroes and loads of his other work. If you do it as a photoemulsion process it basically allows you to take a photo and turn it into a super detailed stencil that sits on a really fine mesh. That’s called a screen. Now I’ve made the screens it’s a manufacturing job. I use a squeegee to push ink through the screen onto card. I then score and fold the card, chop its corners, and put it in a cello bag with an envelope. It’s mindless but incredibly enjoyable. And then it becomes a sales task, which is terrifying obviously.

GAPA: What’s your long-term aim with Drawings of Dogs?

Henry: Well I’ve just started selling the cards. Sold an order to a Bristol independent cinema, The Watershed. And I am indescribably excited. The long term goal is to be a small business owner (backbone of the British economy don’t you know). Or a small business owner/philosophy professor. Whatever happens the goal is to live in a treehouse.

drawingsofdogs.tumblr.com

Facebook.com/drawingsofdogs       

Instagram.com/drawingsofdogs       

twitter.com/drawingsofdogs

If you’re interested in purchasing Henry’s cards, follow him using the social media accounts above! And if you’re lucky enough to visit Britsol, head to The Watershed where Drawings of Dogs cards are for sale.

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“Critical art is an art that aims to produce a new perception of the world, and therefore to create a commitment to its formation. There are three stages: the production of a sensory form of “strangeness”, the development of an awareness of the reason for that strangeness, and a mobilisation of individuals as a result of that awareness” – Jacques Lancière (Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics, 2010)

On Wednesday 20 July, a small group of people gathered on cushions, beanbags, and squidgy armchairs to nibble on hummus and play musical instruments in a hideaway café above a busy London intersection.

But they weren’t there just to relax – in fact it was the first event of the Global Arts and Politics Alliance (that’s us!). And we were thrilled with how the event went.

Much of the conversation centred around the role of art activists: how do we even define ‘artists’? Is there any such thing as apolitical art? Do artists have a social responsibility? What kind of events prompt bursts of art activism? Does making political art always imply being an art activist? How can “radical anonymity” – like the kind practised by Guerilla Girls, for example – lead to a greater consciousness of social issues, and a move away from the glory and mainstreaming associated with commodified art?

From poetry performances, renditions of protest songs like Malvina Reynolds’ ‘The World in Their Pocket’, and smaller discussions with an academic, analytic focus, it was an afternoon of fruitful conversation and comradeship.

Thank you especially to Ziferblat London for being such imaginative, wonderful hosts and for setting just the right vibe for our needs. Thanks too, to our attendees for your inquisitive insights and ideas. And if you missed this event, not to worry – watch this space for more!

The post Pen vs. Bullet – a recap of GAPA’s first meetup appeared first on Global Arts and Politics Alliance.

“Music can change the world because it can change people” – Bono, U2

Don’t we all need some background music for our creative endeavours? If you have been aching for the soundtrack to your personal activism, look no further! Whether it be writing your next poem about the perils of the capitalist system, coordinating your next big demonstration to raise awareness about your favourite issue, or spraying graffiti that has the potential to change the world – you should be accompanied by the right music to do so.

We present to you the GAPA team’s top picks of the best activism songs out there. Lovingly compiled by our very own chair, Wanda, you will find a range of different languages, themes, music styles and messages – we have everything ranging from the very famous to the not known at all (in order of popularity for your convenience – the further you scroll, the more unknown the waters get). We have compiled everything that relates to change-making, social justice, activism, collective action, and critique!

Get inspired, get creative and let the music take over – as we all know, songs often capture what we fail to say in speech!

Anything missing from this list? Drop us a line at [email protected] and we’ll add it – or tweet us @NGOGAPA with your own favourite, fist-pumping tunes!

Thanks to Saurabh Thakur and lingorach at Flickr Creative Commons for the use of their images.

The post GAPActivist Songs – The Team’s best picks appeared first on Global Arts and Politics Alliance.

Lissie’s work is committed to exploring how bodies are used within the performance space and the relationship made present between them. More recently, she has explored the performativity of motherhood, in relation with inter-speciesism, in Hush Now, My Darling. Raising questions of de-naturalisation, the performance looks at how both female and animal bodies can be manipulated in order to create a maternal instinct.

We got the chance to ask about what intrigued us most in her work.

GAPA: Thanks for talking to us, Lissie! What would you say is your message?

Lissie: My aim is to try and make people take a moment out from their usual day to day routine. I invite people to think about the quirks in life and how they differ from somebody else on the street. As well as inviting people to think about who they are, I want to remind people to think about how they treat Others. To consider their actions a little more carefully and think about the reaction it will evoke.

GAPA: What kind of reaction do you expect from the audience?

Lissie: I try and not think about the audience’s reaction too much. I guess that some will be interested and completely agree with what I am saying whereas other may think it is pointless or boring. What I do think is important though, is that all those who see the work have an opinion about it, and I believe that they do. Regardless of how somebody identifies themselves, I hope that the ethical considerations present in my work are relatable to all, regardless of gender, race, sexuality, age etc.

GAPA: What drove you to question boundaries between the animal and the human?

Lissie: The interaction between humans and animals has always been something I found fascinating, even as a young child. I remember questioning why certain animals are treated differently to others, and as of yet, I still haven’t found an answer. The concept of ‘life’ intrigues me and how we choose to interact with one another even more so intriguing. So at the moment, I am attempting to find an answer to that potentially unanswerable question; Why do we treat animals the way we do?

GAPA: Do you consider your work to be political?

Lissie: Yes; perhaps not explicitly, but there are definitely political themes in the work. It questions how people act and the decisions they make. It looks at the construct of power and examines how people use and abuse theirs. It dabbles with community and how we treat each other. So, very loosely, yes, I consider my work as political.

GAPA: Could you describe your work in 3 words?

Lissie: Thoughtful; Messy; Intriguing.

GAPA: What is next for you?

Lissie: Over the next year there will be more performances of my current work Hush Now My Darling, as well as more ventures into film and photography independently. I am definitely not finished with exploring the relationship between humans and animals – so expect more of that!

Do you like what you are reading? You can read more about Lissie Carlile on her website. You can also let us know about your views on the GAPA forum and at our next event in London.

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We caught up with Kelly to talk Salvador Dalí, her big plans for GAPA and why art is so important when it comes to conveying a universal message.

GAPA: What does (political) art represent to you?

Kelly: To me, art (be it written, spoken, played, painted, or danced) represents the incredible depth and breadth of human expression and communication. We as a species have the power to communicate incredibly complex ideas and emotions through a wide variety of mediums, not just verbally. Not only that, we are able to do so in a very egalitarian fashion.

All humans have some emotional reaction to all art, thereby breaking down political and socio-economic boundaries. When two humans look at a painting, see a dance, or listen to a piece of music, they will have a reaction to that piece of art regardless of who they are or where they came from. For me, this is where the power in political art lies.

Political art has the ability to communicate political messages and elicit strong emotional responses in a very non-elitist way. In this sense, political art represents to me a place where everyone can participate in politics, whether they are the ones creating the art or not.

GAPA: What is/are your favorite artists and/or artwork?

Kelly: My favorite visual artist is Salvador Dalí. I like surrealism in general, but I think the creativity and sheer technical mastery present in Dalí’s works are genius. His pieces and subject matter may be a little…eccentric, but I love how he was never afraid to be himself and produced the art that he wanted regardless of the grumblings of critics.

I have many favorite musical artists that shift depending on my mood and life events. The Cat Empire, Andy McKee, John Butler, Tony Haven, The Hush Sound, and Mine are the artists currently being played on repeat. My favorite art activist is Banksy. His tongue-in-cheek political commentary is beautiful and always spot-on. I also love how he has been able to toe the line between mainstream art and underground artist in a very effective way.

GAPA: What motivated you to join GAPA?

Kelly: I joined GAPA because it gave me the chance to combine two of my passions – art and politics – in an innovative and supportive environment. My background is in academia and research, so helping to lead the GAPA think tank seemed like the perfect place to apply my skills to my passions.

Political art and art activism are a growing field for political science research, and I wanted to be part of an organization that worked on the cutting edge of such research. I also appreciate GAPA’s mission to bring artists, politicians, and academics together and wanted to help build that network.

GAPA: Describe what GAPA represents to you in three words.

Kelly: Art + Politics = Community (that is still technically three words, right?)

GAPA: What are your plans for GAPA and more specifically, for the Think Tank?

Kelly: I plan to help GAPA grow into a wide and deep community filled with students, academics, professionals, and the general public. I see GAPA as a forum for exchanging ideas, connecting artists and activists to facilitate creative and meaningful collaboration, providing resources to academics and professionals interested in the area, and summarizing current ideas, trends, research, and opportunities for everyone in-between.

In this context, the Think Tank will function as a formal body for organizing and promoting research in the area of art and politics. Those involved in the Think Tank will benefit from a wide network of professionals and scholars, as well as gain access to publishing in our journal and presenting at our conference. In short, the Think Tank will be at the front lines of our academic investigations into the relationship between art and politics.

The post GAPA meets … Kelly Soderstrom, Head of Working Groups at GAPA appeared first on Global Arts and Politics Alliance.