This issue of Dædalus examines what democratic citizenship requires as the United States marks its 250th anniversary. Its essays assess the health of political institutions, civic participation, public information, education, and the relationships that allow people to work across differences. For Res Creativa readers, the collection is especially valuable for its attention to civic culture:…
Across Southeast Asia, artists and cultural rights defenders are increasingly being cast as threats – to public morality, political order and dominant narratives about gender, sexuality, identity, and belonging. This is especially true for queer and trans artists, whose bodies, stories, and performances often challenge the boundaries that states, religious authorities, and conservative movements seek…
The book Art Beyond the Edge: Creativity and Conflict in a World on Fire by Mark LeVine and Bryan Reynolds has the goal of generating a critical theory that can meet the challenges of the twenty-first century. The authors propose a new and radical vocabulary, epistemological foundation, and praxiological roadmap for engagement with and in…
Beautiful Trouble is a book, strategy card deck, online toolbox and creative campaign incubator. It is also an international network of artist-activist-trainers helping grassroots movements become more creative, effective, and irresistible. Beautiful Trouble believes in people power and the game-changing role that creativity, humor, joy, and mischief can play in the struggle for a better…
This essay by Laurie Woodard explores the work of artist and activist Fredi Washington during the New Negro Renaissance. It frames Washington as an unconventional “Triple Threat,” not as an artist who dances and sings and acts, but as a performing artist, a writer, and a civil and human rights activist. It focuses upon Washington’s…
Charter for Compassion supports the emerging global movement of compassion to co-create transformation at all levels, by connecting, cultivating, and encouraging networks of compassionate action. The Charter for Compassion is based on a set of foundational ethics and principles that center around the concept of compassion as a guiding force for personal, societal, and global…
People are losing faith in politics. There is a “triple trust” dilemma: people’s trust in institutions, institutions’ trust in people, and people’s trust in one another are alarmingly low. Important decisions get stuck or ignored. Meanwhile, many are drawn to authoritarian alternatives. DemocracyNext is an international research and action institute based in Den Haag, Netherlands.…
Design & Democracy believes that every aspect of democracy has been designed. Therefore, it can be designed differently. Design & Democracy is a research platform launched in 2019. Based in Switzerland and Portugal, researchers investigate the ways in which design and democratic practices intersect and overlap, and explore possible new democratic paradigms through a design…
Devoted & Disgruntled (D&D) is a UK-wide conversation about theatre and the performing arts, run by theatre company Improbable. D&D events, and the community that has developed around them, involve people taking responsibility for making better theatre and making theatre better. D&D has become a way to engage with the wider theatre world artists only…
WASHINGTON, DC — Please raise your hand if you didn’t know this was bound to happen. The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. decided to move the location for a symposium designed to address issues of race in American and Mexican art. Planned by the museum’s Center for Advanced Study in Visual Arts, the program…