Dedicated to clever and innovative trends of art and design in activism.

The Center for the Theatre of the Oppressed and Applied Theatre Arts, Los Angeles offers free, monthly workshops on Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) techniques, and applications of liberatory theatre. In their six years, they have worked with local community organizations to bring such issues to the fore as:

art and activism, liberation art and community engagement, work on issues as diverse as racism and juvenile justice, awareness of the threat of war and the plight of immigrant residents facing new post-9/11 laws in the United States.

They work through a variety of lenses, and have worked closely with Augusto Boal.  See their calendar of events for CTOATALA happenings.

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Friends of Tibet recently hosted a five day long theatre workshop in Dharamsala, India. Indian theatre activists Jaya Aiyer and Ishtiaq engaged young Tibetan and Indian locals in trainings for “voice modulation, body language, sense of space and a whole gamut of theatre languages and mechanics.” The workshop aimed at politicizing a group of young persons, challenging them to consider their relationship to contemporary issues of oppression. To achieve this, educators built the workshop around the radical, popular Theatre of the Oppressed, wherein:

the distinct relationship of the oppressed and the oppressor is etched in the minds of the audience, who are then invited to participate in the theatre and bring the play to one or many conclusions. Its various forms use public spaces like the bus stops, cafes and traffic junctions, where the play maybe taking place without the audience realising it.

Participants created several plays, which were performed in front of three different audiences, and ultimately left with a new technique of political problem solving. Aiyer, who studied under Augusto Boal, poignantly told students “Free the Tibet within you, and you will free Tibet.”

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Traces of the Trade will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, January 17-27, 2008. Traces was selected as one of 64 from 3,634 submissions, and has so far earned the attention of the New York Times and USA Today.  Congratulations to the folks at Ebb Pod Productions for the success of their film!

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The Groundswell Collective is pleased to announce the launch of the freshly re-designed website for the film Traces of the Trade. The film follows director and filmmaker Katrina Browne and nine relatives on a remarkable journey which brings them face-to-face with the history and legacy of New England’s hidden enterprise - slavery.

Browne’s ancestors, the DeWolf family, were the largest slave-trading family in U.S. history. They trace their predecessors’ steps through what was the the Triangle Trade, visiting the DeWolf hometown of Bristol, Rhode Island, slave forts on the coast of Ghana, and the ruins of a family plantation in Cuba. They explore the minefield that is racial politics, and reunite a year later to discuss what it means to “repair” what has been done by one’s ancestors.

The film is intended as a catalyst for dialog and education through screenings in communities and classrooms. Groundswell is proud to have had the opportunity to further such discussion.

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I recently returned from Thanksgiving weekend in Kennebunk, Maine, the town I grew up in. For those unfamiliar, it’s a small upper- and owning-class town where the Bush family likes to vacation. We have our progressive enclaves, but the town is widely associated with the political right. So, when Bud Swenson showed up in our local library, we showed our true, conflicted colors.

Swenson makes art from American flags, and he aims to make a bold statement. His exhibit - inoffensively titled “Portraits in a Time of War” - has been the subject of some controversy around town. His open criticism of the Bush administration, evident in his work, prompted the Kennebunk Free Library to remove two of his pieces for violating “normative community standards.”  The Portland Press Herald reports that the Library defines those standards as “the Bush family’s connection with the area” and two complaints from the public.  And this after nearly canceling his exhibit before it was hung.

The caricatures of Bush and Cheney were returned after the library board had them reinstated.  They now hang next to untitled pieces of Americana that look like unassuming folk art, but debate over the issue is still causing a buzz.

Mr. Swenson, who has lived in Kennebunk since 1982, distributed a statement by Bruce Gagnon by the guestbook.  Gagnon writes:

Our nation’s history is a series of moments of conflict, recorded in time by courageous artists, and today a malaise has enveloped our culture fueled by half-truths, deception and lies.

How can people believe in democracy again? What does the flag stand for today? Can America survive when 70% of the people want the war to end but both parties ignore their longing for peace?

The artist raises these questions and many more. Without reflection and healthy debate a nation cannot claim to be a true democracy.

I find “What does the flag stand for today?” to be the most compelling question, since it actually invites discussion.  So, should the symbol of a nation be allowed to be used in self-criticism?  Is this desecration of a common symbol, or an invitation to a stirring debate?

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