Spark action
Street Works applies MJN’s 3 values — justice, loving care, and solidarity — to make justice normal in the cultural asset ecosystem. (Read more here about why we're focused in this particular program on the cultural asset ecosystem.) Action is one of its design principles.
We aim to spark hopeful, concrete co-actions that our communities can take to transform frustration, fear, sorrow, confusion, unknowns, or uncertainty into solutions.
We understand that action looks different for everyone. It is personal and subtle.
We understand that change is not a straight line. To act and change requires steady inspiration, support, capacity, and more.
Why action?
Art has always contributed to social change. It is a system solution that provokes response, inspires creativity, sparks feeling, and gives energy. Do that over and over, and worldviews form, which shape how we move and act in the world. No single entity can or should control that process. That's why it's hard to tie specific social changes to a given artist, project, or institution. We think it goes against justice to even want it at large scales. That's how propaganda forms.
But artistic experiences can more synergistically serve social change by “hugging” people in the moment with concrete actions that help them move from inspiration to sustained connection and community participation.
Our goal is to center justice in this process by designing spaces in which action is not simply limited to what we want. This demands curation be a form of collaboration with participants. It reject silos in favor of weaving subjects, actions, and needs together. It asks us to suspend our assumption that an event will seem unfocused, simply because it doesn't reflect only a single vision. Neither does true democracy.
We are far from perfect. Perhaps in an ideal world, every single person near where a Street Work was taking place would have a say in curation. Today, we rely on local community organizations to help create bridges and make sure that spaces allow for a lot of listening and a large number of community stewards as we imagine a future in which Street Works are financially sustainable.
