On Saturday, December 6th, a citywide and national network of artists, organizers, cultural workers, and policy makers gathered at Mercury Store in Gowanus for Cultural Organizing for Community Change 2025. Co-sponsored with Arts & Democracy, participants learned effective ways to deepen their work and engage creativity in organizing for community change. The event included our cultural organizing framework, hands on skill building workshops, and networking and resource exchange. Food was provided by local cafes and restaurants, including breakfast from Principles GI Coffee House and Runner & Stone, lunch from Zaytoons, and a reception with various pies from Four & Twenty Blackbirds.

In the morning, our Welcome, Getting to Know One Another, and Cultural Organizing Framework included Hatuey Ramos-Fermín, Caron Atlas and Claudie Mabry, NOCD-NY; amalia deloney, Arts & Democracy and Point A Studio; and intention setting with Paloma McGregor, Angela’s Pulse. Multiple artists and practitioners shared how cultural organizing impacts their work, including several opportunities for the full room of folks to get to know one another and discuss the framework in small groups.

Before lunch, participants had a moment of activation with Mikaila Ware of Urban Bush Women (picture above).

During lunch, participants suggested and hosted discussions, which included a conversation about the new mayoral transition and a Spoons for Freedom exercise (pictured below).

After lunch, the first block of sessions included:

Calm Name Tree Magic, with Molly Rose Kaufman, Mindy Fullilove and Douglas Farrand, University of Orange

This workshop presented tools for managing “Shock and Awe” and its consequences. Participants engaged with the University of Orange workbook: Calm, Name, Tree, Magic. University of Orange is a people's free university of restoration urbanism. Over the past 17 years, the UofO has become a center for grassroots research, popular education, and place-based organizing. Calm, Name, Tree, Magic workbook: https://universityoforange.org/calm-name-tree-magic

Dance for Every Body, with Mikaila Ware, Urban Bush Women

This movement jam/dance class embraced the ideas that each individual has a unique and powerful contribution to make, and that our bodies are a powerful source of agency. The goal was for "every body" to find their level of challenge and comfort and partake according to their abilities, and to appreciate the group’s diversity as an attribute to their community. Participants explored UBW's technique with close attention to the use of breath, weight, call and response and polyrhythm.

Growth Along the Gowanus, with Michael Higgins Jr, Social Justice Walks

Four years after the rezoning of the neighborhood, the landscape of Gowanus has transformed dramatically—but is this what we asked for? Participants joined local guide Michael Higgins Jr. for an exploration of the area and its newest developments, as well as a historical framing for this moment's local politics on housing as they begin to shift again into a new mayoral administration.

Writing Change: Connecting Personal & Political in Creative Writing, with Andrea Assaf, Art2Action

The Writing Change workshop, facilitated by poet, playwright and essayist Andrea Assaf, invited participants to explore the connections between transformative moments in their personal experience and pivotal moments in political history, and to write creatively from those intersections. How do we express or document changing times, even as we navigate our own experiences and feelings about what is happening around us? How can our writing catalyze or contribute to change-making and movement building? Through a series of guided exercises, personal reflection, and facilitated group dialogue, the process took participants deeper into inquiry and led to unexpected discoveries.

The second block of sessions included:

FROM COMPOST TO CONSTELLATION: Seeding Possibility, with amalia deloney, Point A Studio

Through ecological metaphors and participatory exercises, the workshop explored what needs to be composted, sensed the small shoots of possibility already emerging, and identified the deeper patterns taking root in our communities. Together, participants co-created “constellations of possibility”—future images grounded in care, relationship, and place—and each participant left with one micro-practice to seed in their own work. This workshop blended reflection, imagination, movement, and collective sensemaking, offering a grounded and hopeful way to navigate change and cultivate the futures our neighborhoods deserve.
Resource on Hospicing the Future: https://seedandsignal.substack.com/p/hospicing-the-future

Power Mapping to Develop Effective Campaign Strategies, with Alex Navarro-McKay, political consultant and educator

This workshop introduced power mapping as a strategic tool to identify and analyze the decision-makers, influencers, and allies who can advance our goals as cultural organizers working toward community change. Through guided exercises, participants practiced mapping relationships between key stakeholders, understanding their motivations and interests, and identifying leverage points for influence. Whether campaigning for policy change, community resources, or institutional accountability, power mapping helps you answer critical questions: Who has the power to give you what you want? Who influences them? Where should you focus your organizing energy? Participants left with practical frameworks to strengthen their campaign strategies and build winning coalitions that center community voices and cultural organizing approaches.

Rehearsing Our Future: Poetry, Theater & Democracy in Practice, with Jonathan “Courageous” Clark, multidisciplinary artist and activist

This immersive workshop was designed to explore the powerful intersection of poetry, theater, and story circle as processes to cultivate democracy and community. Participants transformed personal narratives into poetry, and poetry into ensemble theatrical performance, while practicing deep listening, and experiencing shared authority throughout. By the end of the workshop, attendees were equipped with practical, adaptable tools to foster connection, amplify diverse voices, and build collective power within their own communities; rehearsing the future we wish to create, one story at a time. A Southerner and Appalachian from East Tennessee, Courageous writes, creates, facilitates, and performs nationwide.

Stitching Our Stories: Politics, Collage & Collective Imagination, with Jennella Young, artist & community-based arts practitioner

In this hands-on workshop, participants explored how simple bookbinding and collage can help us preserve memory, confront erasure, and imagine new possibilities for our communities. They stitched together small pamphlet books and then used images, paper scraps, and guided prompts to build collaged pages that speak to the stories we carry and the futures we’re working toward. Together, they also began a collaborative handmade book that gathers a shared vocabulary of change. Inspired by writers like Toni Morrison and Edwidge Danticat, participants considered how art helps us remember, resist, and reframe the narratives shaping our lives. They left with a handmade book, creative tools, and new ways to bring art into community work.

The day’s closing, facilitated by amalia deloney and Claudie Mabry, included three rounds of paired conversations, with a final question: “What did today help you remember or imagine?” Participants shared their answers in a Menti word cloud (pictured below).