Artists, like athletes, know how important it is to practice. There is a unique and powerful type of knowledge and understanding that emerges from dedicated practice. This is why in our cultural strategy for belonging, we focus on four essential practices. These practices continue to delight and push us. They guide how we engage projects and where we focus our efforts. They are:

• Cultivate vibrant and diverse forms of cultural practice that support the growth of leadership and practice of those directly impacted by systems of oppression.
• Amplify the knowledge, insight and vision that comes through culture and cultural production and create containers and experiences where this knowledge, insight and vision can be expressed and understood on its own terms.
• Align with efforts for material, political and social change.
• Make social and cultural change into a new “common sense.”

With gratitude,

Evan Bissell

Arts & Cultural Strategy Coordinator

evanbissell@berkeley.edu

+an offering

A three minute reflection on beauty, gain and the perception of loss created by Chella Man.

+opportunities

Image: Toshi Reagon. Photo by Kevin Yatorola.

Have you registered for our summit on April 21? Don’t miss our arts & culture offerings, including keynote performance by Toshi Reagon, a workshop and sharing of in-process work by Alphabet Rockers and a new video collaboration from the Nile Project.

Image: So Love Can Win by Timothy B featuring Isha Clarke from Youth vs. Apocolypse.

May 1 deadline: Akonadi Foundation’s So Love Can Win Fund provides general support grants of $10,000 to Oakland’s organizers, storytellers, culture bearers, and healers who seek to ignite and implement a radical collective vision of freedom and racial justice.

+ecosystem

Image: YBCA summit

For the last three years the YBCA 100 has celebrated everyday heroes who have shown extraordinary commitment to building sustainable, equitable, and regenerative communities. We love seeing so many presenters and collaborators we get to work with shine on this year’s list - including Antoine Hunter, Ashley Smiley, Christine Wong Yap, mak-’amham/Cafe Ohlone, Studio Pathways (see below for some of their curriculum), and more! Check out the April 3rd celebration for some inspiration.

Photo by Noelle Ghoussaini

Essential Practice Three of our cultural strategy for belonging (see above) asks us to align with efforts for material, political and social change. This week, a powerful example of this came to fruition in New York with the passage of the HALT legislation. From 2014 to 2017 Mariposa & the Saint: From Solitary Confinement, A Play Through Letters was performed over 70 times across the country in partnership with active campaigns to end solitary confinement, including the NY campaign. Check out how the play was mobilized to grow this movement across the country, providing insights for artists, organizers and policymakers.

+from the archives

Image grab from our Bridging & Breaking curriculum

Did you know about our video explainers and their curriculum modules? The modules are designed for a variety of audiences and center arts-based and popular education practices. They were created with the good people at Whole Story and Studio Pathways. Stay tuned for new animated explainers in the coming year.

Videos have also been an important part of our work in the Network for Transformative Change. Our 2020 video “Can You See It?” was recently nominated for a Writers Guild of America award. And if you’re looking for a hopeful vision of California, check out our “We Are California” video.

+nourishment

#OBI March playlist is here to get you in the springtime mood. A collection of new and old tunes for opening the window and dancing in your socks (or doing some data analysis, planning that workshop, writing that piece…) 

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Othering & Belonging Institute
University of California, Berkeley
460 Stephens Hall
Tel: 510-642-3326
Berkeley, CA 94720
United States

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