CREATIVE ACTIVISM: WIDE AWAKE: Art & The Future of Justice - Hosted by For Freedoms

BRYAN JOSEPH LEE: Hello, my name is Bryan Joseph Lee. I am the director of Public Forum, and welcome back to creative activism, a day of art, ideas, and action. The urgency for a new world has sounded the call, and we are all needed to build the future we're waiting for. For our next session, Wide Awake, Art and the Future of Social Justice, we are thrilled to welcome For Freedoms, an artist collective that is building a political movement based in creativity, protest, and direct action. Here to

speak about their vision for 2020 and beyond are artists, creatives, activists, and organizers, Niama Sandy, Anya Ayoung Chee, Helina Metaferia, and Kaneza Schaal with executive director for For Freedoms, Claudia Pena. CLAUDIA PENA: Hello, welcome to this panel that I'm so excited to be a part of. I'm always excited to talk about art and its role in promoting justice. And we're really excited to be here and thankful to the public forum and the team at the public theater for putting together and

hosting creative activism. This is Wide Awake's Art and The Future of Justice. And soon I will be joined by the panelists of this panel who are brilliant, brilliant creatives. And I can't wait to hear what they have to say. Before we get into that, I just wanted to share a little bit about the history of the Wide Awakes and what we're doing at For Freedoms, as we are part of the broader movement of the Wide Awakes. The Wide Awakes in terms of history-- I think it's important to know just a litt

le bit about it. In the 1860s, around that time there was a band of abolitionists, people who were against the institution of slavery. And it was made up mostly of working class folks, mostly white men. But also there were black people who were Wide Awakes and also there were women who were Wide Awakes. So part of their values also included suffrage, the right for folks to vote. But they focused mostly on abolition. And in order to push those views forward, they organized. They organized marches

. They had processions. They wore capes. They carried torches. They marched in the thousands, in the tens of thousands in New York and other states. And they were pushing in order to elect Abraham Lincoln, who himself was not an abolitionists, though he's often given that credit. But they pushed him in order to make those decisions after being elected. And they are part of the reason why slavery was abolished at that time. The Wide Awakes of that time were revolutionary. They had all these radic

al ideas that were really inspiring. If you want to go into the archives, there's so many articles in the New York Times and such that talk about the impact that they had on the wider electorate and the wider population. This year in 2020 there's been a reweakening of the Wide Awakes of sorts. And what makes it most exciting, from my personal perspective, is that it's an open source social movement. There are Wide Awakes in lots of different states, in New York, in Pennsylvania, in California, i

n Louisiana, in Florida, in Michigan, in Illinois, in DC, in Puerto Rico. There is also talk of Wide Awakes chapters starting in other places and connections being made, including in Cuba, in Tokyo, Japan, in Berlin, Germany. We have one partner, or one collaborator, and critical resistance that is attempting to start a chapter of the Wide Awakes inside of a correction facility. The Wide Awakes belongs to everybody. It belongs to nobody, and it belongs to everybody at the same time. And that's w

hy I say the exciting part to me is how open source it is that people can come in and bring whatever it is that they have, whatever they got, whatever you're carrying with you, bring it to the movement and just add to the voice, to the cacophony of voices that are raising the volume on a level so high so that, as we move into the elections of November and beyond, of course, that this movement that is full of radical listening, radical acceptance, and love-- one of the concepts that people talk a

bout is love over rules. There's a bunch of different values that are coming out of this that people are really excited about and inspired by and hopefully will continue to move lots of issues regarding justice forward. Most importantly right now, it's engagement in the elections in whatever way that means for folks. I want to quickly walk you through this infinite playbook, which is the For Freedoms iteration of what it means to play right now. And this is just one perspective, one view of the

Wide Awakes. And people are welcome to participate in the ways that we are offering. You're also super welcome to create your own form of playing and your own participation in this movement. Next slide. This is just a bit about For Freedoms and our organization. It's artist-led. One of our main core missions is to inspire and model civic joy, civic participation, discourse, debate, conversation, anything that is going to make people more interested in participating in the ways that policies, ide

as, solutions are created, contemplated, and manifested around them. Next slide. So we've been talking about play because we believe that, in order to move things forward and in order to progress society, people need to be involved. And when you're involved, then you participate. It's really easy to think about it as play. Next slide. Here are some of the rules that we offer in order to be able to participate in this game. Carry your own trash is one of my favorites because it speaks to the idea

that we all have stuff that we're bringing in from our lived experiences. But it's also our responsibility to be cognizant of it, be aware of it. Carry your own trash. I also love no one plays alone or that you always bring someone into play because Wide Awakes cannot exist without the concept of collaboration. It's inherently collaborative. And coming into this space means that you are joining a group of people and that you're willing to bring in others with you. Another favorite rule is, you'

re just in time. Doesn't matter when you arrive. You are perfectly on time whenever you make it here. And the one that I mentioned earlier, love over rules. It's really important to always fall back on that idea as things come up, as they always do, to remember that it's always based on love. Next slide. These are the For Freedoms that F-O-R Freedoms is focusing on in this campaign, the 2020 awakening. We are thinking about healing, listening, justice, and awakening. And even though they are fou

r separate words, they're also interlocked, interconnected as you can see in the image in front of you. You can't have one without the other. And for some folks, it's a journey of sorts. But it's not linear. It's very interconnected. Next slide. We're focused on the elections right now. And particularly, we're focused on people being involved in the census, responding to the census, registering to vote, and actually voting, making a plan to vote. There's all kinds of literature that shows that,

if you have a plan to vote, then you're more likely to follow it. And the reason this is important is because folks register to vote at much higher numbers than they actually vote. Even people who are very well meaning, very well connected, and intend to end up not voting. So we're promoting this idea of making a plan to vote and thinking about, don't vote late, vote early. Next slide. So our short term goal, of course, is all around the elections, but the long term goal is to be thinking about

the For freedoms post election, especially because, even on election day, we're not likely to know who was elected. It's going to probably be a long process of counting votes. There may be disappointments all around. There may even be chaos. And that is a time where it will be really important for the populace of the United States to be thinking about listening, healing, justice, and awakening. Next time. Here are some of the values that we're thinking about insisting on the future, always askin

g the bigger questions and also focusing on the fact that there's nuance in everything. Joy is at the core of everything, and we're going to talk about that more with our panelists-- listening until we actually hear what's being said. Binaries don't seem to be very helpful. So we think about bridging them a lot. We're not that interested in reacting to things. We want to be visionary and think about being proactive. And as always, we're playing this infinite game, which is laid out by some of th

e rules that we talked about earlier. Next slide. Here are some ways for you all to participate. And I invite you to check out the For Freedoms website, For Freedoms, F-O-R freedoms dot org. This playbook, the longer version of the playbook is there for you to download. We also encourage folks in different organizations to use it, make it your own, brand it with your own, branding, change the language as you see fit. It's open source. It belongs to everyone. You can edit the heck out of it and m

ake it fit whenever you're thinking about. Next slide. So we just invite you to join the awakening. Most importantly, right now we're thinking about October 3rd. October 3rd is the anniversary of one of the biggest marches from the Wide Awakes in the 1860s. We are celebrating that anniversary by having events, activations all over the place from Los Angeles out to New York. In New York, there will be some in-person events. From Los Angeles, there's going to be some virtual events. But we invite

you to create your own thing, to participate in your own way. Some places are focused on music. Some places are focused on speech. Some places are focused on children, on making art. Whatever it may be, whatever makes your heart sing, we hope that you become part of this movement by joining the events on October 3rd. And in order to learn more about that, feel free to check out the website. And also there'll be some information about it at the end of the panel. Next slide. Here are the key dates

, thinking about October 3rd and the final lap to the elections on November 3. It's a full month. Next slide. If you go to the For Freedoms website and you're checking out this playbook, those will be clickable links that will give you more information. And last slide. There you go. Now you know a lot more about the 2020 Awakening campaign. And I think that we are ready to invite the rest of our guests. So I want to start off by thanking y'all for joining us today. These women are incredibly bri

lliant and have a lot going on in their lives. So I'm so appreciative of the fact that they were able to make time to hang out today, especially because that means I get to hang out with you. So we have Niama Sandy, a New York based cultural anthropologist. She's also a curator, a producer, a multidisciplinary artist, an incredible artist and educator. Niama's work delves into the human story, often with stories of the global black diaspora at its center. And she's currently a visiting professor

at Pratt Institute. She's been involved in many of the Wide Awakes' events since-- I don't know-- maybe the beginning of the pandemic, definitely all summer. She doesn't talk about this as often in bios and such. But I've seen video of it. She's also a brilliant singer. And I wish that she would sing with us today. NIAMA SANDY: Oh, god. CLAUDIA PENA: Welcome, Niama. NIAMA SANDY: Thank you, Claudia. CLAUDIA PENA: We have Helina. I was going to say her name in Spanish, Metaferia, but I believe it

's pronounced, Metaferia. HELINA METAFERIA: Metaferia, yes. CLAUDIA PENA: Metaferia. I'm always trying to make things Spanish. It's a problem. It really is. She's an interdisciplinary artist, and she works in performance and video, installation, and collage, one of those people that just does it all. Her work thinks about the politics of the body and space, particularly as it relates to notions of identity and citizenship. She's currently a Mellon fellow. She's an assistant professor at Brown Un

iversity, and she lives and works in New York City. Welcome, Helina. HELINA METAFERIA: Thank you. CLAUDIA PENA: Kaneza, Kaneza Schaal, she's a New York City based theater artist. And she has a recent work called Jack &. It showed in BAM's 2018 Next Wave Festival. It was at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago with its cocommissioners, Walker Arts, REDCAT, and Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center and the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art. I had a chance to see it and I loved it. So welcome,

Kaneza. And last but certainly not least, we have Anya Ayoung Chee. She's a fashion designer, consultant, social entrepreneur. She's in Trinidad, in Trinidad and Tobago, but in Trinidad. And she also once won Project Runway. Over the last decade, she's been expanding Caribbean creative entrepreneurship, regionally and internationally. She's explored lots of different avenues to integrate her love of fashion, design, and Caribbean culture, and commerce all into one space. She also created the ori

ginal capes for the Wide Awakes that many people have seen all over social media and has been an inspiration for other folks to create their own versions of capes. So we're really grateful to Anya for leading us in that visual aspect of the Wide Awakes as we all continue to think about the heart of what the Wide Awakes are. Welcome to all of you. Thanks for being here today. ANYA AYOUNG CHEE: Thank you, Claudia. HELINA METAFERIA: Thank you. CLAUDIA PENA: Let's just start off really quickly with

a simple question. How did you make your way to the Wide Awakes community or the Wide Awakes space? And I'll leave it up to y'all to jump in as you see fit. But if that becomes awkward, I'll start just calling on you. NIAMA SANDY: If I may jump in-- so back in June-- I think this was maybe the second week of protests-- I was invited to join a call about doing something for Juneteenth. And that snowballed into a new collective being created called the Blacksmiths, which I'm heavily involved with.

And so for this Juneteeth that we did, which was called Juneteenth Jubilee-- we did it in Harlem. It was just stunning, stunning days. We partnered with both the Wide Awakes and another organization called Intersectional Voices Collective. And it was the beginning of so many collaborations throughout the summer so far and into the fall. CLAUDIA PENA: Thank you, Niama. HELINA METAFERIA: I'll jump in. Hi, there. So I was just saying that I was responding to what my Niama was saying about her part

icipation in Juneteenth celebrations. And I was just attending the event and a few others after that. And I felt really compelled because of the amount of energy and positivity that just kept accumulating at these events and physical events in the moment of a pandemic. So I was invited to participate and do a performance on the hundredth anniversary of the 19th amendment through the Wide Awakes at Grand Army Plaza. And then after that, I just kept asking how I could help. And my current show at

Alamba Contemporary Arts Center is now going to be a part of a Wide Awakes' festivies. And they're going to be doing some October 3 festivities and programming related to Wide Awake, which is really exciting to have this message heard also in red states, swing states, et cetera. CLAUDIA PENA: Kaneza. KANEZA SCHAAL: I think, for those of us who hold social practice and creative practice as inextricably linked, there is an inherent porousness to how collectivity functions, how resource moves betwe

en people. So I feel like I got sucked into the vortex. That's the best way I can describe it. ANYA AYOUNG CHEE: It really should have gone before you, Kaneza. So last year, maybe November, December, I was asked by Hank Willis Thomas and Eric Gottesman work on a cape design for what would have been a resurgence of the Wide Awakes. And it was very, very early stages. I think of thinking through how that was going to look, which could never, I think, have well probably Hank got in his mind what it

would evolve into, which we're all experiencing now. But at the same time, part of my practice is in designing for Carnival, which is a very big event in the Caribbean, particularly in Trinidad. And I saw these overlaps of how the Wide Awakes were reawakening, how they were intending to express themselves-- ourselves, I should say-- and there was so much direct overlap in that practice that I couldn't help it merge the two. So in February, we did a very classic Trinidad and Caribbean thing, and

we just decided at the very last minute to register what we call a band, which is the way in which we celebrate on the streets for Carnival as a group of people, as a collective of creatives, as people who just decide to own the road and go out and claim space. And we called it the Wide Awakes. And that's where, I think in the sense, even though it wasn't intentional, it was the actual first observation of this reawakening of the Wide Awakes. And it borrows from the culture, in my opinion, of w

hat the original essence of Carnival is. And it's referencing to mean the way in which cannelle which was slave rights in the 1800s, 1881. To me, I really see the merging of those things, and here we are now on the verge of up to a third, which I think is going to be a very similar energy and vibe. So I'm so excited to continue to participate, continue to create capes, continue to just be part of this incredible movement. CLAUDIA PENA: Love it. I'm curious about how your practice, each of your i

ndividual practice of art and creativity, how it connects or how it has a relationship with the concept of justice. Niami, I feel like you're ready. NIAMA SANDY: You're right. So I think, for me, as I'm thinking about-- I think you said it so perfectly when you read a bit from my bio-- this idea of a human story. It's not just about one person's experience. It's not just about one particular region. It's not just about how we individually live and move through the world, but how do we create spa

ce for everyone? How do we create space that is actually equitable, it's actually fair, that allows for all of these different viewpoints to coalesce into something that allows us all to be able to connect? And so for me, that's the critical node of the whole thing, very many armed thing that I do. I think it's ultimately all about that. CLAUDIA PENA: Thanks, Niama. Kaneza. KANEZA SCHAAL: I think I'm also interested in story and I'm interested in places of story and how we care for and generate

places of story. And I guess, in my own work, I think about rehabilitating national narratives and how do we address story. And one of the things that's exciting to me about being part of this awakening is we're in this crazy moment where our story platforms, our primary story platforms have been hijacked and the news has become the place where drama plays out, where we experience story, where we imbibe story. And I feel like it's started to be a place where we feed this basic need that we have

through this outlet. And so for me, plugging into the Wide Awakes is about taking back our places of story so that we can use that tool to build the world we actually want to live in. CLAUDIA PENA: And I love that. It's also connected to the idea of colonizing the holidays, 4th of July becoming interdependence day. Anya? ANYA AYOUNG CHEE: Well, I just love what Kaneza and Niama both said. And I think that, because my work has evolved a little bit from primarily designing fashion to consulting, a

s you mentioned, designing strategies for, particularly, building ecosystems for small businesses to operate-- and so creativity I guess is finding its way into a more design practice around business and really breaking down institutional ways of operating. And I think, to some degree, that's my vision of practice and expressing and really it's being bold about realizing things aren't necessarily the way they are and don't need to remain the way they are, that the acts of justice and the act of

creating from our intuition of what our world could look like and really being bold about the future, as the playbook says, is where I feel my practice is evolving, where it used to be a lot more connected directly to using messaging to retell stories. And a foundation that I run is called Together We, and we would create campaigns around social issues that are existing in the Caribbean. But it really has evolved now to really bridge and leverage networks that can re-establish new ways of making

sure that equity is universal. And economic equity is really where I feel that plays out in my work. CLAUDIA PENA: Thank you, Anya. HELINA METAFERIA: I love what everyone said thus far, and I think you really summed up a lot of things that I'm thinking about in terms of narrative and storytelling and equity. I would think, for me practice and my artistic practice, the through line of all the different mediums that I use is this belief and attention and care. And if we just hold presence, which

is this valuable thing that is somehow fleeting for us in this go-go-go society just to slow-slow-slow instead-- I love this idea of holding presence in my work through performance, through video, through visual art. And I also think that that's a really important quality and characteristic in social justice work. Having care and attention to the surroundings means our communities and the people that we love and how to hold space for difference. And so I think, for me, the through line in practi

ce, is the privilege to be an artist, is the privilege to look at the ordinary and the mundane and the everyday with this new set of attention, enthusiasm, love, and care. And that's the same kind of energy I bring to social justice work. CLAUDIA PENA: I love that. Niami, I also wanted to come back to you on this question because I feel like there was one more thing that I wanted to hear you say. NIAMA SANDY: Yeah, I love everything everybody just said. It was good. Kaneza said this beautiful th

ing about generating places of story and also coupled with what Anya just said-- so for context, my family is from the Caribbean. So my entire thought process is very much rooted in a lot of the same ideas in terms of thinking about claiming space and really, how do we put the power back in the hands of every regular person to create change and to create culture. So thinking about all of that, I really just wanted to just say, yes, Kaneza, I love this idea of generating places and also connectin

g to the history of places themselves in terms of where we're activating as well. That was it. CLAUDIA PENA: Awesome. We were talking a little bit before this panel about this idea that the Wide Awakes promotes this concept of joy as resistance. And based on our conversations, we were talking about, what do we need to relearn from our own lineages about this practice and what does this look like globally, this idea of joy as resistance. ANYA AYOUNG CHEE: I'm just going to jump in quickly, and I

think, Niami, again, the Caribbean connection is where a lot of this comes from for me and I know also for Niama. But carnival, again, it's really a celebration of freedom. If you ever have the chance to be in the Caribbean and play mass, it's an extremely transformative experience. And yeah, bringing to the Wide Awakes and bringing to my work in general, the reason I decided to do this kind of a band called the Wide Awakes in Trinidad is because, even in that context of where it's from, it's a

revolutionary way to celebrate our Carnival because a lot of our Carnival has become very commercialized and borrowing from outside cultures, whereas when we know our history, which I have only really started to learn in the last couple of years with a mutual friend of Niama's and I, [INAUDIBLE],, who is was one there was brilliant humans I know-- really understanding what can relate the history of our carnival. It really was an expression and still is an expression of freedom and a demanding fr

eedom, not asking for it, just being it, actually. And I think that's what joy is as a form of resistance is in the context of the Wide Awakes, too. Owning the space all over the country and of the US, all the world if possible on October 3, and really celebrating our freedom and not waiting for someone to say, you're free, not waiting for the elections even to happen to own that space. I mean, to me, if we don't own the road, then who owns it? So that's how I see joy as the form of resistance a

nd realizing how beautiful it is to do that collectively. CLAUDIA PENA: I like that. I want to add in, before folks jump in, that I also would love to hear your thoughts on and why joy. With so many things happening all around us, with so much pain and tragedy, et cetera, is it naive for us to be focusing on joy? Is it just pouring clean water over dirty water? I'd love to hear your thoughts on that as well. HELINA METAFERIA: I think we spent a little bit of time before we met deconstructing joy

and why it's so contagious and why it's really like medicine and why we need that now. And when I think about these life enhancing things that are free and available to all of us, I also think of its counterpart, which is, when I think of life, I think of death. And we have had so much death, so much death collectively in the world at this time. And I was thinking about Ethiopian practices, being Ethiopian American, about grieving and how physical those practices are. It's about moving things o

ut of your body. I remember, when I had death in the family, an aunt told me to just keep tapping your chest as a way to release it. And I think about what we've been doing at these Wide Awakes celebrations, is moving our bodies, moving our bodies to music and letting go of the trauma that's inherently stored there in unison, in communion, in laughter. And I think about how spiritual that is, how that translates and transcends beyond cultures. And I love that we're incorporating the arts and inc

orporating these really old methods of moving and shaking and releasing the trauma that we've experienced as a globe at this very moment and moving towards something positive. HELINA METAFERIA: I feel like there's a misconception that can happen about stories around trauma or about how we actually hold trauma or speak between ourselves in some kind of initiate around these stories. The way perhaps even newscasters or journalists might retell Helina's story would be very different than how she di

d it. We would talk about the pain that was being experienced. And I think the fact is we are always holding these contradictions and that we tell stories of trauma with laughter and we share in that contradiction. And putting the joy forward to me is inviting everyone to hold that contradiction with us. NIAMA SANDY: If I may, so I'm also a member of the Resistance Revival Chorus, which is a collective of women identifying and non-binary folks. It's kind of marriage of music and activism. Shout

out to any of you if you're watching. And one of the main phrases that we use is that joy is an act of resistance, which is actually from the poet Toi Derricotte. So it's really the thing that everything is built on in terms of thinking about-- even with when we did Juneteenth Jubilee, one of the things that we were doing was joy is here, joy is coming. We had hashtags. This was part of the whole thing because, again, this idea of celebrating freedom while you're making it is everything. Yeah, I

think that's-- CLAUDIA PENA: One of the ways we've been thinking about it at For Freedom is that historically people have been told that they should vote because it's their civic duty or their civic responsibility. And it's this very intense, serious thing. But many of us have spent time in other countries. Some of us live in other countries. And that's not always the way elections or voting is talked about. In some spaces, it's very celebratory. People get a day off of work. They get an excuse

to celebrate. We bring out the special food, the good music. People understand that we need these dates, these annual dates in order to be able to just build community and have a good time together. And this is why we've been talking about civic joy as opposed to civic duty or civic responsibility. And turning it a different direction a little bit-- so the Wide Awakes space-- and really just social justice movements period, if you're interested in them-- is always about collaboration. It inhere

ntly necessitates collaboration. But so much of our training, either through education and from different credentialing programs, sometimes it's a little bit competitive. But also just being a person here that has spent time in the United States, there is this individualism that gets promoted. And that also can lead to competition, et cetera. So what are the things that we need to unlearn in order to come into a space and to collaborate in a very authentic and supportive way? What are the things

that no longer serve us that we need to do away with in order to be able to press forward together? And I'm thinking about the Kickstarter campaign right now that is full of Wide Awakes organizations. It's the largest collaboration of art organizations, art slash social justice organizations that's ever gotten together to do a Kickstarter campaign together. And it's taking place right now. I think it's got a couple of weeks left. If you want to search for it, just do a search for Kickstarter an

d Wide Awakes. And there is stuff that needs to be worked out in order for people to come together to raise money together in that way. So curious to learn from you what no longer serves us, what do we need to unlearn in order to do that work together? HELINA METAFERIA: I'll just put on my academic hat for a minute because, as somebody who teaches social practice in the visual art department and also has gone through visual art training, I've noticed that the biggest myth that needs to be turned

on its head is this idea of the sole genius, the sole mysterious artist who is amazing and who just, voila, did all this by themselves. The truth is that there is a team behind people or with people or in front of people or around people making things happen. And I think what For Freedoms does, I think what Wide Awakes does is it demystifies that, that it takes a lot of people to make something brilliant. Whether those people always get recognition is another side of the story. And I think that

having more equitable practices in the ways that we make art, produce art, think about working together, I think it goes beyond something that the market may value or that capitalism may value, which is this individual competition. It goes more towards this human connection, which we can't put a price tag on. We can't commodify that. These interactions are priceless. So that's my idea about that as an educator and as an artist. NIAMA SANDY: Does anyone else-- oh. KANEZA SCHAAL: Niama, that's yo

u. NIAMA SANDY: I love, love, love love loved that, Helina. I love that so much. So one of the things that I have been thinking about in general is this idea of trust. And it's actually in tandem with what you just said. So I'm so glad that you said that. Thinking about one person as the generation point for everything is not the way that any of this can work ever. So when you trust someone to do what they do and just let them run with whatever the task is or whatever the idea might be, it just

creates such this beautiful thing. And I think, going back to the conversation that we had together on Friday in advance. Something that Helina said-- I think I'm just obsessed with Helina on the low, maybe. But she said something that made me think about my own entry point as an artist. Music from age three or four is the first thing that I knew I could do before being a curator or any of these other things enters my mind at all as a possibility. And so thinking about that, ultimately what make

s music work is the blending of tones, the blending of meters, of rhythm, and all of these other different elements. And I think for me that's why collaboration is everything because it's almost a similar process. KANEZA SCHAAL: As a theater maker, on the one hand, theater is this inherently collaborative form and is in its best state a model for participatory society, is an anchor to democracy, from being around a campfire to the Greeks, democracia, literally people power, to contemporary polit

ical performance extravaganzas. And on the other hand, I think theater, as it exists in many of our contexts, is deeply rooted in this Western idea of the singular genius and the erasure of labor, which is all that it is. I agree with you very much on that. And one of the things that I think is exciting about new models of collective action, and even specifically in theater, is how to hold collective practice that allows for leadership, allows for decision making, but holds everyone's labor in t

he collectivity so that the hierarchies of the roles, which have been funneled through-- excuse me, my lamp-- funneled through Western segregating of this person's job, that person's job, this person's job, but holding that labor together to me feels like, as theater artists, the way through that we still can make. And somebody has to make a decision at the end of the day and all of that, but we can hold it all together. ANYA AYOUNG CHEE: And I just wanted to add, as well-- well, in the fashion

industry, being acknowledged as the designer is obviously a very traditional approach to how you're celebrated and honored. And I can be honest about being part of this evolving movement, how my ego has repeatedly showed up as to whether or not we're supposed to be acknowledged for the work that we've done in a traditional sense and how much actually going after that in the way I would normally for a commercial endeavor is useless use of energy. There's no room for that. And I do think that ther

e's a fine line there. But I think, to see the thing come to life for its bigger purpose and for the collaboration to truly-- I mean, I've done so much collaborative work over the years. But this is an entirely different level of really putting the self aside and recognizing what this moving tide is doing. And wherever we have a specific talent and showing up with that talent is a gift to the whole. And it doesn't matter really. There's no time, even, to be too concerned about the traditional wa

y. And so an unlearning has happened that continues to happen from many different aspects, not just the acknowledgments of credit, but also I think when I started to do more socially oriented work in a very deliberate way-- and maybe this is coming from the context of the Caribbean, but being able to be multiple things at once, recognizing what civic engagement really means that-- somebody put a comment on my Instagram once that, I'm not an expert in social justice. So I have no right to do this

work. And I've had to defend even from myself that, as a human, you inherently have a right to stand up for yourself and others. And so I think, being comfortable with being multifaceted and doing multiple types of work simultaneously and integrating that, even though as Kaneza said, these things that-- they are inextricable, but I think that the world expects to have much more clarity. And I think unlearning that collectively is a very powerful and necessary thing. KANEZA SCHAAL: There's somet

hing so radical, too, Anya. We, on this panel, got a sneak peek at the beautiful new cape designs that Anya is working on. And there's something about you that-- I feel like this is a perfect example of what the unlearning looks like, that you have brought leadership to the design, to the fabrication of these gorgeous materials, and that it's also not an absenting. Do you know what I mean? And I feel like the way you've moved through all of the design work-- you've been doing all the constructio

n-- is such a glorious example of bringing leadership towards the collective. ANYA AYOUNG CHEE: Thank you. Thank you for saying that. CLAUDIA PENA: I couldn't agree more. And one of the things that we talk about in the Wide Awakes space is that it's a very leaderful space that, as soon as you feel up for it, you're a leader. And everybody is a leader as long as they step into it. Everybody's got some leadership to bring. So it's a very leaderful space. You don't need to ask permission to do anyt

hing. As soon as you have an idea, you can manifest it, execute it, pull people into play, tell people you need support, and just push forward. And part of why the Wide Awakes exists the way that it does has been in response to other social movements that have been attacked from the outside. Even thinking about maybe the Black Panther Party of the 1960s and 1970s and COINTELPRO, part of the ability of the government to wreak havoc in the Black Panther Party was because of there were things to at

tack. So in the Wide Awakes space, what we're trying to do is everything is transparent. There's nothing to hide. It's completely decentralized. Everybody's a leader. It's a very leaderful space. And in creating that kind of a movement, it makes it a lot harder to attack from the outside. It's in response to learning from our predecessors, learning from our ancestors about this work and trying to bring those lessons forward with us into 2020. Of course, it's still an experiment. It's in its nasc

ent stages. But so far what's happened is there is a lot of space for people to bring what they've got. HELINA METAFERIA: I love that, Claudia. I really love that. And I also love the idea of learning from history because history, I think, is very cyclical. It's also very much here and now. Evidence of history is right here and now. And the way social justice movements are operating at this time is so radically different in the sense of the decentralized model, Black Lives Matter being one of th

em, and this idea that anyone can take ownership of something, like ownership is for all. I mean, I think about that a lot. And I think about just the land that we live on. It's colonized land. It's land stolen. And a lot of these things are like, well, who really owns this, who really owns that. So I love this idea that it's yours, take it, grow with it, do what you wish. And I think it's something that a lot of people are picking up on in different collectives around the country, around the wo

rld. CLAUDIA PENA: Yeah, I agree. I want to put this one last idea out there, and then we'll wrap. And maybe we'll be blessed with an extra gift at the end. We'll see. I'm still waiting to find out. But Paul Robeson says artists are the gatekeepers of truth. We are civilization's radical voice. Just wanted to see if you have any responses to the idea that artists are the gatekeepers of truth. CHEE: I guess, I mean, the very simple initial response of that is that, I think, again, coming from the

Caribbean, where being a professional artist is a chart that is very hard to follow and not usually celebrated or encouraged. But my real feeling is that creativity is the essence of every human and that the concept of an artist, to me, there's-- obviously there's a sort of-- a distinction in the world between people who practice as artists, and then there are people, just everyone. And I think artists being gatekeepers of truth is really sort of identifying that there is an artist in every sin

gle human being, and the divine act of being is a creation. And I think when we are close to our truth, and we know who we are authentically, that that statement applies to everyone. CLAUDIA PENA: Love that, Anya. NIAMA SANDY: Well said, for sure. CLAUDIA PENA: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Anyone else, last thoughts? KANEZA SCHAAL: I mean, I genuinely believe it, that stories build the world and not in an abstract sense. They build architecture, the table you're sitting at, your computer screen, policy. Our

social and political interaction is built from the stories we tell about ourselves and each other. And we work in stories and caring for them. HELINA METAFERIA: I'll just jump in and say that I feel like it's an incredible privilege to do this with my time. Like, my problems are art problems, you know? They're problems around color and composition. And I get this opportunity to play, which is one of the pillars in the movement, for a living. And I think what a luxury of time that is. And so with

that time, I get to be bold and say things that maybe other people feel very afraid to say because they're constricted to something for survival, like around the job or cultural restrictions. I also come from a country where freedom of speech for artists was not always the case, right? And so I think very much about the privilege of making in the US as well and having that ability to say the things that others can't say. So I take that responsibility very seriously, and I play very seriously. S

o I try to use my voice and help amplify others as often as I can. CLAUDIA PENA: Thank you so much, Helina. And I just want-- before we go to our last moment together, I just want to invite anybody who's here with us today to learn more about the Wide Awakes at wideawakes.com. There's going to be a map soon there, available to show you all the activations for October 3. And there's ways to plug in. Plus, I think that there's new merch on there that just launched. So it's a very exciting time. So

wideawakes.com. It's still growing and being built out. So there's more information to come. But check it out today. We also have, of course, forfreedoms.org, to learn more about our organization. And to close us out, the lovely Niama Sandy has taken me up on my begging to just sing us out for the day. OK, Niama. And thank you to all of you. NIAMA SANDY: Yeah, it was such a, such a pleasure to be in conversation with you all today as well as Friday and in general with everything that we're work

ing on together. It's really such a gift. So I want to offer this. Forgive me. This is kind of like the first time I've spoken at length today. So the voice may be a little mm, but here it is. This song is called "Hold On," or depending on how you may know it, you may know it as "Eyes on the Prize." It's a song that has been in existence for a very long time. I think the first sort of recordings of the song come to us through the Fisk Jubilee choir in the 19th century and in the early part of th

e 20th century. Through the civil rights movement, people added lyrics. And the song has just continuously transformed over time and is really a beacon of light in terms of thinking about, how does one arrive at freedom and justice? (SINGING) Oh, the one thing we did right is the day we started to fight. Keep your eyes on the prize. Hold on. I got my gospel plow in hand, won't take nothing for my journey now. Keep your eyes on the prize. Hold on. Freedom's name is mighty sweet, and soon we're go

ing to meet. Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on. Hold on, hold on. Keep your eyes on the prize. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on. That's it. Thank you. CLAUDIA PENA: Wow, thank-- BRYAN JOSEPH LEE: Wow, wow, wow. Thank you, Niama, for that beautiful song and that beautiful message, "Hold On." That's exactly what we need right now. Thank you to Anya, Helina, Kaneza, and Claudia for that amazing, amazing conversation. As Claudia said, you can learn more about the Wi

de Awake movement and For Freedoms by visiting wideawakes.com. That's wideawakes.com. So for our next session, the 2020 election will be hard fought and decisive. It already is. But with the threat of disinformation, falsehoods, and outright lies coming from political actors, how can we cut through the noise to mobilize for our vote? We're going to be joined by the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute based at NYU as they share tips, tricks, and the top nine dirty t

ricks that could undermine the 2020 election. It's going to be fascinating, featuring policy experts Myrna Perez, Sean Morales-Doyle, Lewis Howard, and hosted by journalist Angelique Roche. Stay tuned.