Methodology
The Theater of Change Methodology enables participants to blend the practices of artistry, law, policy, and advocacy led by people with direct experience to produce artistic projects with the potential to make tangible impact on the inequitable, unjust, and racist systems.
Through these powerful collaborations, the participants co-create and perform pieces of artivism – narrative-based artistic pieces designed with an activism strategy – to center the narratives of directly affected members in the group, develop lasting collaborations, and advance meaningful policy and systems change.
What is Artivism?
ARTIVISM = ARTISTRY + ACTIVISM
Artivism, the core approach of TOC, activates transformative change by integrating artmaking and stories of lived experience with legal, policy and systems change. This practice combines the creativity and process of artmaking and the lived experiences of individuals with the strategic knowledge of legal and policy change to catalyze change in people, practice, systems, and policy.
By interweaving powerful storytelling with activism strategies,Artivism not only builds the empathy, connections, and trust for people in different positions to become invested in each other’s fate, but it compels concrete changes in practices, systems, and policies
Artivism uses artistry’s relationship building practices, storytelling, and reimagination practices to advance activist goals and inspire collective action to transform laws and systems. It uses the power of artistic communication to shift decision makers’ hearts and minds and catalyze change.
Artivism also cultivates collective understanding of the legal, policy, and political landscape built into the stories calling forth the need and possibility for change. It connects artistic pieces to venues and strategies where power is exercised to make change toward a more just and equitable society. It works through stories powerfully and artistically told with built in activism strategies that allow tangible impact in spaces where policy and culture change really happens.
In the Theater of Change, everyone contributes to the creation of artivism, learning to fuse firsthand experience, artistry, and policy / law into promoting transformational change.
Who makes up Theater of Change?
The Theater of Change Methodologies unites individuals who are passionate about change-making from three distinct expertises:
- Performing and Media Arts Workers who seek to use their artistry to have impact on policy, legal, and culture change, and to amplify the narratives of directly affected communities
- People with lived experience of the issues they are seeking to change who are engaged in advocacy, community building, or other change-oriented work, and seek to amplify their impact and build their change networks
- Current and future lawyers and policy experts who seek to use their positions and power to build community-led change and see the need to reimagine the operation of law and policy
