call for

ART

FLOOD the system

summer & fall 2015

The interlocking crises of climate, racial, and economic injustice we face today are the direct consequence of five hundred years of patriarchal colonialism, white supremacy, and a fossil-fuel reliant capitalist economic system. When we say “Flood the System,” it is this story we intend to disrupt.

Flood the System invites North American organizers and groups to coordinate, connect and escalate our collective work in the streets October-November 2015. Art, stories, cultural work, and our own media are used to illuminate our struggles, to demonstrate our local specificity and interconnectedness, to envision direct actions, to ground us in our collective histories: to build the Flood. It’s August and we all have a lot of rabble to rouse in the Fall! Are you in?

why?

when?

what?

The Arts & Cultural Strategies Working Group of Flood the System wants YOU and your pals to make a poster, a video, a banner, a gif, an info-graphic, a piece of street theater, or something else unthought of yet! Tell us about your experiences with the “the System,” your resistance work, and most importantly, your community. Use water imagery and metaphors when it makes sense. Why? Because water is the most powerful erosive force on the planet. A persistent, flexible, wise source of power- just like us.

To encourage local organizers with beauty & clarity;To clearly communicate the analysis and soul of Flood the System;To build media buzz for your local actions;To Flood the internet and prefigure Flooding the streets;To take a heady piece of work and fill it with stories;To get us thinking creatively about our actions;To build collaborative relationships with artists we don’t yet work with; To tell the story of Flood.

We need art that builds momentum and buzz this August & September so that means, art builds need to happen now-ish. After that, in October & November we’ll need art tied more closely to street actions.

to start the FLOOD

how?with accountability:

Just as it matters who holds the megaphone at an action, it matters who makes art, how they make it, and how they share it. We will be working to lift up collaborative, cross movement, multi-lingual, and creative commons/open source work by sharing and signal-boosting your creations with Flood networks and beyond!

In general, we urge you to make media about the struggles you’re fighting. Tell your own story. Use slogans, icons, characters, and references from your cultural background. We also hope you will make media about the struggles of others, with accountability, solidarity and in relationship.

If you’re looking for more guidance about how to put the principles of Flood the System into practice in art making, we recommend Favianna Rodriguez and Josh MacPhee’s book Reproduce and Revolt/ Reproduce y Rebelate. Or contact us to talk it through!

on the interwebz:

The best way to share your work and make it part of Flood the System is to post it on your own social media accounts- facebook, instagram, twitter, whatev...and to tag it using the 1,2 hashtag approach: 1: include a local/regional hashtag that points to the symptom or struggle you are lifting up, 2: End the post with the #FloodTheSystem hashtag.

Not sure what all that means?? It’s cool. Just e-mail us your work at artsandculture@floodthesystem.net and we’ll help share it.

with support:

Art is work and artists are workers! If you need funding, small micro-grants are available. We prioritize low income, POC and frontline artists. We are also looking to connect young or new artists to mentors who do relevant work. If this sounds sweet to you, fill out this form and we’ll get you going. http://bit.ly/1IsLi8l

guiding

principles

We Uplift Community-Based Alternatives

We Are Grassroots Led

We Strive for Accountability & Transformative Practices

RACISM, COLONIALISM, CAPITALISM, AND PATRIARCHY

are the root causes of our struggles

For more information about our core principles:

http://bit.ly/1W3Z4HXFor our principles specifically around anti-racist practices:

http://bit.ly/1IsMske

Water is a powerful symbol of people in motion. It’s fluid, fierce, universal, sacred, inside us, around us, cyclical, essential, and occurs in diverse forms. A crew of artists worked together to design a series of icons representing different forms of water power that are a metaphor for #FloodtheSystem... learn more HERE!

what do you

mean, water

metaphor?

join us...If you want to help build art for street actions in your area, support folks to develop creative action plans, become a public ambassador for Flood the System, or shepherd the Arts & Cultural Strategies group with us, we’d love to bear hug you and welcome you to the group.

Questions? Comments? Making Something? Let us know you’re interested by filling out this form: http://bit.ly/1IsLi8l

Write us at artsandculture@floodthesystem.net

examples:

this image could be:

* a poster for a Flood event...* a silk-screen for a patch...* a banner to drop (Blown up large and traced onto canvas or paper)...* a teaching tool (What’s the cloud made of? What’s the umbrella made of? Who are the people? etc.)...

Crystal Clarity from NYC and Mona Caron from the Bay Area recently collaborated on a series of images linking police brutality with climate injustice, to distribute at a climate movement event as a way to open conversations about #blacklivesmatter. It connects the two issues rhetorically in a way that opens up conversation.

Remy from the Navajo Nation posted this about his artwork-- Using hashtags to connect the local struggle to the flood, and explaining the context for his design in the middle.

#SaveOakFlat! The Apache, a world- renowned indigenous warrior society, is currently fighting now for their sacred land. Since the powers that be do not understand words such sacred or holy, these “Lozen” shields were made to reclaim that heritage while using the government’s own signs, language and symbols against them. #FloodTheSystem

what to make:

how to share it:

or, make it simpler!Here are examples of taging flood art:

“People really liked my screen print work supporting the #Not1More deportation rally! #FloodTheSystem”

“Dance and direct action tomorrow as we say #ShellNo to arctic fracking outside the capital building! #FloodTheSystem”