NOTE: This is a guest post by my friend François Matarasso, originally appearing at his website A Restless Art. It describes the second episode of our podcast, “A Culture of Possibility,” linked below on SoundCloud. You can also listen to it at iTunes and subscribe to miaaw.net’s other podcasts by Owen Kelly, Sophie Hope, and …
What—apart from the fact that U.S. prisons are pandemic petri dishes and prisoners’ lives are officially regarded as dispensable—does the colossal, ongoing disaster of our criminal justice system have to do with the current disaster of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout? You might answer that having the world’s largest prison population (indeed, more than 20 percent …
NOTE: My too-modest friend Francois Matarasso writes about our new monthly podcast series, “A Culture of Possibility,” dropping today. Here’s the link to subscribe on iTunes. Let us know what you think! I’m not much for patriotic displays, so I was surprised when I teared up during Lady Gaga’s singing of the national anthem at …
NOTE: This article by Charles-Éric Blais-Poulin was translated from the original French version which appeared on 16 January in La Presse, published in Montreal. I was one of several people interviewed for it. You can find the original version here. The original article described me as “autrice et référence mondiale en matière de démocratie culturelle,” …
The year is almost over, friends, and I have yet to understand exactly what is happening. How about you? I mean, sure, the COVID numbers, the unemployment figures, the police murders, the packed prisons—all of this can be quantified and at least on the level of sheer numbers, comprehended. But what boggles my mind is …
One thing we’ve been hearing a lot about since the quadruple pandemic hit is the hope that instead of trying to restore our civic and market systems to their former flawed and inequitable state, we should see this enforced pause as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make essential change. People see the opportunity to strengthen democracy, …
In my last essay, I used the civic frescoes of the 14th-century Sienese painter Ambrogio Lorenzetti as a starting-point for scrutinizing the culture of US politics as most appallingly revealed in our recent electoral process. I’ve heard or read a great many analyses of the election, but there’s a key point most seem to be …
I have no reason to believe artists are better or smarter than other people, but I know that artists are often skilled at helping others to see the world more clearly, at focusing awareness and attention. Skilled at perceiving patterns, seeing through the surface of things to deeper meanings, using the connections between things as …
One more day to go, not to achieve heaven on earth, but to the relief of anticipating the Present White House Occupant’s exit. For me, that’s also one day closer to the reality of a new WPA, a public service employment program to enlist all kinds of workers in rescuing the public good from the …
Over the last week or so, both my colleague Francois Matarasso in Europe and I have published excerpts from our dialogue about past public service employment programs in the US and UK. Yesterday, we discussed it all on Zoom with folks on both continents, and I want to share that conversation with you. (But first, …