Craft activism [books]
Feb. 19th, 2026 07:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rebeccmeisterI finally finished reading Let's Move the Needle: An Activism Handbook for Artists, Crafters, Creatives, and Makers, by Shannon Downey, and for those interested in how to become an activist to tackle some particular issue, I'd highly recommend it. Downey points out how art has been a crucial part of many activist movements over the years (/decades/centuries), in many different ways. She has structured the book well: she starts with encouraging readers to first take some time to think over, identify, and prioritize the major problems there are to be worked on.
From there, she walks through how to carry out steps to build a community to tackle a problem with, determine the available resources, set goals (including the time-based component), develop messaging and tactics, then reach milestones, regroup, evaluate, and keep going.
I appreciated so many details throughout the book. For example, when it comes to tackling a project, event, or action, she notes that they all require an organizational system to be successful, and then walks through basic and critical structural components for such an organizational system (method to communicate; method to manage calendars; method to manage funding; method to track people and communications).
I think this is one of those books where, even if you already have a clear idea of what you want to be doing and how to do it (and are already doing it), it is still helpful to have everything outlined and together all in one place. I could apply all this to bike advocacy, for example. It can be reassuring, and/or it can be a prompt to tackle a specific aspect of whatever it is you are trying to carry out.
I also want to come back to something I wrote about earlier when I was only partway through LMTN, related to the book Galileo's Middle Finger (a book I originally blogged about here, just FWIW). What I want to come back to is that Downey did actually eventually explicitly address my question about a tension that might exist in activist work, around the question "Are we done here?"
That was helpful: as part of activism, Downey recommends building in time and space to reflect and assess how the effort is going/has gone so far; is it time to keep at it, focus on the same goal but shift the tactics, change to a new and different goal, or sometimes, finally just let go of things? Maybe if the author from GMF had had this sort of larger framework in mind, it would have shifted relations between the author and an activist she engaged with differently from what wound up happening (a schism; the author perceived the activism work as being complete upon achieving certain milestones, whereas the other activist felt the need to keep working, and they could not reconcile the differences in their perspectives).
So all told, after finishing the book, I remain grateful to the friend who recommended it, and I'd similarly recommend it to anyone else interested in devoting time, attention, and skills to addressing the challenges in our communities today.
From there, she walks through how to carry out steps to build a community to tackle a problem with, determine the available resources, set goals (including the time-based component), develop messaging and tactics, then reach milestones, regroup, evaluate, and keep going.
I appreciated so many details throughout the book. For example, when it comes to tackling a project, event, or action, she notes that they all require an organizational system to be successful, and then walks through basic and critical structural components for such an organizational system (method to communicate; method to manage calendars; method to manage funding; method to track people and communications).
I think this is one of those books where, even if you already have a clear idea of what you want to be doing and how to do it (and are already doing it), it is still helpful to have everything outlined and together all in one place. I could apply all this to bike advocacy, for example. It can be reassuring, and/or it can be a prompt to tackle a specific aspect of whatever it is you are trying to carry out.
I also want to come back to something I wrote about earlier when I was only partway through LMTN, related to the book Galileo's Middle Finger (a book I originally blogged about here, just FWIW). What I want to come back to is that Downey did actually eventually explicitly address my question about a tension that might exist in activist work, around the question "Are we done here?"
That was helpful: as part of activism, Downey recommends building in time and space to reflect and assess how the effort is going/has gone so far; is it time to keep at it, focus on the same goal but shift the tactics, change to a new and different goal, or sometimes, finally just let go of things? Maybe if the author from GMF had had this sort of larger framework in mind, it would have shifted relations between the author and an activist she engaged with differently from what wound up happening (a schism; the author perceived the activism work as being complete upon achieving certain milestones, whereas the other activist felt the need to keep working, and they could not reconcile the differences in their perspectives).
So all told, after finishing the book, I remain grateful to the friend who recommended it, and I'd similarly recommend it to anyone else interested in devoting time, attention, and skills to addressing the challenges in our communities today.
Thoughts
Date: 2026-02-20 02:48 am (UTC)Come to think of it, I've got a series Arts and Crafts America where a majority of the plotlines are "Character has a problem and addresses it with art/craft."
>>For example, when it comes to tackling a project, event, or action, she notes that they all require an organizational system to be successful,<<
For larger actions with lots of people, this is true. For guerilla art, which is a very substantial part of activist art, it is not. Anyone can slap up a yarnbomb by themselves.
>> What I want to come back to is that Downey did actually eventually explicitly address my question about a tension that might exist in activist work, around the question "Are we done here?" <<
Activism is never done, because problems always exist. But an action can be done. Distinguishing between these is crucial to avoid burnout.
>> That was helpful: as part of activism, Downey recommends building in time and space to reflect and assess how the effort is going/has gone so far; is it time to keep at it, focus on the same goal but shift the tactics, change to a new and different goal, or sometimes, finally just let go of things? <<
Use the engineer problem-solving method.
no subject
Date: 2026-02-20 03:43 pm (UTC)