Chapter 1: Introduction: Artmaking as Authentic Collective Justice-Oriented Work

Across the United States, social justice artmaking includes multiple venues, such as engaging countless local activist arts initiatives and often focusing on engaging vulnerable populations. This justice-oriented collective work includes, but is not limited to, the Brazillian graffiti artist Kobra, who conceptualized 623-foot mural called Ethnicities (see http://www.eduardokobra.com/); the AIDS Memorial Quilt (see http://www.aidsquilt.org/about/the-aids-memorial-quilt); Tatyana Fazlalizadeh’s, whose work focuses on gender injustice (see http://tlynnfaz.com/); and many others committed to these authentic justice collectives. This book continues to explore how active arts-based community collaborations contribute to individual and communal ways of engaging in social transformation. These intergenerational authors explain how they utilize artmaking to agitate for social change through arts-community-based social justice collaboratives within predominantly low-income neighborhoods.