Art and Upheaval: Artists on the World's Frontlines - Paperback

by William Cleveland (Author), Clarissa Estés (Foreword by)

Citizen artists successfully rebuild the social infrastructure in six communities devastated by war, repression and dislocation.

Author William Cleveland tells remarkable stories from Northern Ireland, Cambodia, South Africa, United States (Watts, Los Angeles), aboriginal Australia, and Serbia, about artists who resolve conflict, heal unspeakable trauma, give voice to the forgotten and disappeared, and restitch the cultural fabric of their communities.

Art can be a powerful agent of personal, institutional and community change. The stories in this book have valuable implications for artists, academics, educators, human service providers, philanthropists, and community leaders throughout the world. The artists documented in the book have generated new technologies for advocacy, organizing, peacemaking, healing trauma and the rebuilding of community. Creativity is our most powerful capacity, and it can mitigate and heal our most destructive tendencies.

Back Jacket

Art and Upheaval turns a world eager for hope and good news onto the fact that everyday around the world there are artists daring to speak truth (and beauty!) to power in ways that build understanding and reconciliation where there were previously only hardened hearts and ruin.
--David Griffith, author, A Good War is Hard to Find: The Art of Violence in America

"Through the eloquent telling of stories of ordinary people daring to speak out, fight back and take action, Bill Cleveland shows us the most precious gift innate in all of us, the power to imagine and create. The act of creation can heal our deepest wounds and turn crisis into opportunity."
--Lily Yeh, artist and founder, Barefoot Artists and The Village of Arts and Humanities

"Another insightful set of observations from a master storyteller. In his new book Cleveland deepens our sense of how human imagination and creativity sit next to upheaval in the ecology of meaning."
--Jennifer Williams, artist, founder, The Center for Creative Communities

Praise for Art in Other Places

"An important addition to the expanding body of work on community arts... Cleveland has collected heartwarming stories from deeply committed people who should be our role models."
--Lucy Lippard, writer, critic

"This book and his work in other places show not only concern for the human condition, but how we can improve it."
--Jonathan Borofsky, artist

Bill Cleveland is a pioneer in the community arts movement and one of its most poetic documenters. Activist, teacher, lecturer, and musician, he directs the Center for the Study of Art & Community. Previous works include Making Exact Change and Art in Other Places.