Moving from theory to practice…
We know we live in a harmful and extractive world, we also know we don’t want it. If an ongoing pandemic hasn’t done it yet, what will it take for us to make a global pivot from extraction to care? Join us to learn alongside fellow artists, movement workers, and cultural workers as we explore the role of cultural work in creating more just, creative, caring worlds.
This year’s ASSEMBLIES model features a Public Programming series and five (5) pods, each taking a deeper-dive into exploring our driving question:
“How might we ‘just transition’ artists and cultural workers from our current extractive cultural economy to a regenerative and caring one?”
“Just Transition is a principle, a process and a practice.”
ABOUT ASSEMBLIES
Art into Action participants will attend pláticas/presentations as part of our Public Programming series while participating in smaller project-based learning pods to study, create, and practice together.
Public Programming will be live streamed and is open to the general public with closed-captioning, ASL + Spanish interpretation provided. Pods will meet in small closed groups on zoom on the off week of Public Programming.
The Pods
Public Programming
April 12th - July 5th
Tuesdays, 6 - 8 PM Pacific
Project-Based Pods
Week of April 18th - Week of July 12th
*See Pod descriptions for pod-by-pod meeting times and read through our Participant Expectations below before pod sign up.
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This is a learning and practice pod where participants will share knowledge and map experiments centered around co-creating caring and regenerative cultural economies in Los Angeles.
Bi-weekly on Tuesdays, 6PM Pacific
April 19 - July 12th, 2022
Zoom/Virtual/IRL
Max # of participants: 12 people
Possible Location: NAVEL or Zoom
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This is a learning and practice pod where participants share knowledge and participate in design exercises centered on responding to the collective care of our communities as artists and cultural workers. For the first cohort of this pod, we will dive deeply into looking at housing as care.
Bi-weekly on Wednesdays, 6 - 8 PM Pacific
Zoom/Virtual
Max # of participants: 10 people
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This pod will work towards identifying kinship practices while cultivating & practicing kinship amongst each other and in participants’ current relations. Join us as we explore and remember ways of relating with ourselves, our collective bodies, and our more than human kin.
Bi-weekly on Sundays, 11 AM Pacific
April 17 - July 10th, 2022
Zoom/Virtual
Max # of participants: 10 people
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Somos tierra que camina. We are soil that walks. We are shaped and in interdependence with our environments whether we nourish them or not. Through the lens of culture, power, and decolonization, participants will explore & nourish their relationship to soil through their own ancestral lineage.
Bi-weekly on Mondays, 6:30 PM Pacific
April 18 - July 10th, 2022
Zoom/Virtual
Max # of participants: 10 people
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Artists and cultural workers play a crucial role in meaning-making and storytelling that help shape the lenses from which we see our world(s) and ultimately, our lived experiences. This pod will explore historical practices of shaping culture and social movements as participants create their own propaganda to name their visions of creative, caring worlds.
Tuesdays, 6 - 8 PM Pacific
Zoom/Virtual/
Max # of participants: 10 people
Possible Location: NAVEL or Zoom
Grounded in our long term explorations & intentions, this year’s ASSEMBLIES experiment (Public Programming + Pods) will center the following lines of inquiry:
As artists and cultural workers, how might we…
Experiment with cultural work to enact and sustain systemic change?
Shift power into the hands of people committed to our collective liberations and caring futures?
Enable cultural production and meaning-making led by folks directly impacted by colonial-cultures/whiteness?
* Read through our participant expectations & timelines below before singing up to participate.
Key Dates & Timelines
[Virtual] Public Programming
April 12th - July 5th, 2022
Tuesdays, 6 - 8 pm Pacific
Note: Each public programming session will provide live closed captioning, Spanish, and ASL interpretation. We have a small budget for childcare access needs, email us at care@navel.la to see what we can coordinate.
April 12th - Main Track Opening
April 26th - Main Track Session 02
May 10th - Main Track Session 03
May 24th - Main Track Session 04
June 7th - Main Track Session 05
June 21st - Main Track Session 06
July 5th - Main Track Closing Session
Project-Based Pods
Week of April 18th - Week of July 12th, 2022
Note: Meeting times are determined on a pod-by-pod basis. See Pod descriptions for specific timelines.
Week of April 18th - Pod Launch
Week of May 2nd - 2nd Pod Meeting
Week of May 16th - 3rd Pod Meeting
Week of May 30th - 4th Pod Meeting
Week of June 13th - 5th Pod Meeting
Week of June 27th - 6th Pod Meeting
Week of July 11th - Pod Celebration + Closing
Pod Participant Expectations
Pod participants will attend the Main Track platicás + pod specific meet ups. This requires a 2-hr/week commitment for ~14 weeks.
Signing up for a Pod track of our ASSEMBLIES 2022 experiment means:
Commitment to attending Public Programming + Pod Sessions (Please see dates and schedules specific to your pod).
Showing up in your learning shape: we know learning can be uncomfortable at times but we will lean into the playful and pleasurable together.
Showing up with curiosity and respect.
Sign Up
*March 25- Sign ups live, rolling admissions until pod capacity is reached.
April 13: Sign Up by day after Public Programming Launch
April 7- 15: Participants notified
April 12: Main Track Opening
Week of April 18: Pod Track Opening
July 5: Main Track Closing
Week of July 11: Pod Track Closing
ASSEMBLIES 2022 is hosted by the Programming Circle at NAVEL.
ASSEMBLIES 2022 Dedication
Our 2022 programming lens is inspired by the long-standing wisdom of pre-colonial wisdoms and cosmologies. Our explorations and play are shaped by and amplify the work of QT Black & Indigenous communities that have continued to fight, dismantle, and create worlds outside of the dominant colonial/violent cosmology & world-design.
Our Just Transition x Culture economy landscape is inspired and informed by the work of Movement Generation and as they say: countless others doing the work to amplify the “wisdom of Frontline communities and leaders.” We are also inspired by local and regional partners who have been holding this work down–whether they name is as just transition, decolonial, abolitionist or by other names– such as The Climate Justice Alliance, Eastside Café, Southern California Library, Critical Resistance Los Angeles, Youth Justice Coalition, BLM-LA, COiL, Ovarian Psychos, Dignity and Power Now, Mothers of East LA, and those whose names are kept in the shadows for protection.
It is dedicated to the labor of those we practice kinship with, to the NAVEL staff, past NAVEL collective and community members, Color Coded, the artists who don't know they are artists, abolitionists, Stop LAPD Spying, that elder practice pod, the LA BIPOC Healers Network, The (Audre) Lorde, The Black Radical Tradition, Octavia Butler, Gloria Lucas, Emergent Strategy. The punks, the cuirs/queers, the sluts, Gloria Anzaldúa, the borderlands, our plantcestors, our abuelxs, the rebeldes con causa, les migrantes, y countless others struggling and creating pathways towards our collective liberation. To our future bodies, to the bodies of water, soil, air, and fire that are a part of us.
Dedication written by Cesia Domínguez López,
ASSEMBLIES 2022 Designer & Facilitator
Show Up for Your Kin.
Care work in advanced-global capitalism is costly but necessary. We are making a multi-year commitment to ourselves, our kin, and our partners to co-designing a caring ecology as we create the world we want to see. If you are interested in exploring a strategic partnership or sponsorship–or making a significant investment towards our work, please schedule some time to chat with us.
ASSEMBLIES 2022 experiment is funded by individual donations, community-fundraisers, & grants received from the National Endowment for the Arts Grant for Arts Program, the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs Cultural Grants Program, and the Wilhelm Family Foundation.
