Artists' Literacies Institute

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Artists' Literacies Institute

Art as Research, Research as Art

01/31/2026

We are proud to announce the publication of the Central Asia edition of the Turn it Around Flashcards for Education Futures, and the translation of the ENTIRE Turn it Around project into Russian! The Central Asia edition was produced by the incredible team at CAPS Unlock ( ), this addition to the project brings together artwork and wisdom from youth leaders in , , , , and . And with this new translation, it’s a timely reminder that the climate emergency underpins *all* the emergencies of this moment, and we need to respond in all languages and from all lands. The leadership needed to confront it is already here - in our classrooms and with our youth around the world.

The whole collection is viewable on the Turn it Around website (link in bio). With immense gratitude to all the youth artists and writers from the Central Asia region who contributed their work to this project! Tell us over at about how you’re going to use the new CAPS Unlock Central Asia Edition in your classroom/ workshop/ working group/ civic action-

Image 1 (fish): Gulzam Bayekeshova, age 16, Kazakhstan Image 2 (mountains): Alexander Burnashov, age 14, Tajikistan
Image 3 (profile): Amina Khamzatova, age 15, Kazakhstan

05/06/2025

It’s not the flashiest or splashiest slide from the Systems Thinking for Artists, but it’s still one of my favorites. Big thanks to the good people at who provided three whole days and so much energy and attention to the most expansive iteration of this workshop yet

04/04/2025

Cost of living going up? Well ALI’s handdrawn-to-order, post-Capitalocene motivational posters have just been discounted! Each 12x18 oil pastel drawing is made to order according to the same color scheme but unique set of marks, making them just like us - unique, but the same. Hopefully one of these pithy truisms, hung in your office or den, will carry you through the dark times and look clever in the background of your activist zoom calls. Click the link in our bio and navigate to the ‘ALI Original Works Store’ to get one today! (Or visit our reprint/ merchandise store to get some tariff-free objects with ALI artwork prints and reprints on them!)

Oh and by the way, it is true - we are each of us free, until we do what you’re doing now…

02/21/2025

From the archives

01/17/2025

Culture turned for the moment into content here… Just a chance to publicly express gratitude for the artists currently participating in the four intensive sessions of Systems Thinking For Artists, and who by doing so are reshaping it, refining it, and honing it into a tool I hope can be picked up and shared with many more of those connective thinkers who, for lack of a better option under capitalism, call themselves ‘artists.’ Gratitude also to .nyc for clearing the space for this work and to all who have written and advised and taught and contributed to this thing along the way. -the-corporation-that-monetizes-this-expression-of-gratitude-be-the-first-to-burn-up-and-collapse-in-the-postcapitolcene-epoch-that-our-olanet-will-soon-ensure-inevitably-arrives

12/29/2024

I’m excited to announce that with the support of I’m going to be offering a free in-person seminar course this coming January - Systems Thinking for Socially Engaged Artists (link in bio)!

This course is free and open to artists at all career stages (and also non-career-oriented artists) and will be held in 4 parts next month: Monday, January 6th; Thursday, January 9th; Thursday,January 16th; and Tuesday, January 21st, all from 6-8 pm in person in Chelsea, Manhattan, NYC

Participants are asked to commit to attending all 4 sessions.

Register today at the link in bio!
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Systems Thinking for Socially Engaged Artists is a 4 part seminar and dialogic discussion group that will introduce artists to basic concepts of systems science and consider what kind of a systemic knowledge processor each of us already is through our own artistic practices.

What are the stocks and flows of our artistic practice? Can we map and name the feedback loops and systems mechanisms that we employ either intellectually, intuitively, embodiedly, or otherwise as we engage in our artmaking? What larger systems and structures are we consciously and unconsciously participating in, and how do these structures warp our practice toward or away from our intentions and aspirations?
Systems Thinking for Socially Engaged Artists is an attempt to synthesize findings from the Artists’ Literacies Institutes key research questions (what do artists know and how do they know it?) with systems science frameworks as developed by Donella Meadows and others.

It begins from the premise that artistic practice is already a form of untrained systems thinking, and that these practices in contemporary contexts are derailed from real civic and social utility by the distorting gravitational pull of neoliberal markets. In this discussion-based curriculum we begin with a definitional look at systems theory, and then attempt to draw analogies to our individual or collective artistic practices, with an eye toward making ourselves truly useful.

07/25/2024

A new one from “What Artists Know”

Maybe being an artist, as we define it in America, *isn’t* a good position from which to pursue social, cultural, or political change. Like at all. We are useful, but not to whom we intend…

Changing this state of the artists means changing our definitions, our educations, and the nature of our practices. Or did we only want to change *other* people, without changing ourselves? 👀

07/19/2024

This Monday July 22 in I’m excited to be presenting an assembly called “What Artists Know” as part of ’s Anthologies Assembly, an exciting student-led weeklong program of artistic research. Completely starstruck to be joined by and as well…
Let your UK friends know all about it, the more the merrier!

3:30 pm at the Johnson Auditorium, John Lennon Art and Design Building, 2 Duckinfield St Liverpool GB

Details at transartinstitute.org/week-2 and Eventbrite, search What Artists Know Transart…

05/23/2024

Everything we think is possible

05/10/2024

Almost certainly
Want one all for yourself, oil pastel on paper? Link in bio to order

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Escuela de idiomas Hispano Americano
Toronto Academy of Acting for Film and Televi
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