“When movements have been unable to clear the clouds, it has been the poets—no matter the medium—who have succeeded in imagining the color of the sky, in rendering the kinds of dreams and futures social movements are capable of producing. Knowing the color of the sky is far more important than counting clouds.
How do we begin to dream ourselves out of this dark place of death and destruction and war?
Now is the time to think like poets, to envision and make visible a new society, a peaceful, cooperative, loving world without poverty and oppression, limited only by our imaginations.”
-Excerpt from Freedom Dreams by Robin D.G. Kelley
Our organization seeks to take back the most powerful tool found in all humans — genuine expression. We seek to debunk the biases barricading the arts and to bring back popular culture. Expression lives everywhere. In our next-door neighbor’s home a young teenager carves images on the back of their skateboard; at the school’s play-ground, a street over, a young girl chalks the name of a family member who’s been taken away; Inside the local jail a man writes a line of his daughter’s mannerisms, yet we seek art in the wrong places, and reinforce the gates planted by the establishment.
We seek to provide a new entry to art powered by providing a space for poetry readings, gallery receptions, educational workshops. We seek to elevate Central-Texan artists who don’t have a platform, and to activate people’s appreciation for expression. To publish local writers, cultivate a local culture that connects local political issues with the arts to eventually create a sustainable cultural economy.