Build the Village, Break the Empire: Rehearsing the Next World in Durham
📸 Photo by Nica Guerrero
Creative Wildfire is a cultural organizing coalition between Climate Justice Alliance, Movement Generation, New Economy Coalition, and Art.Coop. Rad Pereira and Robin Bean Crane have been developing a series of creative jams to support Creative Wildfire’s strategy work around narrative frames. Narrative strategy can fortify our interconnected movements through storytelling, arts and media by identifying themes, slogans, and currents that weave our solidarities together.
We facilitated one of our jams for the New Economy Coalition Assembly on Saponi territory (Durham, NC) around the narrative frame “Build the village, break the empire”. Our Rehearsing the Next World session weaved together speculative fiction, Theater of the Liberated/Oppressed, improvisation, political performance and other body based tools for collective narrative creation. We tried to share practices that participants could bring back to their organizing homes for collective visioning, imagining, storytelling, trust building, tension release and fun. We practiced some collaborative world building skills to rehearse the next world now.
We started with some physical and imagination warm up games to get everyone more comfortable in their bodies and build trust with eachother. We started with individual activities, paired off in to groups of two’s and three’s, then moved in to groups of four and full group experiments. We played with sound, music and movement, then we added elements. Our main exercise was part of longer creative exploration we’re doing on what Climate Justice Alliance calls community resiliency hubs:
“Resilience Hubs are community-serving facilities augmented to: support residents and coordinate resource distribution and services before, during, or after a natural hazard event. They leverage established, trusted, and community-managed facilities that are used year-round as neighborhood centers for community-building activities. Designed well, Resilience Hubs can equitably enhance community resilience while reducing GHG emissions and improving local quality of life. They are a smart local investment with the potential to reduce burden on local emergency response teams, improve access to health improvement initiatives, foster greater community cohesion, and increase the effectiveness of community-centered institutions and programs.”
The Climate Justice Alliance says: “Resiliency Hubs are a multi-issue climate solution that creates infrastructure for food, energy, and mutual aid.”
We began by defining and calling out different names for “community resiliency hubs”, such as village, pueblo, emergency response center and more. Then we came up with names for different parts of the hubs:
the communal kitchen, the land tenders, the elders council, the children’s zone, the conflict transformation center, the healing clinic, death & birth center, energy/ waste/ water system keepers, mesh network builders, renewable energy center, housing, rehabilitation & re-education nest, security/ emergency/ self defense training, arts & vision temple, visitior’s inn, etc.,
We talked about how these hubs function differently when they’re responding to emergencies and disaster, and when they’re utilized as day to day community resource centers. We imagined how these are necessary infrastructure for building solidarity economies. We moved into more embodied activities to activate the different parts of the hubs and got everyone up on their feet to imagine a day in the life operating these hubs, as well as a day in these hubs if working through conflict. It was fun and energizing to see all the different approaches to rehearsing our roles and responsibilities in these hubs.
Everyone wanted access to these activities and exercises. They asked for lists and guides and facilitation. They craved more creativity within their frontline and organizing contexts. They felt the power held in imagining in a room together and they said they need us. Us being imagination workers, arts and culture makers and shapers.
📸 Photo by Nica Guerrero
Day 1: Arriving & Grounding
We kicked off the Assembly by reconnecting with old friends & welcoming new faces. Some community gatherings happened:
Participants gathered for the screening of A Collective Future, produced by NEC member Center for Economic Democracy.
Folks had the time to connect through affinity spaces like the Black Caucus!
Check out photos for Day 1 here!
Day 2: Learning from Black & Indigenous Leadership
We were deeply moved by the Black & Indigenous Solidarity Economies panel. Speakers challenged us to explore our relationships to land, to honor those who came before us and imagine what polyrhythmic solidarity (different rhythms coming together to create one song) can look like in our movements.
During the afternoon we explored the possibilities of solidarity economies & learned directly from one another through inspiring member-led sessions.
Check out photos for Day 2 here!
Day 3: Solidarity Excursions across Durham!
Participants chose from three different excursions to learn from local organizers, histories, and community spaces across Durham!
Planted by Our Ancestors: We visited Historic Stagville, where Georie Bryant offered reflections on land, its histories and how that connects to labor struggles. The visit included learning about native plants with Beverly Johnson and powerful chants and energy from the Union of Southern Service Workers.
People's Solidarity Hub: We toured a vibrant community space and heard from organizers working with farm workers, labor unions, immigrant communities resisting ICE, and Black trans media. People engaged in conversations about the struggles and opportunities of community hub spaces.
Whistle Stop Black History Tour: We visited historic sites including the Hayti Heritage Center, a cultural anchor preserving the legacy, creativity, and contributions of Durham’s historic Black Hayti community, and the Pauli Murray Center, the childhood home of civil rights organizer, lawyer, and scholar Pauli Murray.
Check out photos for Day 3 here!
Day 4: Grounding with Alexis Pauline Gumbs & Assembly Day!
We felt deeply grateful for the presence of Alexis Pauline Gumbs, whose prophetic wisdom and medicine helped open our final Assembly day by reconnecting us to our collective spirit and the deeper reasons we gather.
During this day, we came together in regional groups to reflect on shared needs, possibilities, and the tools needed to strengthen our movement. We closed with a collective session to share reflections and begin imagining the path ahead, marking the first steps toward conversations about NEC's strategic orientation and where we want to move together as a coalition.
Check out photos for Day 4 here!
📸 Photo by Nica Guerrero
So we gathered and we danced and we laughed and we debated and we strategized. Folks were hungry for arts & culture workers to light up some pathways through imagination. I noticed a need for creative facilitators and facilitation guides for how to assemble. Things theater & performance folk know how to so very well. I heard a need for stronger infrastructure to actually connect this network full of inspiring hubs. I heard the desire for more cross sector collaboration. This is where we come in. What if this emerging solidarity economy network could plug into local arts and cultures scenes? A map on a map of sorts. The map of solidarity economy projects aligned with the map of values aligned arts spaces. Together we could do so much! Build so much power! Hold space for dreaming and scheming. I know we need them as much as they need us.
So how will we show up to build, connect and tend our location in the hub? They’ve got a lot of the other locations covered, but they need our magic secret sauce to hold it all together through the beautiful sticky stuff that is imagination. Part of walking through the portal to the next world is that hard work of being a bridge long and sturdy enough for folks to walk through. Then becoming and birthing the people we need to be in the next world. A world where we are all valued, labor is shared, fruits of that labor enjoyed collectively. All in regenerative harmony with the lands and waters and more than human relatives that make this place as beautiful and awe inspiring as it is.
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION: This session will weave together speculative fiction, theater of the liberated/oppressed, improvisation, political performance and other body based tools for collective narrative creation. Participants will gather practices to take to your organizing homes for when you are collectively visioning, imagining and storytelling. This is part of a series of jams that Creative Wildfire (a cultural organizing coalition between Climate Justice Alliance, Movement Generation, New Economy Coalition, Art.Coop) has been hosting as a way to explore narrative frames that can fortify our interconnected movement strategies. In this session we will practice some collaborative world building skills based on this narrative research. No performance experience necessary. Let’s rehearse the next world now.