Photo courtesy of Carol Highsmith, Library of Congress, 2020.
Join us at The 8th Floor on November 14 from 6-8pm for a conversation between Tabitha Jackson, former Director of Sundance Film Festival, and Ken Grossinger, author of Art Works: How Organizers and Artists are Creating a Better World Together.
An artist’s mural of George Floyd becomes an emblem of a renewed movement for racial equality. A documentary film injects fuel into a popular mobilization to oust a Central American dictator. Freedom songs course through the American civil rights movement. When artists and organizers combine forces, new forms of political mobilization follow—which shape lasting social change.
Drawing from historical and present-day examples—including Black Lives Matter, Standing Rock, the Hip Hop Caucus, the Legacy Museum, and the Art for Justice Fund—this discussion will chronicle these efforts and offer a rich tapestry of tactics and successes that speak directly to the challenges and needs of today’s activists and of these political times. With decades of experience in supporting interdisciplinary art, innovative cinema, and strategic philanthropy for social justice, Jackson and Grossinger will conclude with questions from the audience, followed by a book signing.
All events are free and open to the public, with RSVPs requested. Scrawlspace is on view the day of the program from 11am, with select works obstructed by the event setup from 5:30pm. The discussion will begin no later than 6:30pm. Info on accessing our space can be found here. Email us with any questions.
Ken Grossinger has been a leading strategist in movements for social and economic justice for thirty-five years, in unions and community organizations, and as director of Impact Philanthropy at Democracy Partners. Among other cultural projects, his executive producing and producing credits include the award-winning Netflix documentaries Social Dilemma (2020) and Bleeding Edge (2018), and the films Borderland; The Line Within (2024), Suppressed (2022), Boycott (2021) and Won’t You Be My Neighbor (2018). Grossinger is active on several governing boards including the CrossCurrents Foundation (Chair), University of the District of Columbia (Treasurer), Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Trustee), Skylight Pictures (Director), and People’s Action Institute (Director). He lives in Washington, DC and Telluride, Colorado.
Tabitha Jackson is an arts advocate who has spent her 30 year career supporting the independent voice, championing the social and cultural power of artful cinema, and uplifting a more expansive set of makers, audiences, and forms. In 2020, as the first woman and person of color to be appointed Director of Sundance Film Festival she re-imagined and led two technologically innovative and radically accessible pandemic editions which ‘expanded the possibilities of what a film festival can be, and who it can be for’. Between 2013 and 2020 she headed the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program, launching the Art of Nonfiction initiative to rethink traditional project support in favor of artist-centered models, and to amplify institutional support of formal innovation in nonfiction cinema. In the UK Tabitha worked in production at BBC Television, as Arts Commissioning Editor at Channel 4, and Executive Producer of theatrical documentaries for Film4 including 20,000 Days on Earth (Iain and Jane), and The Arbor (Clio Barnard). Tabitha is a member of the Academy, serving 3 terms on the Documentary Branch Executive Committee. She was a 2024 Documentary Film Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center for Media, Policy and Public Policy. A passionate believer in the vital role of the arts as a transformative public good, Tabitha has been working on a broader project about the crisis of trust and truth in documentary. Her current MIT Fellowship at the Open Documentary Lab will explore the ontological implications of GenAI, and possible institutional responses. Her RSC Interdisciplinary Fellowship is part of a new initiative around the future of cultural practice.
Image description: A mural in yellows and blues honoring George Floyd, with flowers on the sidewalk below.