Call For Participation

In partnership with College Unbound, AS220, the City of Providence, and a diverse local Steering Committee, Imagining America (IA) invites participants to gather in Providence, Rhode Island for the in-person 2023 IA National Gathering. Invoking the cleansing work of fire, the changing form of water, the steadiness of the earth, and the ethereal nature of air, the 2023 IA National Gathering conjures the elements to guide the radical work of reckoning with the past to create a future of collective liberation.

Reckoning is the practice of taking full account. It requires digging down to the roots—to be radical. While radical reckoning may unearth uncomfortable truths, past harms, and the origins of ongoing injustices, it also reveals the foundations of enduring cultural heritage, creative ecological adaptation, and the sources of physical and spiritual sustenance.

Taking full account is necessary to bring about lasting change in ourselves, our communities, and our institutions. The work of reckoning requires a shared commitment to listen and care for each other, constant reflection in our practices, and a (re)connection to the land and places that we inhabit. Sitting with “what is” through a process of reckoning is the first step towards imagining and then creating collective change that is radically grounded.

The 2023 IA National Gathering invokes the elements of fire, water, earth, and air to inspire collaboration, offer new lessons and approaches, and demonstrate how the process of reckoning is both reflective and active. Fire shows that sometimes things have to burn to make new growth possible. Water reflects not only the birthing of new beings but also new ways of being. Earth provides a material connection to deep time and the origins of all life. Air brings us closer to our ancestors and the spirit world so that we can manifest that which is yet to be imagined. Together the elements teach us about regenerative and intergenerational cycles of life.

We invite you to submit a proposal to the 2023 IA National Gathering that deepens our understanding of the practices of radical reckoning, explores how the elements inspire creative and generative approaches to this work, and imagines the collective change required for a shared, liberatory future.

About the Organizers 

Imagining America (IA) is a national consortium that brings together scholars, artists, designers, humanists, and organizers to imagine, study, and enact a more just and liberatory ‘America’ and world. Efforts are currently underway to reckon with legacies of racial injustice in Rhode Island and enact a new cultural plan for the City of Providence. Through this unique collaboration with College Unbound, AS220, and the City of Providence, the IA National Gathering invites participants to reckon with past harms and draw upon the power of intergenerational arts and education for collective change. AS220 teaches us that art making is community building; the City of Providence models how to collectively imagine a process and practice of reparations and cultural transformation; and College Unbound, a school for adults who have been harmed by traditional educational systems, reimagines the radical potential of higher education.

The 2023 IA National Gathering will explore such questions as: 

• What can we learn from fire, water, earth, or air, either metaphorically or literally, as it applies to cultural organizing, public scholarship, or institutional change work?
  • How might a process of slow, controlled burning create conditions for new possibilities? 
  • What does the shapeshifting and placemaking power of water teach us about navigating the present? 
  • How does the earth remind us to be grounded through upheaval and practice patience in long-haul social change?
  • How can air inspire lightness, joy, and play in collective work?
• How can the elements address practices of power redistribution, space reclamation, or inspire creative reckonings in climate justice? 
• What kind of collective reckoning is needed from social movements, cultural workers, artists, community members, and educators? 
• What does it mean to reckon with the legacies of enslavement, colonialism, and imperialism as they manifest in our communities and within institutions of higher learning? What might a cycle of change look like?
• What projects and people are already reckoning with the past and present towards collective change? How do we uplift and support them?
• What unique approaches can the arts, humanities, design, and other creative practices bring to the work of reckoning and the imagination of new futures?
• How can we center multigenerational care and connection in creating a future of collective transformation and liberation?
• How can we create collective energy, a fire in our belly, to address the radical roots of ecological and societal crises?
• By questioning what is elemental and essential, how might we reimagine ways of learning, working, creating, and being together?

The call for participation closed on May 31, 2023. Download a PDF of the call for participation.