Disrupting Patterns of Injustice
Weaving Architectures of Change.
For the creative disruptors, dream activists, visionaries and community shapeshifters amongst us.
#ThreadintothePattern
The Narrative Change Collaborative (NCC) is a new 12-month program that will take place in 2019. NCC creates an RVA, multi-voice amplification network committed to disrupting our region’s skewed and incomplete narrative history rooted in white supremacy and privilege.
Within Richmond, the former capital of the confederacy, the Narrative Change Collaborative is a movement of people invested in using their talents, energy, resources, and networks to leverage social change. The participants of NCC weave together different architectures of truth-telling, historical inclusion and creative methods in community-making.
NCC is a demonstration of our capacity to create an inclusive reality and future. The Collaborative will discuss and build strategies in self-determined community sustainability and practice ways to be a conduit manifesting fuller current and historical narratives of our region. Project proposals can be multidisciplinary including film, photography, writing, visual art, sculpture, intervention, installation, performance, ethnography, digital art, design, music, sound, ecology, pedagogy, urban planning, etc. The final products will be showcased on digital and physical platforms throughout Richmond in 2020.
The Weavers and The Architects
In January, NCC will name our 2019 Weavers who will be awarded a $10,000 stipend to unearth and innovate counter-narrative(s) to Richmond's histories of structural racism.
Six Residents (ages 18+) will be selected to take part in the NCC. Successful applicants will propose a 12-month project that weaves transformation into dominant narratives of housing, health, and/or education in the metro Richmond area.
The Architects have been chosen because of their impactful work in narrative change. Combined, they possess a half-century of experience in racial equity, social justice, community-based action and transformative history-making practices. Weavers will be mentored by an Architect as they build their project over the course of 2019. and other sites in the region; and collaborative time to work on projects. The program also features a monthly series where The NCC comes together for learning seminars, workshops, classes, discussions and labs; experiential visits to cultural institutions.
Applications for the Narrative Change Collaborative
were open for submission between October 1 - November 3, 2018.
Stay tuned to this page for more updates including the 2019 application process.
The Architects are 3 NCC faculty advisors and include:
Free Egunfemi, Duron Chavis & Omilade Janine Bell
“How do we identify pernicious, habitual, structural racism and use our collective power to be disruptive? How do we foster a manner of collaborative new thought that can orchestrate behavioral shifts in our community? If we can radiate change in Virginia, we will radiate change across the nation. Virginia is where the historic pebble dropped. Let’s drop it again in the clear water so we can see our true selves.”
“The work of the Architect is to hold space for Weavers to iterate their work and to support their connectivity to the continuum of collective impact. This relationship is essential to further foster collaborative approaches that create truly inclusive narratives that can shift perspectives, perceptions and behaviors and foster equity throughout the Richmond region.”
“Until the Narrative Change Collaborative, there hadn’t been an intentional effort to provide sufficient resources to support partnerships between emerging artists and self-determined community changemakers. As we approach the 400th anniversary of the first Africans to arrive in America, this innovative project is holding space for a citywide evolution beyond the obsolete retelling of mainstream history for history’s sake. Richmond is at a pivotal crossroads. Which way shall we go? When we change the narrative, we change the trajectory for what our city can become.”
The posters and illustrations for the Narrative Change Collaborative were designed by Kenyan digital artist, illustrator and animator, Nzilani Simu, who lives in Nairobi.