Profiles - Artists, Organizations, and Projects

I am an artist/activist...or is it activist/artist? It's impossible to put one before the other or separate them. The work on this website represents artwork which I have created, sometimes on my own and sometimes in relationship with organizations, communities and organizers. I believe that art can contribute to changing people's perceptions, hearts and understandings of what has been, what is and what's possible. I'm enough of an organizer to understand that art can't do it alone; people getting together and acting together is the real source of social change.

Rick Lowe is the founder of Project Row Houses, an arts and cultural community located in a historically significant and culturally charged neighborhood in Houston, Texas. Rick has participated in exhibitions and programs nationally and internationally. From 1992 to the present, he has exhibited at the Phoenix Art Museum, Contemporary arts Museum, Houston, Museum of Contemporary Arts, Los Angeles, Neuberger Museum, Purchase, New York, Kwangji Bienale, Kwangji, Korea, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Glassell School, and the Kumamoto State Museum, Kumamoto, Japan.

From May 17-20, 2012, a small group of artist/activists will walk the length (46 miles) of the Santa Fe River. This four-day journey will serve as a deep exploration of our river and the Santa Fe Watershed and is designed to create art, promote awareness, engage community, and illuminate our relationship with river systems, earth and water.

Rock and Wrap It Up! is a non-profit and non-partisan organization devoted to developing innovative greening solutions to the pressing issues of hunger and poverty in America. Rock and Wrap It Up! combats hunger by packaging prepared but untouched meals following concerts, sporting, and school events and then delivering to local food banks and charitable agencies. Toiletries and cleaning products from hotels, schools and donors are also collected and distributed. The items collected reduce both the amount of waste added to landfills and society's carbon footprint.

Rock Paper Scissors Collective (RPSC) is a volunteer-run community arts space in downtown Oakland, California that is dedicated to strengthening its local community and encouraging alternative, sustainable practices. It was formed in 2004 by a group of emerging artists working in the visual arts, crafts, film, music and writing. A year later, the group opened a storefront space offering free and low-cost classes, curated and open submission art shows, and a retail outlet for DIY clothes, crafts, zines and music.

Ronit Bezalel has been producing and directing films since 1990. Her films cover a wide range of topics, from the dismantling of Public Housing to Professional Women’s Tackle Football (co-directed with Laurie Little and Sree Nallamothu). Her documentaries have been broadcast internationally, played in festivals, and used as a teaching tool in educational institutions worldwide. Ronit Bezalel, began her career at the National Film Board of Canada, where she created the documentary, When Shirley Met Florence (1994).

The Center for Rural Strategies produced, as part of the Rural Desk News Initiative, video news pieces about issues that face today's rural Americans. The videos were distributed for free to local television stations across the country, so that they could provide their viewers with compelling, accurate, and balanced information about rural issues. They were produced and aired in the fall of 2003.

The Foundation supports the arts for their inherent value in deepening and enriching the quality of our lives, and in their capacity to enhance our awareness and understanding of one another, advance important social, humanistic, and educational goals, and promote cultural diversity and democracy.