new village press
New Village Press
New Village Press
New Village Press
New Village Press
New Village Press
New Village Press

Art and Upheaval

ISBN-13: 978-0-9766054-6-1
Publisher: New Village Press
Distributor: Consortium
Pages: 352
Indexed: Yes
Trim: 7" x 9.25"
Illustration: 100+ b/w photos and illus.
Binding: Original Trade Paperback
Category: Cultural Studies/Art
Pub. Date: August 2008
Release: June 23, 2008
Price: $20.01

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 1, 2008
Contact: Karen Stewart
PO Box 3049
Oakland, CA 94609
510 420-1361;

Art and Upheaval: Artists on the World's Frontlines
By William Cleveland. Foreword by Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Playwrights confronting Apartheid; poets and actors taking on criminal gangs and dictators; painters alleviating poverty? Sounds implausible, but it's true. William Cleveland spent eight years traveling the globe to gather stories about artists working in communities facing political, social and environmental upheaval. He found that when the forces of creativity and destruction meet surprising things happen. His new book, Art and Upheaval, presents a striking picture of painters, performers and writers in the proverbial trenches struggling for freedom, making peace and re-building civil society in six global hot spots.

Richly illustrated with photos, art and excerpted writings, Art and Upheaval brings to life the struggles and triumphs of art makers around the world—from Belfast to Johannesburg, Belgrade and beyond—creators who are helping re-imagine and re-build their devastated communities. These dramatic stories are told against the backdrop of tragic headlines and histories that span decades. What shines through the horror, though, is the power and persistence of artists whose work gives evidence that human creativity can help us heal the deepest and most destructive of our self-inflicted wounds.

Intended audience: General trade; academic in fields of arts education, community arts, arts therapy, arts administration, history, anthropology, international studies, peace studies, sociology, psychology, human services, public administration, communication, political science, public health, mental health, global development; academic and general library collections.

William Cleveland, director of the Center for the Study of Art & Community, is an activist, teacher, lecturer, writer and musician. He is the author of Making Exact Change (Art in the Public Interest, 2005) and Art in Other Places (Praeger, 1992; U Mass, 2000), which explore the community arts movement in the United States.

Clarissa Pinkola Estés is an American poet, cantadora, psychoanalyst and post-trauma specialist. She is author of more than six books on the life of the soul, most notably, Women Who Run With the Wolves.

Bill Cleveland's Art and Upheaval turns a world eager for hope and good news onto the fact that everyday around the world there are artists daring to speak truth (and beauty!) to power in ways that build understanding and reconciliation where there were previously only hardened hearts and ruin.
    — David Griffith, author of A Good War is Hard to Find: The Art of Violence in America

Through the eloquent telling of stories of ordinary people daring to speak out, fight back and take action, Bill Cleveland shows us the most precious gift innate in all of us, the power to imagine and create. The act of creation can heal our deepest wounds and turn crisis into opportunity.
    — Lily Yeh, founder of Barefoot Artists and The Village of Arts and Humanities

New Village Press <www.newvillagepress.net> is a not-for-profit publisher devoted to the building of vibrant communities. The Press specializes in books about community-based art and community cultural development. It is a public-benefit venture of Architects/ Designers/ Planners for Social Responsibility <www.adpsr.org>.

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