Creative Change Coalition: A Story for the Future

Ricardo Levins Morales
rlmartstudio.com 

Ricardo Levins Morales is a boricua artist, organizer, and author based in Minneapolis. His decades of social movement activism spans supporting the Black Panthers and Young Lords, union organizing, farmer and environmental, and anti-police struggles. He uses his art, writing, and mentorship practice to stimulate historical memory in the face of forgetting, resilience in the face of trauma, and resistance in the face of oppression.

He co-founded the Northland Poster Collective, which produced art, screen printing services, and organizing materials for movements (1979-2009). He was part of a political/artistic current, starting in the 1980s to establish the centrality of cultural organizing and narrative strategy in movements for change, participating in such national initiatives as the Alliance for Cultural Democracy, the Great Labor Arts Exchange, the National Organizers Alliance, and Labor Notes. He works from a collectively managed storefront studio in Minneapolis with fellow members of the News Guild/CWA.

Trevor Smith
bliscollective.org 

Trevor Smith (he/him) is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the BLIS Collective. He is a writer, researcher, and strategist focused on racial inequality, wealth inequality, reparations, and narrative change. Previously, he was the Director of Narrative Change at Liberation Ventures, a field-builder accelerating the Black-led movement for reparations, where he launched the Reparations Narrative Lab, a creative and research space designed to build narrative power across the movement for reparations.

He previously held program and communications positions at the Surdna Foundation, New York Civil Liberties Union, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and M+R Strategic Services. He received his BA in Journalism from American University. He is a son and a brother originally from Maryland, by way of Freetown, Sierra Leone. He currently resides in Lenapehoking, now known as New York City.

Laura Zabel
Founding Director, Creative Change Coalition

Laura Zabel is an advocate and champion of artists and their role in building healthy and just communities and systems. For more than 20 years, she has worked to imagine and grow a more durable ecosystem of support for creativity and culture in the U.S. A frequent writer and speaker on the power and value of culture and creativity, Laura’s work has been featured by  Stanford Social Innovation Review, Bloomberg News, The Guardian, PBS NewsHour, Aspen Ideas Festival and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Laura has been honored with numerous awards, including the YBCA 100, Gard Foundation Award of Excellence, Common Future Local Economy Fellowship, ASU Creative Placemaking Policy Fellowship and the Bush Foundation Leadership Fellowship. Laura is the Past President of the Board for the Minnesota Consortium of Community Developers.