FORWARD: Issue #8: Civic Health
Building Civic Knowledge
The Colorado-based nonprofit Warm Cookies of the Revolution aims to make citizens excited about taking part in democratic processes. Read more below. Photo by From the Hip Photography.
The formal and informal ways artists and arts entities are equipping individuals and groups with information that helps them participate in civic life.
In these case studies, creatives educate New Yorkers on their rights and public policy, while a Colorado nonprofit excites citizens about taking part in democratic processes.
Center for Urban Pedagogy
A Brooklyn nonprofit linking illustrators and designers with community organizers is helping educate New Yorkers on rent policy, immigrant rights, and more.
Location: New York, New York
Date: Founded in 1997
Artists: Various
In collaboration with the Chinese-American Planning Council (CPC), the CUP created the resource Our Lives, Our Power seen in the crowd on a day of action. Photo by the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP).
This Brooklyn-based nonprofit uses art and design to boost civic engagement in partnership with marginalized New York City communities. The Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP), founded by urban designer and MacArthur “genius grant” recipient Damon Rich in 1997, is now a seven-person team led by Executive Director Pilar Finuccio. It has partnered with more than 150 community organizations in New York City, reaching more than 500,000 residents with booklets, pamphlets, posters, videos, and other means of conveying crucial public information to people who need it.
Their work has included a campaign to increase street vendors’ understanding of city standards in order to avoid fines, a program that helped New Yorkers understand how to have their voices heard in land-use planning, and a number of campaigns providing renters with information on their rights as tenants.
Community organizers and advocates can either hire CUP’s team to create a project, apply for a free collaboration through their annual open call, "Making Policy Public," or adapt an existing one. A belief in “civic engagement as a creative action,” as their website puts it, underpins the endeavor.
It's design work, but CUP’s team brings specific knowledge bases with them. “Our team takes a lot of time to understand what the issues across the city are,” says Finuccio. “As an organization we have supported resources across immigration, housing, and health care for many years, and understand which organizations are advocating and organizing with communities. Our team shares an expectation, desire, and commitment to developing our social practice in support of social justice—and everyone on the team brings a unique perspective to our work as artists, designers, social workers, and educators.”
CUP often works with community organizations that haven't had the opportunity to use art and design to create educational resources to support the communities and people they work with. CUP’s team and designers collaborate closely with the organization in listening sessions and “take a lot of time to figure out what anti-oppressive practices need to look like in visual design and writing,” Finuccio says. “Our goal is to understand how we can support a narrative with specific language, and visual design that uplifts the visions and lived experiences of marginalized communities.” In the community listening sessions, CUP staff and designers learn about details and emphases that come from the lived experience of, for example, public housing residents or trans people living in shelters, and work hard to represent those elements rather than create generic images based on assumptions or inadequate research.
The three designers—Maria Useche, Shelby Rashap, and Pamela Wang—who collaborated on the project Our Lives, Our Power, holding the completed resource. Photo by The Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP).
Our goal is to understand how we can support a narrative with specific language and visual design that uplifts the visions and lived experiences of marginalized communities.
—Pilar Finuccio, director, Center for Urban Pedagogy
Ingrid Haftel from CUP speaks with the NY Arts Practicum about their recent civil engagement projects around NYC on topics such as fracking, vendor rights, and rising rent in Chinatown. Photo by the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP).
Mark Nerys, Bo-won Keum, and community members from public housing during a community session discussion. Photo by the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP).
A street vendor with the resource Vendor Power! Photo by the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP).
“We also work with community partners to ask, are there dominant narratives or visual representations that we can meaningfully subvert or undermine?” says Finuccio. “Anything that's usually not represented well in the media or in government documents? And can we create a narrative and information that is more supportive, representative, and honest about people's rights and the work of changing systems?”
Recent CUP successes that Finuccio points to include a project and pamphlet called “Record It. Report It!” a collaboration with Neighbors Together and designer Gica Tam, which guides tenants in reporting discrimination in rental housing and was widely taken up by housing agencies and organizations throughout the city.
Another successful project was "Get EQUAL!"—a collaboration with the Coalition of Institutionalized Aged and Disabled (CIAD) and designer Anna Pelavin about a New York State program called EQUAL (Enhancing the Quality of Adult Living). When the state legislature in Albany cut funds for this program that financially supported older residents of supportive housing facilities, volunteers went to the legislature prepared with the pamphlet, and “as a result of the information and training that this resource provided them, they were able to successfully work together to advocate for reinstating the budget for this program,” says Finuccio. “That was a huge advocacy success.”
As a result of the training that this resource provided them, they were able to successfully work together to advocate for reinstating the budget for this program. That was a huge advocacy success.
—Pilar Finuccio, director, Center for Urban Pedagogy
Let The Papers Do The Talking, Spanish translation. Image by the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP).
Cover of the resource Let The Papers Do The Talking in English. Image by the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP).
Let The Papers Do The Talking, Chinese translation. Image by the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP).
CUP just completed a 24,000-copy run of four resources centering the rights of immigrants, which another organization reprinted. “The resources explain a range of information, from what we know about ICE arrests and steps people can take to prepare, to how to access social benefits depending on your immigration status,” Finuccio says. “In many ways, this reprint is a demonstration of the injustice of recent federal policy changes, and that is not a success to us. But the fact that we are able to support the capacity of another organization to reach that many people with critical information that they trust and see as effective, is very much a sign of success and impact for us.”
CUP and the team at Center for Justice Innovation during a tabling event to distribute Let The Papers Do The Talking. Photo by the Center for Urban Pedagogy.
AIGA/NY (a New York design nonprofit) hosts Not Watered Down: A Screening & Discussion with CUP. Photo by Mira Rojanasakul.
A CPC staff member speaks to community members at their City Advocacy Day rally where they launched the guide Our Lives, Our Power. Photo by the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP).
Warm Cookies of the Revolution
This nonprofit injects fun and excitement into civic literacy occasions, with the goal of making citizens excited about taking part in democratic processes.
Location: Colorado
Date: Started in 2012
Artists: Various
Partners: Colorado communities
All photos by From The Hip Photography.
One of the origins of Warm Cookies of the Revolution was Evan Weissman’s realization that he had some of the best and most honest conversations about politics and related issues while watching sports at sports bars.
The Denver-based theater artist and playwright was committed to left politics and, as he puts it, “wanted to win, and not just show up at a protest and chant and then lose.” He understood firsthand the appeal of theater, sports, comedy, music, and fashion shows.
“It doesn’t matter how often you tell someone how important a zoning meeting or a budgeting meeting is,” he says. “If they don't have the time and they don't know how it's connected with their lives, why would they show up? So I thought: instead of pissing people off and telling them why they're wrong and what they should be doing, why not do something that people enjoy? And then add civic elements into the mix. Because everyone cares about their kids' school, the air they breathe.”
Instead of pissing people off and telling them why they're wrong and what they should be doing, why not do something that people enjoy? And then add civic elements into the mix. Because everyone cares about their kids' school, the air they breathe.
— Evan Weissman, theater artist and playwright
The event Sin Tax Bingo explains how tax dollars from “sins” like gambling, marijuana, cigarettes, and soda are collected, spent—and just who decides all of that.
The result of these observations was Warm Cookies, a nonprofit that “gets regular people engaged in crucial civic issues by creating innovative and fun arts and cultural programs,” as their website explains. The programs have ranged from wrestling events to ice-sculpting competitions to the annual Tax Day Carnival, which has been held to transform a usually stressful day into something less daunting.
Warm Cookies held a dance party on election night 2024, during which attendees filled out postcards—to be posted in early 2025—writing down what they would do to help their community during the first hundred days of the incoming presidential administration. They’ve hosted small-town gatherings centered around collective meals, musical performances, and family-friendly high school football tailgates as part of their yearly Future Town Tour.
Post-election dance party organized by Warm Cookies of the Revolution.
The point is to design events that are fun and appealing using artistic and creative approaches—and, during the event, provide attendees with connectivity, knowledge, and impetus to make their voices heard in the civic realm. (Warm Cookies has created videos, installations, and books as well.)
One particularly immersive recent event has been the second iteration of The People’s Atlas of the Future. In one Denver neighborhood undergoing a lot of social change, an elementary school was slated to be closed, and citizens were concerned. Warm Cookies invited residents to a gathering during which they were invited to make buttons and block prints, to doodle on a wall, look at old photos of their neighborhood, and enjoy a performance by a locally popular Aztec-dance troupe.
The point is to design events that are fun and appealing using artistic and creative approaches—and, during the event, provide attendees with connectivity, knowledge, and impetus to make their voices heard in the civic realm.
Performers from Grupo Huitzilopochtli danced during an event from Future Town Tour: Fort Garland. The Ancestors and Futurists Tour was created to reflect on our collective past and invoke the radical imagination for a more livable future.
“And then we walked,” Weissman says. Accompanied by lowriders in their beautifully decorated vehicles (“Denver’s greatest contribution to American art,” says Weissman) and by boombox music, the attendees walked to the elementary school in question. Then more music, and stories from residents about the school and the neighborhood.
“These people’s voices were not listened to on the school-closing issue,” Weissman says, “but parading through their neighborhood, with these cars and music that are really culturally important to them, they took over that space. It was something that people could feel.”
When the participants returned, Warm Cookies introduced them to a group that works with parents on education issues. “They're not going to reopen the school,” Weissman says, “but other issues are something they could get involved with.” There were people present to help the neighborhood residents understand the participatory budgeting process, as well as representatives of the city’s planning office, primed to hear people’s concerns.
By giving people something that they can do, you're fighting against cynicism. And then you can have a bit of hope that things can be different—or that you can keep them the way that you want them.
— Evan Weissman, theater artist and playwright
“We're trying to be an antidote to the retreat that comes from cynicism,” Weissman says. “And it's very easy to get cynical about the system. Once you retreat, though, you're out of the game. And so, by giving people something that they can do, you're fighting against that cynicism. And then you can have a bit of hope that things can be different—or that you can keep them the way that you want them.”
"Boogie Down" event organized by Warm Cookies of the Revolution.
FORWARD: Issue #8
Civic Health
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