Women’s Creative Collective for Change

Mission Statement

The Women’s Creative Collective for Change is a movement toward wholeness. An organization dedicated to bearing witness to undertold and untold stories, we are committed to a feminist, post-colonial ideology. We believe in the importance of diversity, both within our organization, and in the communities with which we collaborate. We seek to create a safe and bonding space during our meetings, where participants may share themselves and celebrate the art in their community. WCC acts as a healing space as well as a support system, encouraging participants to continue an inner dialogue, whereby we can support one’s own spiritual and creative health and growth.

History

Women’s Creative Collective for Change (WCC) was founded in 2006 in Los Angeles, California by Tani Ikeda and Marissa Sellers. It began with the intention of telling the untold and undertold stories of female and trans communities in an intimate setting. We have hosted creative writing, urban cycling,  DIY crafting, movement and art therapy workshops and various events in Los Angeles for the last five years.  In 2007, WCC received a grant from The National Center for The Preservation of Democracy to initiate the organization ImMEDIAte Justice, which works with high school girls in media justice and video production training. Currently, WCC is working to build chapters and begin local projects in New York, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Buenos Aires, Argentina.

USC article – Combining art and activism — the future of social change

Vision

The only way to bear the overwhelming pain of oppression is by telling, in all its detail, in the presence of witnesses and in a context of resistance, how unbearable it is. If we attempt to craft resistance without undertaking this tasks, we are collectively vulnerable to all the errors of judgement that unresolved trauma generates in individuals. It is part of our task as revolutionary people, people who want deep-rooted, radical change, to be as whole as it is possible for us to be. This can only be done if we face the reality of what oppression really means in our lives , not as abstract systems subject to analysis, but as an avalanche of traumas leaving a wake of devastation in the lives of real people who nevertheless remain human, unquenchable, complex and full of possibility. -The wise words of Aurora Levins Morales

Mission Statement

Wholeness

Women’s Creative Collective for Change is a movement towards wholeness. We are a post-colonial, feminist community that believes in the creative resilience and the unbinding of our lives from the violence of oppression. Our craft as storytellers and image-makers rewrites the culture’s master narrative through listening and sharing undertold stories. Our priority is to create a venue for people from different communities to gather, vocalize under-told or untold stories, and bear witness to the similarities within their struggle and experience. Through this common story, people can unite to create change within their own communities.

Art & Healing

Through the realm of art, we seek to create a safe space, where our members may share themselves and their creativity every week during our meetings. WCC acts as a support system as well as a healing space, encouraging individuals to continue a personal dialogue with themselves, whereby we all can later come together and support each other’s spiritual and creative growth.

Diversity

WCC embraces women and gender variant communities in our collective space, as we recognize the shared need for creative well being amongst people who are woven together by gender conscious experiences. We believe in the importance of diversity, both within our organization, and in the communities with which we collaborate.

Political Consciousness

WCC works within a grassroots framework, in that we are a movement of community. Although we do not claim a political standpoint within the broader public discourse, we center traditionally marginalized voices and encourage workshops that focus on expanding consciousness (creative, spiritual, ecological, etc.).

We are committed to advancing a postcolonial feminist perspective by exploring and centering gender, nation, class, race, and sexualities within our weekly workshops. We agree that the lived experiences of women and gender nonconforming peoples are tied to a gendered history of colonialism and cannot be universalized. We believe that bearing witness to and sharing experiences, knowledge, and creativity is a way of unbinding our lives from injustice and oppression.  This elemental consciousness is central to our movement towards wholeness.