Civic Imagination
In December 2014 through April 2015, MAPP brought together a working group of activists to apply the theoretical concept of the civic imagination by imagining a new civic holiday. Through this convening, we explored holidays and fiction as a window into the values, motivations, and perspectives of a diverse group of activists and ask individual activists to imagine a Civic Imagination Day. There is a legacy of grassroots lobbying leading to the establishment of holidays in the United States. Mother’s Day was fought for in the early 20th Century by Anna Jarvis in an effort to honor the legacy of her own mother who was a peace activist caring for wounded Civil War soldiers. Or Memorial Day, formerly referred to as Decoration Day, was established after the Civil War where the sheer numbers of lives lost and number of soldiers buried in unmarked graves brought new significance to respecting the burial sites of soldiers.
Why a holiday? This may seem an odd topic for a discussion about civics, but we want to explore the connections between creativity and activism. A holiday is a rich container for creative and imaginative work, with the songs, graphic identity, stories, rituals, decorations, and additional elements that go into the celebration of a holiday. Further, we hope to use the process and results of the convening to demonstrate the power of the arts as a medium to advocate for social change. We are exploring this topic, not to lay the groundwork to lobby for a new holiday, but as an exercise in imaginative civics.