We have entered into a critical era for storytelling in the streets. From No Kings marches and ICE watch groups to electing people’s champions like Zohran Mamdani, our movements are growing to rise to the moment. Yet, there is so much more work ahead. It's time to up the ante.
Right now is a time to define the story on our terms: controlling media narratives, lifting up positive examples, and showing widespread rejection of authoritarian overreach. As a media hub, example of local government leadership, and global site of public meaning-making—particularly around immigration—New York City plays a critical role. The winter is an important time to build the infrastructure in NYC that our national movement will need in the spring.
The visual strategy team Look Loud has assembled a cohort of seasoned cultural workers to level up the movement, including leaders affiliated with No Kings March, People over Planet, Desis Rising Up and Moving, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, Naming the Lost Memorials project, ACT UP NY, Gender Liberation Movement, and Jews for Zohran. Together, we are planning the Many Hands Workshop: a convergence space for NYC’s pro-democracy movements. We will begin as a 4-8 week pilot, growing our collective ability to use art and culture to fortify and narrate our movements.
Convergence spaces are a tried-and-true strategy with many lineages. Anti-globalization movements used convergence spaces to challenge and disrupt World Bank and IMF negotiations in the lead up to the “Battle of Seattle.” In NYC, the climate justice movement used a convergence space as a tactic for the 2014 People’s Climate March. Convergence spaces help us steal the story from centrists, soothe internal rifts and tensions, and ignite hope and possibility when it barely exists. We need all those things right now.
Our pilot headquarters will open a new front door to the movement in NYC, skilling up and growing networks of artists, organizers, and cultural producers. This process will establish motifs, rhetoric and practices to share across many cities, igniting the visual and cultural interventions that will grow our movement’s power in the months and years to come.
Many Hands leadership includes…
Ariel Friedlander is a cultural worker, artist, organizer, and educator whose practice spans visual art, public education, and large-scale cultural organizing at the intersection of gender justice, LGBTQ liberation, and progressive electoral politics. She collaborates with grassroots organizations, political campaigns, and cultural spaces to build community power and civic engagement. Her recent work includes producing an educational ranked-choice voting demonstration with NYC Mayor-Elect Mamdani’s campaign to reach queer voters, organizing the Rise Up for Trans Youth Rally in Union Square in February 2025, and producing nightlife and cultural events that foster movement connection through broad grassroots partnerships. Ariel holds a BA in History of Art and an MA in Art & Design Education, and brings years of organizing experience through work with ACT UP NY, Jewish Voice for Peace, and the Gender Liberation Movement.
Rachel Schragis is a cultural worker, organizer, and co-lead of the visual strategy team Look Loud. Her work focuses on developing visual tools, props, and curricula that support grassroots movements and mass mobilization. Rachel is a recipient of the Rauschenberg Foundation Artist-as-Activist Award (with People’s Collective Arts), an Earth Day New York Advocate of the Year, and a Grace Paley Fellow at Jews for Racial and Economic Justice. Her artwork has been featured at the International Center of Photography, in Art in America, and acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Formerly part of the visuals team for Sunrise Movement and the People’s Climate March, she continues to collaborate with movement groups nationwide and is a co-founder of the contradiction-mapping project @vent_diagrams and a core member of the Brooklyn activist-arts space Building Stories.
Ange Tran is a grassroots cultural artist and strategic designer with over 20 years of experience in creative strategy, production, and movement-based visual communications. For more than a decade, they have designed and led training programs that build the technical capacity, strategic effectiveness, and leadership of cultural producers, organizers, and movement artists. Ange partners with cultural institutions, labor unions, coalitions, and community organizations in New York City and nationally to deliver branding, campaign strategy, and visual communications in support of social, economic, and racial justice organizing. Their work includes producing banners, props, and large-scale visual materials that increase media visibility, mobilize participation, and support symbolic action and non-cooperation campaigns—from Occupy Wall Street to present-day No Kings NYC.
Leads for core imagery and community assembly lines:
Rachel Schragis (Look Loud, People’s Collective Arts, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice,)
Josh Yoder (Look Loud, People’s Climate March.)
Leads for mobilization support:
Ricky Gonzales (People Over Profit, Hands Off Fightback Table,)
Ange Tran (No Kings, notable coalitions in NY Including IONY, SEFA.)
Leads for swag and fashion workshops:
Sammy DiDonato (JVP, Jews for Zohran),
Ariel Friedlander (ACT-UP NYC, Gender Liberation Movement, Hot Girls for Zohran) and
Akash Sigh (DRUM).
Leads for storytelling and performance workshops:
Jenny Romaine (Naming the Lost Memorials project, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice,)
Megan Hanley (Desis Rising Up and Moving, The Yes Men.)
Leads for Programming:
Liz Slagus (Widener University, Eyebeam,)
Midori Midori (Sunrise Movement, Look Loud.)
