Power Lines Film Screening & Discussion with Director Klee Benally
Friday July 27, 7:30pm- 9:30pm

Halee (Nezbahe Ragdoll) is a 16 year old Diné (Navajo) relocation refugee who uses fierce poetry to escape from her painful past and present. When Halee’s abusive father (Tony Skrelunas) crosses a line, her best friend Selma (Kayla Dailey) helps her runaway. Their journey to Halee’s homeland takes a turn when she discovers her father has been hiding a secret that has the power to change Halee’s life forever.

Power Lines is written, directed, edited, and scored by Klee Benally & filmed with the talents of Outta Your Backpack Media (OYBM) mentors Shelby Ray, Steven Toya esq., Hillary Abe, & Keemara Bahe. OYBM is a Flagstaff based non-profit that offers free film-making workshops to Indigenous youth. Visit our website for more info.

Propaganda Party with Hate-Free Zone Queens
Saturday, July 28, 1-5pm

Interference Archive and Hate-Free Zone Queens (HFZ) are excited to collaborate on an upcoming propaganda party in support of HFZ. Join us on Saturday, July 28th at Interference Archive to make posters, t-shirts, buttons, and more. HFZ proactively builds a strong community defense system that centers those most impacted by current discriminatory policies and actions.

What is a propaganda party? It’s where we invite organizations, activists, designers, and folks like you to come together in our archive of material produced by social movements across the globe and across history, to hang out, meet each other, and make and distribute stickers, posters, buttons, and more. At this event we’ll be collectively printing graphic material to spread the word about the work and values of HFZ — both for you to take back to your community to share, and also for HFZ to use in their current organizing.

HFZ empowers average, everyday people to love and protect each other without relying solely on elected officials to defend and protect us. HFZ uses art to engage community members in visualizing the world we want and actively participating in making our visions a reality. HFZ builds community and trust through creating and working together. Visit our website for more info.

NO RNC Oral History Listening Party
Tuesday, August 7, 7pm

Before there was “The Resistance” there was mass resistance to the Republican policy-agenda during the George W. Bush administration. During this previous wave of anti-Republican Party resistance, activists aligned with the Global Justice Movement regularly mobilized mass street demonstrations at party conventions and economic summits. The NO RNC 2004 Oral History Project documents the organizing efforts that led to a month’s worth of events and demonstrations in New York City during August and September 2004. Join us for a listening party to hear audio from the project’s first 15 interviews and an exploration of visual materials from the demonstrations. Visit our website for more info.

Agitate! Educate! Organize!
Agit Prop in the 21st Century
Exhibition Opening: Tuesday, June 12, 6-9pm
Exhibition Dates: June 12 -- September 30, 2018

Our daily lives are saturated with information; we consume supposedly “neutral” media that implicitly supports existing power structures, yet we simultaneously fear “fake news” without critically analyzing the truths and biases that coexist in every message we see or hear. The reality is that all media has an agenda: for hundreds of years, people have used art, culture, graphics, performance, and design as central elements of social and political organizing across all realms of the political spectrum, to spread information and reimagine reality. This exhibition reflects historic and current uses of agitprop, or agitational propaganda, at the intersection of design and political organizing.

“Propaganda,” from the same root as “propagate,” refers to information that is shared in support of a cause. In modern times, the word propaganda has been weighted with negative connotations; we aim to reclaim the word and highlight the radical potential of propaganda to instigate change. With the Arab Spring, Occupy, Gezi Park, Black Lives Matter, #NoDAPL, and now the resistance to Donald Trump, we’ve seen a new explosion of agitprop. People of all stripes have come out into the streets, placards and banners in hand, wearing T-shirts and buttons, passing out flyers and stickers to protest social injustice. This boost of political ephemera hasn’t been created in a vacuum—since the advent of the printing press and movable type, political slogans and graphics have been part of our daily existence. Politicized communication is the constant accompaniment to people organizing to improve the lives of their families, communities, and co-workers.

Because so much attention is focused on organizing and activism, now is the perfect time to unearth and unpack the history of agitprop. Where does it come from? Who have been its major practitioners? How have the aesthetics and content evolved over time? And, how can we use it to change the world?