Goats and Soda : NPR

I interviewed Edgard Gouveia Jr. over two years in the past about his efforts to make use of video games and tales to affect communities world wide. He is the Brazilian co-founder of Livelab, a nonprofit devoted to creating and operating collaborative video games for constructive change. Gouveia’s organizing precept is constructing the world of our desires in a approach that’s quick, free, enjoyable and implausible.

On a planet that may really feel more and more challenged, I needed to ask him about his newest efforts, the state of his motion and what he desires of.

This interview has been edited for size and readability. This story is a part of a weeklong sequence of follow-ups to previous posts.

What’s been occurring within the final two years? How have issues been evolving for you?

Oh my God, a lot.

I’ve been invited by a wide range of teams to steer actions across the concept of “play for change.” For occasion, there’s the worldwide artivism motion that has grown up to answer the rise of the intense proper and of fascism.

What is artivism?

We outline artivism as artwork that’s meant for social and environmental change.

Basically, we name an artivist somebody with three aspects. First, they must be a robust and acknowledged artist — whether or not they dance, sing, paint, write poetry, and many others. Their artwork ought to contact individuals’s hearts, minds and desires.

Second, their work needs to be rooted in their very own neighborhood. That is usually a neighborhood, a metropolis, a area, or demographic, however it needs to be serving, inspiring and uplifting that neighborhood. It’s not somebody who solely creates inside their studio. In different phrases, an artivist is an activist as effectively.

Finally, they’ve to have the ability to encourage individuals. They want to maneuver others past their very own communities. And that effort needs to be massive and impactful.

Martin Luther King Jr., Frida Kahlo, Bob Marley, Mercedes Sosa, the Beatles and Maya Angelou are all instance of artivists — individuals who have used their artwork to maneuver and encourage individuals.

So again to the worldwide artivism motion you had been describing…

They’re having the next convening right here in Brazil within the metropolis of Salvador later this 12 months. The organizers appreciated the way in which that I interact and energize communities via the sector of play.

They mentioned, “Edgard, we need you. We are losing the battle over the narrative of change against the extreme right. We don’t want just a workshop from you. We want you to help us design the community engagement piece of the gathering as well as the movement itself.”

That was actually thrilling.

So I’m engaged on that proper now. I’m pondering of how for individuals to not simply collect inside rooms or inns or conference facilities. Rather, we’re making a whole-day workshop within the Black neighborhood of Pelourinho in Salvador centered across the query: How can our artwork be a drugs for change?

That is the provocation. What are you able to carry and create to reverse trauma, empower ladies, restore hope, and rebuild infrastructure? What can we weave collectively from one another’s inventive practices to make the change we would like?

So we’re bringing collectively artists, funders and wonderful foundations from everywhere in the world to share what I’m calling the drugs of the Black diaspora. And individuals are actually loving this concept.

What do you imply by the drugs of the Black diaspora?

The Africans who had been enslaved and their descendants in Brazil, Cuba, Central America, the United States and elsewhere developed quite a lot of methods to outlive, thrive, and even to rise. For instance, there’s the usage of music, voices, drums, dance, and martial arts.

These individuals developed quite a lot of highly effective applied sciences — inventive, non secular, emotional, psychological — to outlive the worst situations and inspire and strengthen us.

I name it Black diaspora medicines as a result of most of the strongest concepts did not exist in Africa. They had been developed within the diaspora. People had data from Africa, however it was below the horrible situations elsewhere that they refined and invented new methods to outlive.

What proof have you ever seen in your individual actions that this may work?

Let me let you know about after I met Kumi Naidoo, the worldwide activist from South Africa. He fought along with Mandela. And he was the previous worldwide govt director of Greenpeace International and the previous secretary normal of Amnesty International.

He is behind the Global Artivism convention and motion. And he was the one who invited me to be part of that initiative.

We first met within the Pyrenees within the fall of 2022 at a small gathering of perhaps 20 artivist leaders. That weekend, the close by little medieval city was celebrating its birthday.

When we confirmed up, we sat in a single nook of the sq. and the entire neighborhood was within the different nook. There was an empty house between us. We weren’t linked. They could not communicate our language and we could not communicate their language, whilst artivists.

It was uncomfortable being there. Our small group felt ashamed to have invaded their house.

And I mentioned, “No, no. Stop it.” The different artivists inspired me to do one thing.

So I went to the stage and requested the blokes there to play Michael Jackson’s “⁠Will You Be There,” “Kumbalawe” from Cirque du Soleil and a standard South American tune referred to as “Berekete.”

Everyone — the neighborhood members and the artivists — we created concentric circles with out talking. I requested them to maneuver like me. And instantly all of us began dancing, fingers joined, in unison.

And by the tip of the three songs, neighborhood members ran out of the sq. to their homes to carry again tables and chairs. And they cooked a lunch for us to eat all collectively. They cut up us up in order that one or two artivists sat with every household as a result of they needed to work together with us even with out talking the language.

So that is a method that we will break silence and break separation though we have now no shared language or connection. We can use artwork to search out different methods to speak.

And by the way in which, we stayed all the way in which till the night — simply due to that power we had created once we got here collectively.

It’s like a human orchestra.

What is your dream, Edgard?

I need to allow desires which might be enlightened, lovely, linked and collaborative. I’m attempting to contribute with my experiences, my applied sciences, my motion on the planet to encourage individuals.

This is the alternative of a actuality rooted in warfare, combating, putting, marching, demanding.

If simply 1% of humanity is seeding society with worry, revenge, suspicions and rage to maintain in energy… what if we dance? What if we rise it doesn’t matter what, like Maya Angelou mentioned? What if we might use the facility of rock and roll, of samba, of Carnival to construct the world that we’re searching for?

That is the power that I’m seeding on this planet.