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Art, Trauma, and Social Change: Andrew Himes and Voices in Wartime

By Michael C. Gilbert, January 2006

This article was first published in the January 2006 edition of the Nonprofit Online News Journal.
 

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I first met Andrew Himes when he and I were in a writers' group together in the mid Eighties. Both of us were writing science fiction at the time and were hoping to improve our craft, sustain our commitment, and get published. After that particular dream faded, our paths didn't cross again until the late Nineties, when we both found ourselves working on nonprofit technology. Andy had spent a good part of the intervening time pioneering Microsoft's first Internet projects. Last Summer, twenty years after we first met, Andy spent some time with me at a coffee shop near my office, to talk about social change, art, Project Alchemy, and Voices in Wartime.

Project Alchemy 2000 - 2004

As someone who has founded a number of organizations, I take a great interest in the stories of other founders. And because of our culture's extraordinary willingness to deny the existence of failure of any kind, I take particular interest in efforts that didn't prove to be sustainable in the long run. For Andy Himes, Project Alchemy was one such effort.

Project Alchemy was Andy's baby, born out of his vision of an organization that would help social justice groups use new tools and new media to support their work. Reflecting on the reasons for Project Alchemy's demise, the organization's final home page message shared an important lesson: There is not a significant funding stream dedicated to capacity building in general (let alone technological capacity) for social justice organizations in the Pacific Northwest.

I admired Project Alchemy and I concur with Andy's conclusion that, in their short tenure, they made several meaningful contributions to the field. Andy has no regrets about Project Alchemy and I can understand why.

• They gave technical training to activists who are continuing to leverage new technology on behalf of social justice.
• They developed key organizing principles for technical assistance organizations that have had a lasting impact.
• They helped assure that social justice techies preserved a clear community identity, distinct from nonprofit techies in general.

All three of these impacts came up in my conversation with Andy. He said, for example, that "human capital is the only important capital". Or as the organization's closing letter stated it, "Our success was measured through the transformation of people, rather than by statistics." Project Alchemy helped many of us learn how critical it is to have the trust of the organizations we are trying to help. Sharing a vision of social and economic justice is a key to that trust with organizations that are working for fundamental change. Finally, Project Alchemy was around during the key formative years of the Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network. In my judgment, they were instrumental in keeping the distinct voice of activist technology consultants alive as the profession as a whole built an identity.

Voices in Wartime

The seed of Voices in Wartime was a web site that Project Alchemy took on called Poets Against the War. Sam Hamill, poet, publisher, and pacifist, declined an invitation from Laura Bush to celebrate American poetry on the eve of the U.S. attack on Iraq. He sent email to 50 poets, asking them to join him in a poetic protest of American violence. In four days, he had 1500 responses. Project Alchemy quickly pulled together the first of several versions of a web site for these poets. In six weeks it grew to over 13,000 contributing poets and it continues to this day as a vibrant community.

Andy was moved by the the essential power demonstrated by Poets Against the War, the power of the human voice. He wanted to take it further and in that desire was born Voices in Wartime. Before long, the concept was centered around a documentary and Andy became a movie producer. The film took over his life for the next two years. The initial video for Voices in Wartime came from poets reading their work. But as Andy realized that he himself was going to have to produce this thing, his vision for the voices to include became more ambitious.

Andy's first goal for the film was simply to help people understand the experience of war. We tend to distance ourselves from the consequences. If you have seen the film or read the book, you know he accomplished this. The perspectives included are extraordinarily varied, including journalist, soldiers, historians, and others. The only voices I would have wanted to hear more of are those of the people who have no formal role in war at all, other than to suffer and die as their communities are embroiled in conflict.

Andy also wanted to explore the origins of war, which come from an emotional source that is as personal as the experience of conflict. We are drawn into war based on our fears, Andy said. And the foundation of every war is a sense of victimization. As much as the experience of war itself, these origins are made visible through the poetry of individual voices.

Filmmaking was a powerful experience for Andy: "It was fun. It was painful. It was intense." The film had a top notch team working on it, including Rick King as director. There were the inevitable artistic and political differences with his partners, which were heightened by Andy's desire to make a timeless film that avoided traditional polemic. He wanted poetry, not preaching.

I asked Andy a question that I ask of everyone I've interviewed in the last few years: How do you know if you are succeeding? With art and storytelling, this is not an easy question to answer. I share his belief that "cracking open the human heart is a powerful tool for change". Denial of the emotional reality of our own experiences and the experiences of others may help us get through the day, but that denial is also what allows us to accept or even perpetrate oppression and violence.

Andy wanted the film, and all the related work that was to follow the film, to speak to his conservative, Bush supporting relatives. When he had 35 members of his family watch his film over Christmas of 2004 and he discovered that his mother simply loved it, his faith in the power of honest art and shared experience was confirmed.

By the Fall of 2004, the film was edited, the website for the project was in good shape, and the book (which I reviewed last year in Nonprofit Online News) was being edited. It was time to figure out the last piece of the puzzle, which spoke directly to my question about effectiveness. How was this going to get out into the world? The answer was to build upon the project's strength -- its personal, rather than political, frame -- and embrace an educational program, with curricula and supporting material.

Their website is rich and definitely worth exploring. They offer discussion and action guides to go with the film and the book. There is a new 20 minute documentary called Beyond Wartime, focusing on healing, that Andy directed himself. The website has a growing collection of images, poetry, and essays submitted by site members. They are specifically inviting young people to contribute to a conversation called Imagine a Culture of Peace and they are hosting a touching exhibit of photographs of Israelis and Palestinians by Beverly Duperly Boos entitled Stories of Jerusalem. Finally, the website implies that they are hoping to teach the skillset that underlies all their work, under the heading of Intentional Communication. I particularly like the way their online community allows people to compile their own anthologies of words and images.

They have partnered with organizations ranging from The World Affairs Council to local school districts to deliver it to various communities. The current curriculum includes the film, with a discussion and action guide, poetry, also with a discussion and action guide, and material on The Great War and U.S land wars in Asia. They are branching out into conflicts in other time periods and regions, including World War Two, wars on American soil, and wars in Africa. The reception they've received from teachers is evidently extraordinary.

What's Next

Although he was never a war buff, Andy has read nothing but war related material for the last two years. On any given day there are some 30 wars in progress, with many more situations on the brink of war. Andy sees the dynamic of war as the same as the dynamic in schoolyards and neighborhoods and he feels compelled to understand it. He recalls Project Alchemy feeling like a "slog" in comparison to the joy he feels in this current work.

For Andy, this project has the depth and breadth of a life mission. And since the strategy being pursued is a generational one, I found myself wishing for Andy a long enough life to see the fruit of this labor. Although I do hope he finds time to write his autobiography in there some place. We agreed that this profile would focus on his work, but I'll just say here that he has led a fascinating life.

When I asked Andy about the effectiveness of his recent work, he talked about the relationship between art and politics. He believes that art made for an express political purpose is failed art, but that good art has profound political consequences nonetheless. In other words, when it comes right down to it, Andy puts his political faith in art.

I used to have a button that read "Art Outlives Politics". Andy Himes makes me want to wear it every day.

[2006-06-02: This article has been updated to reflect some changes that Andy Himes brought to our attention.]

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please consider making a donation to Nonprofit Online News.
It will probably feel good!