BEAUTIFUL TROUBLE: Still Elegant and Incendiary [The Occupied Sun Book Review]

…more than a book, it’s the serious artivists’ wikipedia…

Beautiful Trouble is more than a book, it’s the serious artivists’ wikipedia. A constantly evolving web toolbox, and an international network of artist-activist trainers whose mission is to help grassroots movements be more creative and more effective. The project has been ongoing since 2012, successfully sharing the accumulated wisdom of decades of creative protest with today’s generation of change-makers’ experiences on the frontlines.

Beautiful Trouble lays out the core tactics, principles and theoretical concepts that drive creative activism, offering an array of tools to help activists learn from recent successes and failures, and from the broad, rich history of our struggle(s).

There are currently five modules; Tactics, Principles, Theories, Case Studies and Practitioners, all excellently researched, brilliantly written and painstakingly cross referenced, full of insights for cynical old artist-activists and fresh faced noobs alike.

The materials are being updated and added to constantly, if you’ve got something you want to share or add, you can get involved, here.

“We encourage readers to explore our website, beautifultrouble.org, which is more than simply an appendage to the book, but in fact stands as perhaps the fullest expression of the project. In an easily navigable form, the website includes all the book’s content as well as material that, due to constraints of both space and time, we were unable to include in this print edition.

With the participation of readers, the body of patterns that constitute Beautiful Trouble could continue to evolve and expand, attracting new contributors and keeping abreast of emerging social movements and their tactical innovations.

Millions around the world have awoken not just to the need to take action to reverse deepening inequality and ecological devastation, but to our own creative power to do so. You have in your hands a distillation of ideas gleaned from those on the front lines of creative activism. But these ideas are nothing until they’re acted upon. We look forward to seeing what you do with them.”

The project is a collaborative effort with over 70 prominent artist-activists-strategists and leading creative campaign organizations including the YesMen, Ruckus Society, Other 98% and others.

Praised by Naomi Klein as “a crash course in the emerging field of carnivalesque realpolitik, both elegant and incendiary,” the book is now available in 7 Languages and is being used by campaigns and classrooms worldwide.