ALEXANDRA CUNNINGHAM

Gallatin School of Individualized Study

Bachelor of Arts, May 2012

Art as a Weapon of Global Justice

Bio and Resume (.pdf)

Alexandra Cunningham is studying "Art as a Weapon for Global Justice" in the Gallatin School of Individualized Study and pursuing a minor in economics in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is focusing on exploring how visual arts and economics impact social justice causes around the world.

Alexandra's studies explore the effects that globalization, immigration, and conflict has had on impoverished people across the globe. She looks for creative solutions to the subject of poverty, which she sees as the root of many human rights abuses and injustices facing the world today. While aid to these causes normally takes the "curative" approach to the problem, Alexandra focuses her effort on the "preventative" approach. By focusing on preventing the problem rather than alleviating it after symptoms show, she believes there will be a more rapid shift to a just global society. Alexandra also believes that visual arts have a unique power in offering new perspectives on situations and can open eyes to different cultures and peoples to foster the understanding needed in today's global society.

Alexandra is the founder of a non-profit organization called Art for Global Justice. Art for Global Justice seeks to use the power of art to create social change both locally and globally. Youth workshops, art exhibits and an art exchange program will facilitate this movement towards seeing other perspectives and creating justice. In Spring 2010, Art for Global Justice received a $1,000 seed grant from the NYU Reynolds/Youth Venture Be a Changemaker Challenge. (http://www.artforglobaljustice.org)

While living in Ghana in 2009, Alexandra worked with Global Goodness Inc. to start its first teaching program in schools in Jamestown, a poor neighborhood in Accra, Ghana. The program incorporated art and literacy projects into 30-minute lessons once a week to four classes – impacting 230 children. While in Ghana, Alexandra became aware of the need for growth in the business sector of developing countries. She is now exploring ways to work with multi-national corporations so they can profit, but also begin to enforce just labor policies in their factories abroad, and finding ways to work with and allow emerging countries to grow and profit. She hopes to use art to build bridges in these economic endeavors.

Alexandra plans to travel to several different communities to better understand artistic and economic situations and implement means to prevent further impoverished societies globally. In 2011, she plans to study in Havana, Cuba, and research the ways that Cuban art, especially revolutionary images, have reflected and affected the social movements in the country.