Using Creativity as Your Activism
When people think of activism, they picture protests, marches and mass gatherings. In the UK, people may remember tins of baked beans being thrown over works of art or people supergluing themselves to roads. But activism can take many forms, as the whole point is to draw attention to something that you want to change.
What is Activism?
Activism: Activism is the practice of taking action to effect social, political, economic, or environmental change.
Oxford Review
Activism: Collective efforts to create change from the grassroots.
Activists Handbook
Activism can mean challenging authority and those with power, such as the rich, large companies that control markets, what we eat and how we live or governments and other political bodies. An example can be a boycott. Not buying a product may not seem like activism, but if enough people actively avoid the product or company, the impact can be huge. One example is the 2025 "Tesla Takedown". This boycott resulted from people being unhappy with Elon Musk, Tesla's CEO, being given a prominent role in the USA government. Musk had also contributed more than $300 million to Donald Trump's presidential campaign. The public's reaction was to boycott Tesla and protest outside of showrooms. Tesla cars were vandalised in the streets, and many owners sold their cars as quickly as they could. These actions resulted in Tesla's income dropping by 71% in the first quarter of 2025. With so many people taking part, the boycott became a global collective movement of activism.
Who Is an Activist?
Everyone can be an activist. There is no activism qualification; people aren't going to activism school, and it's not a job. You don't have to join a group, get a membership or even perform prescribed actions. Going back to the initial point, people think of protests in the streets, but you don't have to go anywhere. One powerful example is Blackout Tuesday. On 2nd June 2020, Instagram was taken over by a collective action against racism and police brutality, called Blackout Tuesday. The idea was simple: everyone was to post a black square, and it worked; Instagram went dark, and people talked about it around the world, drawing attention to the issue of racism and injustice. This one event showed how little may need to be done if enough people do it.
Using Creativity as Activism
People have been using creativity as activism for centuries. Artists have painted images that document protests and revolutions, while others have shown the injustice and encouraged people to look at it. In 1949, George Orwell published 1984, a dystopian book on how conformity, manipulation and unchecked power can destroy society. A modern-day artist who uses their creativity to protest is Banksy. For more than 30 years, Banksy has challenged authority and made us take a hard look at the way we live, from consumerism to turning our backs on those in need. These examples - painters, an author and a seriously talented street artist - show us that activism doesn't have one form. They are examples of how we can use our skills to achieve social change.
Music as a Social Movement
Music has been used for centuries to speak out against injustices. Pussy Riot, a collective of female punk rockers, have been protesting the Russian government for years. From old folk songs to Macklemore's pro-Palestine track, Hind's Hall, people use music to both highlight the problem and to help heal from it.
Craftism: Uniting Crafting with Activism
Craftism is the term that was coined by writer and activist Betsy Greer. Craftism is using craft, whether knitting, sewing or crochet, to create handmade items that carry a message or are related to a specific cause. This can involve people using a symbol as a sign of solidarity. An example of this was seen at the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, where people made badges, scarves and hats in the yellow and blue of the Ukrainian flag.
Using Your Creativity
Step 1:
The first step in using your creativity for activism is to think about who or what you want to be an activist for. That may seem obvious if you're vegan; you want to be an activist for veganism. But the concept is still broad. If you want your message to be "go vegan", keep it simple and make it bold. But if you want to use your creativity to make people think, you will need a more detailed approach. Do you want to focus on the animals, one animal, land animals or aquatic animals? Do you want people to see animals as individuals or highlight the similarities between the animals people eat and the ones that they share their homes with? You could draw attention to animals living short lives or exploitation, but you must choose your message to give you focus and something to aim for.
Step 2:
What skill are you going to use, and how are you going to use it? Can you paint, draw, sculpt, crochet, write poetry, dance? Take a skill that you already have and hone it with the purpose of your activism in mind.
Step 3:
Collaborate with others. This is partly because two or more heads are better than one, but also because each person will bring their own skill set. You could join a local group, start your own, or find people online to work with. At The Young Vegan, Francisco and I collaborate on our projects to bring you books, journals, notebooks and colouring books, with each of us brining our different skills to the table.
Step 4
Decide how you will get your work out to the world. This doesn't have to mean getting your work on a global stage. You could use an English assignment to write a poem or story about veganism at school, set a vegan challenge at work or hold a talk at your local library. You could write a computer game, comic book, or novel and publish it yourself. Start a YouTube channel, livestream cooking videos on TikTok or post your recipes on Instagram. The list of things that you could do is endless.
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