Adam Horowitz

Adam Horowitz is an artist, instigator, and cultural organizer. He’s founder of the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture (USDAC), a grassroots action network inciting creativity and social imagination to shape a culture of empathy, equity, and belonging. He’s also a co-convener of Nuns & Nones, bringing Women Religious and Millennials together in new communities of contemplation and social action. Adam was co-executive director of the Bowery Poetry Club in NYC and has worked with numerous organizations at the intersection of arts, education, and social change—Ashoka, The Future Project, and the International Folk Art Market, among others. He has traveled internationally as a theater-maker and researcher and was a 2010 Fulbright Scholar in Colombia, 2015 Artist in Residence at the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics at NYU, and 2017 Fellow with the Intercultural Leadership Institute.

Project Description

The U.S. Department of Arts and Culture (USDAC) is a people-powered department not a government agency —a grassroots action network inciting creativity and social imagination to shape a culture of empathy, equity, and belonging. The USDAC connects artists, organizers, and allies in an ever-expanding learning community by sharing vital information and creative tactics, taking action together, and devising cultural policies and programs to catalyze profound culture shifts in the service of social and environmental justice.

Since 2014, the USDAC has engaged more than 30,000 people across generations and geographies in participatory, arts-based community dialogues and actions. In this next chapter, the USDAC will build on the foundation of its first years to strengthen network infrastructure and support ongoing engagement, learning, and connection for the tens of thousands of artists, organizers, culture bearers, city officials, concerned community members, and others who recognize that cultural organizing and creative civic engagement are more critical than ever in addressing pressing social and environmental issues.