Many Hands Visual Strategy Intensive

Brought to you by
Many Hands Workshop x Look Loud

Apply by Oct 19th

This December at Many Hands Workshop, we’ll be offering a 5 day training for organizers, comms people and cultural workers in NYC who want to strengthen their visual strategy work and explore working more at Many Hands Workshop or deepening their organization’s connection to the workshop. 

This weeklong intensive is a deep dive into the practical mechanics and theory of how visuals help our movements build power. Using visuals strategically requires us to master lots of kinds of skills: messaging development, fabrication, action staging, documentation, and thoughtful facilitation of the process of each step. Despite its vast utility in movements, there are very few spaces available to hone the craft of developing comprehensive, rigorous visual strategy–and this training is aimed at helping build the individual practitioners and the community of practice needed to make fuller use of Many Hands Workshop,  leveling up visual strategy in our movements in NYC.

The training will be led by Look Loud (Josh Yoder and Rachel Schragis) with support from the Many Hands Workshop core team (Akash Singh, Ange Tran, Ariel Friedlander, Lucy Block, Midori Johnson, Ricky Gonzalez, Rachel Schragis, Sammy DiDonato and Willa Folmar).

Applications are due by Monday, October 19th, and applicants will be notified by October 26th at the latest.
We will be hosting an optional info session on zoom on October 8th, 1pm.
You can also reach out to midori@manyhandsworkshop.org or rachel@lookloud.org with questions.

Training participants will:

  • Practice facilitating messaging and imagery brainstorms 

  • Practice staging rallies, marches and sit-ins to maximize impactful storytelling and press.

  • Learn assembly-line fabrication techniques for signs and banners and best practices for welcoming people of all skill levels into the process

  • Level up their their digital design skills to produce signs and banners

  • Discuss best practices for integrating visual strategy into campaign planning, and cultivating visual strategy leaders and teams.

  • Learn their way around many Hands Workshop + strategize about what could happen next in the space

Who should apply?

  • This workshop is designed for applicants who are actively involved with movement organizations or community groups, as a volunteer, member or staff with a focus in organizing, communications, or design work.  We also welcome designers and artists that serve multiple movement groups.

  • The workshop is appropriate for people of all skill levels of visual production. Art-curious organizers and comms people equally welcome to experienced designers.  It is ideal for people who are looking to broaden their skill sets and their community of peers. 

  • Do you work closely with a small team?  You’re definitely welcome to apply with a buddy from your organization or coalition.  

  • Priority will be given to applicants whose organizations have worked at Many Hands Workshop previously, or show strong commitment to starting that relationship.

Workshop format:

  • Mon Dec 7 —— Thurs Dec 10, 10am-8:30pm each day — Breakfast, lunch and dinner provided

  • Friday Dec 11th —— 10am- 4pm - Breakfast and lunch provided

Daily Overview:

  • Day 1: Leading community processes: visioning and sloganing

  • Day 2: Design methodologies for the streets,  design software skillbuilding

  • Day 3: Sign + banner production, Community art facilitation + managing the workshop

  • Day 4: Staging, documentation, and visuals for social media 

  • Day 5: Campaign integration, visual strategy team building + leadership development.

The training will include a wide mix of slide talks, storytelling, group discussions, and hands-on practice of every stage of development of visuals. Most days will follow a format of study together during the day, and cranking up the music while we make art together at night.  This is a fun and rigorous workshop, as participants stretch themselves and try on a variety of new technical skills in the context of theoretical frameworks about visuals in our movements. We will provide short and extended breaks within our agenda, including breaks during meal times.

The workshop is designed as an experiential package with each session building on the previous one. To create the best learning environment possible, we will only accept applicants who can commit to the entire week.

Trainers:

The training will be lead by Look Loud, with guest trainers from the Many Hands Workshop Core team.

  • Look Loud (Rachel Schragis and Josh Yoder) is a nimble team of visual strategy accomplices supporting communities to take control of their public and media narratives through the creation of action props, imagery, staging, photography and cultural strategy.

    Since co-founding Look Loud in 2020, Rachel and Josh have lead more than 100 different community-based design and production processes in 21 different states (and counting!),  including partnerships with Center for Popular Democracy, Cop City Referendum Campaign, Fight for $15, GreenFaith, Hands Off NYC, HQ2 Queens//Neighbors Beyond Amazon, Interfaith Action for Palestine, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, Mennonite Action, Miami Workers Center, People’s Climate March, People’s Action, Rising Majority, Showing Up for Racial Justice, Starbucks Workers United, Sunrise Movement and Uncommitted.

    They have lead trainings affiliated with Labor Notes, Netroots, PowerLabs, Reframe, Training for Change and Social Movement Technology. This is the first time they’ve ever run a place-based training for NYC!

    Josh Yoder grew up in the kind of rural Pennsylvania city that only gets mentioned during presidential elections and conversations about fascism. He started organizing as a response to the bigotry of the so-called ‘War on Terror,’ and anti-immigrant paranoia of the early 2000s. Previous to co-founding Look Loud, he worked on visual strategy for Sunrise Movement, The Natural History Museum/Not an Alternative, The March for Science, the Public Society, and a half-dozen anti-extraction campaigns. His work supports demonstrations in the street to be powerful in digital space – to make our actions reach people who haven’t shown up yet, and to expand the aesthetic tent of social justice to include communities who do not currently see themselves represented.

    Rachel Schragis is a cultural organizer, arts educator, and born and raised New Yorker, who first found her way into social movements by making posters and banners in Zuccoti Park during Occupy Wall Street. Before co-founding Look Loud, Rachel was the arts coordinator for the People’s Climate March, and visual organizing manager for Sunrise Movement. She is a Robert Rauchenberg Artist-As-Activist award recipient and Earth Day New York Activist of the Year in 2014. She is a member-leader at Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, and co-founder of the contradiction-mapping instragram account @Vent_Diagrams. She is also a co-founder of Building Stories studio in Gowanus, and core team member of Many Hands Workshop!

  • Many Hands Workshop Core Team guest trainers will include:

    Akash Singh is the Communications Director of Desis Rising Up & Moving (DRUM) a grassroots organization of working-class Indo-Caribbean and South Asian immigrants in NYC. DRUM's sibling electoral organization DRUM Beats was a day one endorser of Zohran Mamdani's campaign for NYC mayor in 2025 and played a critical role in mobilizing the Muslim, South Asian, and Indo-Caribbean vote in NYC

    Ariel Friedlander is an artist, an organizer, and an educator in that order. Her work spans multiple mediums at the intersection of gender justice, LGBTQ rights, and progressive electoral politics. Recently, she collaborated with NYC Mayor-Elect Mamdani’s campaign to create an educational ranked-choice voting demonstration to reach their Queer voting base, organized the ‘Rise Up for Trans Youth Rally’ in Union Square in February 2025, which was attended by thousands, and produced various nightlife events in New York City to foster community engagement with a wide variety of grassroots partnerships. She holds a Bachelor’s in History of Art, a Master’s in Art & Design Education, and many years of political organizing under her belt with institutions such as ACT UP NY, JVP, and Gender Liberation Movement.

    Ange Tran is a cultural worker and strategic designer with over 20 years of experience in creative strategy and movement-based visual arts. For more than a decade, they have designed and led training programs for Netroots Nation that build the technical capacity, strategic effectiveness, and leadership of cultural workers, organizers, and activists. Ange partners with cultural institutions, labor unions, community organizations and their coalitions to deliver branding, campaign, and strategic visual communications in support of social, economic, and racial justice. Their work includes producing banners, props, and large-scale visual materials that increase media visibility, shape popular understandings, and mobilize participation—from Occupy Wall Street to present-day No Kings Marches. They have work included in the permanent collections of the Victoria & Albert (London), and Brooklyn Museum (NYC).

    Midori Johnson is the Workshop Coordinator for Many Hands Workshop, where she has the great honor of helping bring brilliant organizers, caring New Yorkers, and artists of all skill levels to the Workshop to create, converge and build power. She is also a member-leader of Sunrise Movement’s NYC Hub and serves as part of their Mythic Power leadership team, organizing around energy affordability, responsible data center development, and electing Green New Deal climate champions at all levels of government. She has a background in education and administration. Before becoming the Many Hands Workshop Coordinator, she spent many years working with children in various capacities and as an administrator for a tax and accounting firm. Both experiences have served her well in her current role as Workshop Coordinator.

    Ricky Gonzalez is organizer and cultural worker in New York City. He works to find the intersections between climate change and racial capitalism. Ricky works to bring climate into increasingly connected social movements, and align the climate movement with anti-fascism through training, community building, and direct action. His work has brought him to partner with Planet Over Profit. Rainforest Action Network, Stop the Money Pipeline among others. In the face of encroaching authoritarianism he chooses to challenge power with bravery, strategy, and humor.

    Sammy Didonato is an organizer and film producer who has worked in movements for Palestinian liberation, immigration solidarity, and prison abolition. His documentary work has premiered at International Film Festival of Rotterdam, CPH:DOX, and SXSW and his journalistic work has been published in Democracy Now!, NPR, and Unicorn Riot. He loves nerding out about how to make our actions look bigger, more powerful, and any excuse to use a stencil for a banner.

    Willa Ellafair Folmar is a theatremaker, director, and photographer working across performance, large-scale event design, and cultural organizing. Her photography has been featured in publications including The New York Times, New York Magazine, and American Theatre Magazine.  Since 2016, Willa has collaborated extensively with MacArthur Genius Taylor Mac, serving as Associate Director of The Hang and Bark of Millions, and as Associate Tour Manager for the Pulitzer Prize-nominated A 24-Decade History of Popular Music and Holiday Sauce. Through the Creative Producing organization Pomegranate Arts, Willa worked with artists including Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, and Bassem Youssef. In September 2025, she served as Associate Artistic Director for Rekindling, a large-scale fire installation and music performance created by Compagnie Carabosse for the Royal Docks Originals festival in London.  Willa’a worked and toured extensively with projects for Under the Radar Festival , London International Festival of Theater, The Onassis Festival, The Melbourne Festival, Reykjavik Arts Festival, The Sydney Opera House, The Barbican Centre, Berliner Festspiele, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, among others.  Willa was previously a Public Programs intern for Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Co-Director of Looking Glass Arts, an artist residency in upstate New York democratizing access to the space, time, and natural beauty critical to artistic growth and practice. Across disciplines, Willa’s work is rooted in collaboration and in art’s capacity to bring people together, tell stories that are systemically forgotten, dismissed, or buried, and build collective power.

What to expect at this training:

Applications due Monday, October 19, 2026.

Apply by October 19th!