AMC 2020
Welcome to the 21st Allied Media Conference.
Our beloved Detroit revolutionary ancestor, Grace Lee Boggs, asked the question, “what time is it on the clock of the world?”
As we kick off the 21st AMC on the anniversary of the 1967 rebellion in Detroit (July 23), we feel the answer coursing through the content of this year’s conference.
It’s time for cracking open the walls of fear and scarcity that have confined our belief in what is possible as we reckon with what comes next.
It’s time for an end to the world as we have known it: the one built on supremacist lies and rooted in violence. It’s time for leaning into the solutions all around us that have been percolating in the margins, at the deep scales, where people have already begun creating new worlds.
It’s time for attuning to the frequency that heals, for fixating on the most liberatory possibility and then harnessing all our capacities for the wild, beautifully messy, sometimes tedious journey of becoming that.
The work of creating the virtual AMC has been one such journey. We embarked on a very ambitious thing when we decided in April to pivot the planning of a 3,000 person IRL gathering to take place completely online.
We traded well-worn challenges like how to get people to the conference from the airport? for brand-new challenges like how to prevent zoom-bombing and protect participant data? And how do we continue to organize when our communities are in the throes of multiple pandemics? And how do we still cultivate magic, and joy, and critical connections despite all of this?
While this has always been true of the AMC, we feel it more acutely this year than ever: this thing cannot be perfect. We release the toxic drive towards perfection, which is rooted in white supremacy, capitalism and ableism. We call in the lessons that allow us to transform and grow.
And we strive for magic. We, who are creating the AMC (everyone, including presenters, participants, staff, you!), we are pouring our waking hours, our creativity, our emotional labor and spirit, our analytical and strategic minds into this thing because we love it. We love the people who comprise it. We are thrilled and nourished by it.
We invite you, our AMC community, to continue down the journey of becoming with us, presuming our power to create the world (and the AMC) anew.
— The AMC Team
ABOUT THE VIRTUAL AMC
AMC2020 will take place entirely online. It will feature 75 interactive sessions via Zoom, four livestreamed plenaries, Opening and Closing Ceremonies, and two nights of AMC@Night programming, including virtual dance parties, film screenings, and community dinners. Full instructions for how to participate in the virtual AMC will be provided via email following your registration.
AMC Team
The AMC is produced by Allied Media Projects. The core AMC Staff consists of Co-Directors Nadine Marshall and Brenda Hernandez, and Program Coordinator, Liz Kennedy. Nearly all of the Allied Media Projects staff support the production of the conference in some way, but especially, AMP’s Design Director, Una Lee, Technology Manager, Jon Riley, Office Manager, Soh Suzuki, and Executive Director, Jenny Lee. For AMC2020 we are grateful for our incredible production partners Mainstream Media and Peoples Hub, our many consultants, and the AMC2020 Advisory Board. Read more about the crew that makes the AMC possible.