AMCAC, Why We’re Here:
Excellence. Community. Assistance. Dialogue. Pay equity.
These are the values of the Andrew Martin Creative Action Center. We believe in building community, uplifting the existing community, and thinking critically about ourselves and the world around us. This is centered on excellence - of having formed ideas or ideas that fit to be formed. AMCAC is a community of experts and the experts of tomorrow.
Excellence: AMCAC is, at its core, a curated space. Our facilitators and critique participants, our core offering, are selected for their artistic merit and potential, in the case of the participants, and excellence and achievement, in the case of our facilitators.
Community: AMCAC seeks to build its own community, and AMCAC believes that lasting change is both bold and incremental and that these are not mutually exclusive ideas.
Assistance: AMCAC will uplift the existing community. AMCAC believes there are more experts and changemakers than there are credentials or podiums and that unburdening people from their circumstances enables them to show their paradigm-shifting potential.
Dialogue: AMCAC is a space for dialogue. We seek to do our part to discuss the core question of our day: how do we remain intolerant of intolerance but encourage rigorous, challenging dialogue? AMCAC believes an echo chamber does not serve the pursuit of justice.
Pay Equity: AMCAC pays its facilitators (including lecturers, skill trainers, and critique leaders) 50% of the programs they facilitate. AMCAC believes that change begins by treating the changemakers well.
About the Founder:
Phil Garber is the founder and director of AMCAC. He is a disabled person who stutters, an artist, and a program management professional. He was driven to create AMCAC out of a desire to replicate the dual cultures of excellence and dialogue found in higher education. Outside of higher education, there are spaces for artistic excellence, political dialogue, and community upliftment, but rarely are these spaces curated or found under one roof. Phil’s work and outlook are deeply shaped by the fact that he is a person who stutters; stuttering affects the production of speech. As a person who stutters, Phil exists outside the typical socio-temporal space and can more readily critique it.
Phil Garber holds an M.A. in International Affairs from The New School and a B.F.A. in Photography & Video from the School of Visual Arts. Phil lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.