The Escape Artist Initiative (EAI) is a public awareness and eco-activism campaign focused on building community readiness
and resilience through the arts, popular culture and D.I.Y media. The EAI offers an artist-led, community-centered response to
issues of public safety and existential concern that threaten the lives and well-being of local residents, national citizens, and
human beings of the planet.
WHAT IS AN ESCAPE ARTIST?
An escape artist employs creative strategies and design solutions to overcome, escape or otherwise liberate oneself and
one's community from various systems of violence, inequity and other limitations. Escape artists aim to uproot dysfunctional
realities from their mythic bedrock to set the imagination free. We use myth, image, and revolutionary design to plant seeds of
hope and survival in the collective consciousness of our creative community. As change agents and way finders, artists
illuminate paths to new ways of seeing and being in the ever-changing world.
The Escape Artist Initiative was established in 2009 by EAI Project Director, Li Sumpter, Ph.D.
