David Acosta

“I am an artist and a cultural worker. My work as a poet and writer is intrinsically tied to a long literary tradition carried out by poets and writers at the crossroads of social change movements. I have always recognized the intersectional nature of that work, where artistic practice meets social and economic justice work.”

David Acosta is a well-known poet, writer, and activist whose works have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies. He has served on a variety of committees and boards, including work with the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and The AIDS Law Project, and many others. As a founding member of both the Art Emergency Coalition and the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression (which went on to successfully sue the National Endowment for the Arts during the 90s culture wars.)  As a Latinx, racially mixed, indigenous,  gay man, he continues to blend art and activism as he collaborates on countless projects throughout the city while producing his own art and writing.

Where does creativity mean to you?

“Creativity for me is the compelling need to continuously create even among the most challenging of conditions seeking new ways of seeing and approaching ones discipline with an open mind, so that it can reflect our thinking and our engagement with both our artistic process and what we are trying to accomplish through our discipline. Creativity for me implies out of the box thinking, risk taking and experimentation, as a continuous process which allows us to grow as artists as well as to question our selves, our place in the world, our artistic process, our practice and ultimately how it may inspire and or make others think differently about the issue/issues our work seeks to address.”

Where do art and your discipline meet?

“My art and discipline meet at the intersections of my work as a cultural worker. My work in community both as an artist and as an activist (both are for me inseparable) is a lifelong commitment to understanding the social and cultural realities of communities and how these impact everyday life. My work as a poet, writer and curator, is intrinsically tied to a long literary tradition carried out by poets, writers and visual artists at the crossroads of social change movements, who through their work as well as through their activism, upheld the dignity and self determination of people especially the most vulnerable among us because of race, gender, class, sexual orientation, disability, or socioeconomic status. As a Latinx, indigenous, mixed race gay man, my activism has always recognized the intersectional nature of that work, where artistic and social practice meets social and economic justice work.”

Biography:

David Acosta is a well known poet and writer whose works have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies. Among the most notable are Mayrea, The Americas Review, American Poetry Confronts the 1990s, (Black Tie Press 1990) The Limits of Silence (Asterion Press 1991) Poesida, (Ollantay Press, 1995) and Floating Borderlands: Twenty Five Years of Latin American Poetry in The United States, University of Washington Press, 1998. Additional work has appeared in Philomel, The Evergreen Chronicles and the James White Review.

He has served on a wide range of committees and boards, including past work with the Philadelphia International Film Festival, The Philadelphia Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, The PA Council on the Arts, as well as a founding member of Our Living Legacy (1988), the nations first festival devoted to art and AIDS. In 1993 he served on the East Market Street Sculpture Review Committee, which selected artist Raymond Sandoval’s Tanamend sculpture from among more than 3,000 artist proposals. He was a founding member of The Latin American Writers Collective, Desde Este Lado, as well as of the magazine that bore its name. He was also a co-founder of the Philadelphia Working Fund for Artists with HIV/AIDS. He has been involved in many boards including Taller Puertorriqueño, The Asian Arts Initiative, Spiral Q Puppet Theater, the Bread & Roses Community Fund, The AIDS Law Project, The Legacy Fund, The Center for Lesbian, Gay Law and Public Policy, and served as an advisor to the American Friends Services Committee Latin American and Caribbean Desk among many others.

David Acosta is a founding member of the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression (NCFE) and of the Art Emergency Coalition (AEC). Both organizations were instrumental in their opposition to the culture wars of the 90s. Which started with congressional attacks on Mapplethorpe’s the Perfect Moment exhibition at the ICA in Philadelphia. NCFE went on to successfully sue the National Endowment for the ARTS on behalf of the NEA Four.

In 2010 he co-founded Casa de Duende along with his life partner Jerry Macdonald. Casa de Duende is dedicated to presenting socially relevant art that addresses critical social issues and challenges both artists and communities to address through art and art making, the causes and consequences of cultural, economic, and political realities in the context of advancing progressive social change.

In 2012 he organized and Co Founded the Philadelphia Latin American film Festival. In 2015 he co founded and is co editor along with Susan DiPronio of the online literature and arts journal Wicked Gay Ways. Began in the summer of 2015, Wicked Gay Ways is an online literary and visual arts journal providing a curated forum for a diverse constituency of voices reflective of the many dimensions of “queer” sexuality and desire as embodied in the arts.

In the 1980s and 1990s he wrote and contributed articles to the Philadelphia Art Alliance’s Newsletter and wrote for CosaCosa Art at Large on art and social change, and was a guest columnist for Al Dia Newspaper.

He is currently board President of the Da Vinci Art Alliance and serves on the artist’s advisory board for Taller Puertorriqueño and the advisory board of the John J. Wilcox Archives of the William Way Community Center.

David has curated numerous exhibitions, and directed a Letter to My Father, A Letter to My Son as part of the First Person Arts Festival in Philadelphia and subsequently directed Targeted as part of Common Space a First Person Arts and WHYY festival collaboration at the Fringe. He is a member of the artist collective, Dissident Bodies and Dislocated, and collaborated with Marta Sanchez on a public art project in North Philadelphia titled Reclaiming Gurney Street in 2018. He is currently at work on several art and writing projects.