This year’s Kickback is centered around the fundamental pursuit of emotional, physical, and spiritual freedom. This gallery is inspired by the idea that there is a connection between creativity and resistance, and how the power of art can stimulate creative solutions that resist the exploitative tools used to keep us marginalized and oppressed. It takes creativity to organize, to move people to action, and to not only remember where we have come from, but imagine where we can go.

​

As an organization, Elevated Thought works to create space for people to unapologetically express themselves by combining art, education, and community building to expand the possibilities for what freedom can look and feel like. Artist and non-artist alike — we are all influenced by the photos that capture our history, the visuals we consume on social media, and even the clothes on our backs. This exhibition aims to highlight the various ways that we as an organization use art to color our approach to resistance, and we encourage everyone as they move through the space to consider the infinite ways each one of us creatively pursue the life we want to live. ET believes we all have the power to resist negative forces of control, and to cultivate each other’s pursuit of liberation; inventing new ways of resisting as we move through the process.