Saturday, January 17 through Saturday, February 28, 2026
OPENING RECEPTION | Saturday, January 17, 3–5 PM
This exhibition tells the story of how thoughtful, sustained commitment to design for social change can become a force-multiplier that enriches the struggle for anti-racist, working class organizing. Through the creation of a visual identity using color, typography, illustration, and composition and its consistent application since 2011, Stand Up KC has become inseparable from their iconic red shirts with blocky white lettering and the matching posters and banners they carry at public actions. In a unique visual melting pot, organizational design works in concert with the artistic expression of low-wage workers to forge a compelling movement identity. A wide collection of graphic ephemera sits alongside photo and video documentation and cell phone photography from the workers themselves, which provide compelling visuals of everyday life of people working beyond full time and struggling to get by. This mix of design, documentation, and photography further cements the legacy of workers’ struggle for a living wage, protections on the job, and the right to unionize.
Now stretching beyond a decade, this rich narrative is told through a vast array of artifacts and media. Full-size banners and silkscreened posters carried on the street by workers will be featured alongside dozens of event flyers, documentary video and photos, used to publicize the group’s organizing. Behind-the-scenes process and unused designs, oral histories from workers, and a range of other ephemera will be on display to paint a multi-faceted picture of this ongoing anti-racist, working class struggle for economic justice.
CURATORIAL TEAM
Tadeo Weiner Davis, tyler galloway, Zac Mueller, Aditi Ramaswami, Michael Schonhoff, Les Stitt, and Elijah Winkler; Ruth Collins – Curatorial Assistant
CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS
Chase Castor, Suzanne Corum-Rich, tyler galloway, Steve Hebert, Zac Mueller, David Terrill, Elijah Winkler; student design collaborators:
Anthony Bennett, Alli Sevareid, Devon Wolfe, Sam Yates-Meier, Michael Jumper; The Langston Hughes Club – Stand Up KC worker-photographers
COVER IMAGE
Steve Hebert
ABOUT THE CURATORIAL TEAM
A collaborative curatorial team was assembled to empower multiple viewpoints and skillsets for this exhibition along with curatorial assistant Ruth Collins.
tyler galloway, professor and Joyce C Hall Chair of graphic design, Kansas City Art Institute.
galloway’s research focuses on visual communication for social and political change through work with various non-profit, activist organizations. thenewprogramme.net
Tadeo Weiner Davis, Assistant Professor, School of Social Welfare, University of Kansas.
Davis’ research focuses on community organizing, urban politics, race and class. https://socwel.ku.edu/people/tadeo-weiner-davis
Michael Schonhoff, Director, KCAI Gallery and Art & Design Labs. Schonhoff has over 25 years experience collaborating with living artists in academic environments to realize exhibitions and other projects. KCAI Gallery
Aditi Ramaswami leads communications at Missouri Workers Center, elevating the stories and expertise of workers to make the power of multiracial labor organizing a dominant narrative in Missouri and beyond. Prior to MWC, Ramaswami spent a decade in public health policy, movement work, and investigative journalism to center people over profits and expose corporate and political corruption. https://bsky.app/profile/aditiramaswami.bsky.social
Zac Mueller is an organizer and communicator with over a decade of experience building political movements. Mueller was one of the original organizers of Stand Up KC, who helped build the organization from its proto-formations to its first five years of existence.
Les Stitt, Organizing Director and Cofounder, Missouri Workers Center. Stitt leads MWC’s comprehensive organizing program, developing strategic campaigns that build worker power and advance workplace democracy. With over a decade of experience in union organizing and movement building, Stitt trains and mentors staff, worker leaders, and community members to build enduring worker power through collective action.
Elijah Winkler is the archive fellow for the Stand Up KC Community Archive. He studied labor history at the University of Missouri – Kansas City, and is an associate with the Kansas City Public Library’s Missouri Valley Special Collections.
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS
tyler galloway and student design collaborators
tyler galloway is a graphic designer, professor, and Joyce C. Hall Chair of the Graphic Design department at Kansas City Art Institute. His primary research and practice interests focus on design for community-based social change through both client-initiated and designer-initiated work, which he pursues under his studio moniker, the new programme, alongside student collaborators. he brings 30 years of professional design experience and 20 years of teaching experience to his endeavors. tyler holds a BFA in graphic design from Missouri State University and an MGD from North Carolina State University. His work has appeared in several national and international political/social poster and art exhibitions and been published in the books “The Design of Dissent”, “Posters for the Planet”, “Graphis Poster Annual”, “Reproduce and Revolt”, in Communication Arts, and the Turkish socio-political design magazine “No Tasarim”. Coursework and student projects have been published in the book “Designing for Social Change” and the website “Design Ignites Change”, having won multiple grants through the latter. He has spoken locally and regionally on design for social change and was an invited participant in the LEAP symposium at Art Center College of Design. Design pedagogy papers have been presented at multiple AIGA national design education conferences, Typecon and the international MODE summit on motion graphics. But perhaps just as important, tyler loves riding bikes, punk rock, vegan cookies and being a husband and dad. thenewprogramme.net @thenewprogramme
Steve Hebert
Steve Hebert is an award winning photojournalist and filmmaker whose passion for visual storytelling has taken him across the country and around the world. He co-produced an hour-long documentary, Give Me Sight, which was awarded Best Documentary Feature at the Oregon International Film Awards. His work has always sought to lift the voices of those not heard and to bring viewers to places they may never go. Hebert has spent over 15 years working professionally as a photojournalist for a number of newspapers and magazines including Time, US News and World Report, Business Week, New York Times, LA Times, Boston Globe, and the Wall Street Journal. His ongoing project, “The Quiet Professionals“, is a photo book that features unprecedented documentation of the US Special Forces. Steve is one of the only photojournalists to have been granted access to embed with the Green Berets in Afghanistan, Iraq, Colombia, Africa, and the Philippines.
curiouspixel.com stevehebert.net
Suzanne Corum-Rich
Suzanne Corum-Rich (she/they) has used the storytelling medium of photography since she was a child to document, adapt, and evolve within her ever-changing surroundings and lifestyle as a way to connect to community, check in with her mental well-being, and push back on social norms and systemic injustices. Since beginning her professional career in 2005, her focus has morphed from portraiture to commercial to photojournalism. However, it is her time documenting Stand Up KC and other social activist movements that she credits as a transformational time for both her photography as well as her purpose. After turning her focus to still life photo studies during the height of the pandemic, she was awarded an Iowa Arts Council grant that allowed her to create and show her body of work, In/Security: Galactagogue Study, inspired by her birthing experience of her first-born in 2021. This photographic critique by Corum-Rich questioned the effectiveness of lactogenic foods if we don’t also address the root causes of disparities within the birth and family planning system. Now the mother of two, she is currently documenting the exhausting, beautiful and complicated relationship with personal identity transforming with motherhood through Polaroids.
Chase Castor
Chase Castor is a freelance photographer and photojournalist based in Kansas City. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and local news outlets. He believes photography informs by connecting viewers with the humanity of the people he photographs and by revealing the moments when we “don’t know what we don’t know.”
The Langston Hughes Club, Stand Up KC worker-photographers
The Langston Hughes Club of Stand Up KC is comprised of low-wage workers, which takes inspiration from its namesake to create art that highlights the ongoing struggle to resolve the disconnect between America’s promises and America’s realities. This show features pieces from a series of photographs of members documenting their lives working for billion-dollar companies, but receiving poverty wages. Their work tells the story of the lives of America’s working poor. The Club brings workers together to train with professional artists to tell their stories in various mediums, reminding us that workers’ art – like their organizing – is a weapon of social change.
Elijah Winkler
is the archive fellow for the Stand Up KC Community Archive. He studied labor history at the University
of Missouri – Kansas City, and is an associate with the Kansas City Public Library’s Missouri Valley Special Collections.
Zac Mueller
is an organizer and communicator with over a decade of experience building political movements. Mueller was one of the original organizers of Stand Up KC, who helped build the organization from its proto-formations to its first five years of existence.
Exhibition Details
