We’re living in a moment where it feels easier to pretend we’re together or to give up on each other altogether. What's couched as solidarity is really nothing more than a movie prop. Something that looks from a distance, nice from a distance, flimsy up close. It looks real until any real weight is put on it. Anthology is our attempt to build something sturdier. True solidarity isn’t one voice or one tribe or one lane. It’s a collection. Different stories. Different disciplines. Different kinds of work. All bound together by a shared responsibility.
Just like an anthology pulls different chapters into one volume, we’re bringing different contexts, art and theology, business and civic life, mental health and human wholeness, into one shared conversation. One shared table. One shared future. Less about launching things and more about preparing the ground. Seeing what’s coming. Reading the horizon. Doing the slow, hopeful work before the crisis arrives.
"In an age of deep polarization, how do we practice a form of solidarity that doesn't collapse into tokenism, paternalism, surveillance, or condemnation, but instead forms the kind of trust, mutuality, and shared life required for lasting partnership and collective witness?"
Solidarity is an obligation we choose. Choosing to remain in relationship, sharing joy, burden, risk, and responsibility, in hopes of investing in one another's sustained flourishing.
Most of us think solidarity only comes in one shape and size. Side-by-side or shoulder-to-shoulder. But life doesn’t always move in straight lines like that. It turns. It twists. It surprises. When solidarity only has one setting, it buckles under the weight of real life.
At Anthology, we’re convinced there’s a fuller, truer, more complex way to belong to one another. A kind of solidarity that can shift with the moment, take different forms, and stay when things get hard.Come see what happens when we widen the imagination.
Anthology is designed as an immersive journey. We're not here to simply consume content; we are here to excavate our instincts and embody new practices.
We often fail at solidarity because we lack the language to diagnose where it breaks down. At Anthology, we will excavate and explore a new four-part framework. We will learn to distinguish between the Sun Side (Healthy Expressions) and the Shadow Side (Distorted Expressions) of how we relate to one another.
We start by digging. Before we can build anything solid, we have to unearth what we’ve inherited. Our default definitions of solidarity, the ones we've adopted without ever naming.Through stories, practices, and shared space, we open up the walls and let some fresh air in. We learn how often our idea of solidarity is more costume than courage. Something good for the photo, light as foam, but quick to fold under weight.
Day 1 is about waking up our imagination for what’s possible and telling the truth about what’s not.
Then we move from head to body. From idea to action. We ask a simple question with costly implications:
What does solidarity actually feel like when it’s lived?
Through talks, dialogue, and honest exchange across disciplines, we learn how different gifts and vantage points strengthen the whole. Art. Theology. Business. Civic life. Each one a thread that may be thin on its own yet resilient when braided.
Day 2 is about practicing the future we’re hoping for.
A doctor can hand you a pill (belief), but the bloodwork is what proves it got inside you (practice).
We’re not aiming for a motivational high that evaporates before we get back on the plane, or a nicer theory about togetherness. We’re after the kind of solidarity that leaves a lasting mark. Something slow to earn, expensive to fake, and durable enough for the next crisis.
So we’ll end with a call to action: a personal commitment to practice solidarity in one real relationship, for one year. Not abstract. Not anonymous. Not performative. Because solidarity isn’t proven in the telling. It’s felt in the keeping.
We are examining solidarity through the lens of diverse expertise. This gathering convenes artists, theologians, strategists, and practitioners who are writing the next chapter of the church’s witness.
This March, join The STUDIO at City to City for a gathering that moves beyond the periphery of performance to the bullseye of embodied responsibility.
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