Ideas Into Movement: Enter the Fringe, Move Our Public Consciousness

Explore how ideas travel from the margins into dominant narratives and the role that artists and writers play in the process.
About this Event

Ideas rarely emerge fully formed into the mainstream. They circulate first through underground scenes, niche communities, online subcultures, art, journalism, and cultural production before eventually shaping broader public life. Some become liberatory movements. Others become mechanisms of fear, control, or reaction.

This panel explores how ideas travel from the margins into dominant narratives, and the role artists, writers, journalists, and cultural workers play within that process. How does culture act as a testing ground for political and social transformation? How do aesthetics, storytelling, and media amplify certain ideas while suppressing others? And in an era shaped by algorithms, virality, and ideological fragmentation, who ultimately controls the narrative?

SPEAKERS:

TSERING ASHA LEBA (Avenue)

JESS ARCAND (Reverie, Take Aim Media)

SAM HESTER (The Sprawl)

MODERATOR:

PAUL BROOKS (Take Aim Media)

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BUMP Festival returns August 3–17, 2026, transforming Calgary through murals, sculpture, music, placemaking, and artistic dialogue. Running August 13–15, the BUMP Urban Art Conference is the festival's ideas hub—a three-day gathering of artists, thinkers, musicians, and cultural leaders exploring the forces shaping public art and the cities we share. Learn more at yycbump.ca and follow @yycbump on Instagram.