About

Josiah Golson (b. 1986, Tuscaloosa, AL) is an artist and the founder of 800 Collective. Golson explores personal and collective narratives of identity and advocacy through drawing, painting, poetry, performance, and video. Golson returned to his hometown of Chattanooga after earning his law degree at the University of Texas in Austin. While practicing law, he founded the 800 Collective to creatively inspire and organize civic discourse and engagement. Golson then pursued an artistic practice full time to facilitate workshops through 800 Collective and to complete The Souls of Free Folk (Polyphemus Press, 2018), an illustrated book of poetry inspired by the legacy of Black art and activism.

Golson’s workshops invite participants from diverse communities to use accessible art exercises and public projects to address social issues in creative and collaborative ways. Imagining art as a means of agency, Golson designs and co-creates exercises that guide groups through inquiry and dialogue on matters concerning racial equity, healthcare, affordable housing and other issues that he hears within the communities in which he works. While prioritizing the importance and practice of listening, he draws connections and distinctions among participants and community members, and presents issues as artistic problems to engage and translate into ideas, organizing, and policy. Golson also invites communities to these conversations through workshops based in the worlds of his personal art and narratives.