Action Speaks! Underappreciated Dates that Changed America returns for its 16th season, entitled "What's Eating Us?" With our country still mired in economic collapse, Action Speaks, with the help of nationally known scholars and practitioners, examines the patterns of consumption that got us in this mess in the first place -- and may help get us out.

As part of Providence's nationally known Action Speak radio show, the inaugural honorees of the AS220 Free Culture Award, Shepard Fairey and Brandon Edens, Harvard law professor, political activist, and "Free Culture" author Lawrence Lessig, and AS220 Artistic Director, Umberto Crenca took part in a public conversation in August moderated by Marc Levitt,  Host and Creative Director of Action Speaks. The conversation included Fairey's work as a public artist and his influences and ideas on the creative process, Lessig's notion of the Public Commons and his thoughts on copywrite legislation and free software. Crenca spoke to the challenges of engaging with notions of Free Culture as the director of AS220, an unjuried and uncensored arts non-profit and Edens illuminated the complexities of free culture in the realm of technology from the perspective of a computer engineer active in hardware and software development. In keeping with the theme of Action Speaks' "Underappreciated Dates that Changed America," the panelists were asked to comment on significant moments in their personal, artistic, professional and political evolution as well as dates in the world of public art and cyberspace that changed how we view and participat with the world. In keeping with Action Speaks' format, the public was invited to join the discussion with comments and questions.

Lawrence Lessig is an academic, author and political activist. He is best known for his work to reduce the legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications. He is the author of the book 'Free Culture'. Currently, Mr. Lessig is a director of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard University and a professor of law at Harvard Law School. Prior to rejoining Harvard, he was a professor of law at Stanford Law School and founder of its Center for Internet and Society. Lessig is a founding board member of Creative Commons, a board member of the Software Freedom Law Center and a former board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation

Shepard Fairey is an American contemporary artist, graphic designer, and illustrator and graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, 1992. He first became known for his "André the Giant Has a Posse" and "Obey Giant" sticker campaign, in which he appropriated images from the comedic super market tabloid Weekly World News. His work became more widely known recently in the 2008 U.S. presidential election for his Barack Obama "HOPE" poster. His work is included in the collections at The Smithsonian, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. He was prominently featured in the new Banksy film, 'Exit at the Gift Shop.' Fairey was arrested on February 7, 2009, on his way to the premiere of his show at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, Massachusetts, on two outstanding warrants related to graffiti.

Umberto Crenca is the founder and Artistic Director of AS220, a non-profit center for the arts in Providence, Rhode Island. AS220 was established in 1985 to provide a local forum and home for the arts.  AS220 offers any Rhode Island resident the chance to exhibit or perform their work in an unjuried and uncensored all-ages forum. The organization maintains thirty two artist live and/or work spaces, four gallery spaces, a printshop, two darkrooms, a technology lab and a stage, and has established a powerful presence in the Downtown Arts and Entertainment District.  Since 1998, Crenca has spearheaded efforts to bring more meaningful arts education programming to incarcerated youth. In 1999, Crenca established AS220's youth arts program, Broad Street Studio, which continues to serve and support youth transitioning out of state care with arts instruction and professional development at AS220's Empire St. location.  Crenca was a visual art instructor at the Rhode Island Training School, the state's juvenile detention facility from 2000-2004. In the past two decades, Crenca has been a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, The Urban Institute, The Ford Foundation, LEF Foundation, Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, Massachusetts Cultural Council, Connecticut Council on the Arts, the New England Artists' Trust, and the Creative Cities Summit. In 2010, Crenca was honored to receive both the Rhode Island College's Charles B Willard Achievement Award and a 2010 Pell Award for Excellence in the Arts.

Brandon Edens began his work at AS220 as a volunteer in 2001 and has served as AS220's system administrator for the last three years. In 2005, Edens obtained degrees in both Computer Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Rhode Island. Edens' training in embedded systems landed him a position as an embedded firmware engineer with Zeo Inc., creators of the Zeo Personal Sleep Coach. He continues to develop his interests in 3d graphics, graphics processor units and game programming with Fluxamalabs, an indie game group. Edens' ascribes to the four freedoms attached to the Free Software movement - to run, study, redistribute, and improve software. One of Brandon's more recent projects, the AS220 jukebox, allows local artists to upload their music via a web interface to AS220.org. Music is made available for AS220 Foo(d) and bar patrons to play via a coin-fed physical interface and participating artists are directly compensated for all paid plays. The jukebox is licensed as free software and publicly available (see www.as220.org/jukebox). Designing and building all the components himself, Brandon created an elegant solution to AS220's boycott of music licensing agencies. As a resident of Rhode Island for the last fifteen years, Edens' was awarded the 2010 Biennial Free Culture Award designated for an outstanding local artist.