I just got back from a meeting in Utah called Creative Change, which was convened by the Opportunity Agenda. This was a retreat for the purpose of examining and strengthening ideas/initiatives at the intersection of arts, activism and social justice. These meetings at which you can meet artists, policymakers, intellectuals, etc are usually very fertile periods of thought for me. Herewith, I’ll share some of the thoughts I had during the past week:
I think that creativity & culture are often diminished to ‘art’ and then bumped from the agendas of major dialogues, such as environment & sustainability, human mobility, resource consumption, conflict transformation, etc. Furthermore, I argue that there is an artificial barrier between art and the other sectors (vis a vis funding structures), especially those for which art/culture is most powerful when applied to in the process of social change. This doesn’t happen because funding structures and their representatives seek to obstruct social change; moreover, it is a characteristic of capitalism that has to be acknowledged and planned for in the process of social change. In following, here are some questions I feel are important:
- What are the openings / puncture points for art actions to have social effects?
- As art for social change (a4sc) gains currency as a byline, who will curate it? And is a4sc necessarily public art?
- Can we expect artists to continue fueling social movements with their creativity if they are expected to sacrifice time/energy/expertise and often aren’t protected legally in the consensus process of social change?
