Why make art when the world is backwards and upside down?
“...your life is already artful—waiting, just waiting, for you to make it art”
(Toni Morrison, 2005 graduation address at Princeton University)
When I began writing this post, the Bay Area was experiencing an historical heat wave. Not too long ago back home, Australia experienced its worst recorded series of flood disasters. Racial targeting of Black, Indigenous and people of color remains a violent reality here in the USA, back home, and beyond. Governments fail to upgrade crucial infrastructure, such as the Bay Area sewage plants that killed thousands of fish and marine wildlife in recent weeks. Here, the Muwekma Ohlone tribe continue to fight for reinstatement of their federal recognition that was removed because of a bureaucratic error ¹. Injustices and suffering abound - not just for humans but for animal kin and land too.
As Michael Ellner said²:
“Just look at us. Everything is backwards. Everything is upside down.
Doctors destroy health.
Lawyers destroy justice.
Universities destroy knowledge.
Governments destroy freedom.
The major media destroy information and
Religions destroy spirituality.”
When the world is backwards and upside down, perhaps you wonder, how on earth I could be frolicking around making art³? And why do I believe that engaging in the arts should be available to all? I see two core reasons:
To acknowledge and (re)connect with where we are
To cultivate radical imagination so that we can dream up and build a beautiful future
1. Art enables acknowledgement and (re)connection with where we are
Image from @thenapministry archives of 2017/2018.
One of my teachers, Nicholas Wilton, contends that art is another word for presence. It can take great courage to be present; with the conditions as they are, many of us are not OK.
What’s more, Western, capitalist culture has ingrained within many of us that our needs, our bodies - our humanness - are to be denied, or at least postponed, in the name of earning our place in the world.
As Tricia Hersey, founder of the Nap Ministry, said,
“You think naps are lazy because toxic capitalism told you so. It wants you working 24 hours a day. Your body IS NOT a tool for profit”.
The exploitative, extractive logic of colonialism and capitalism underpins many of today’s problems.
If we’re not paying attention, this logic and its methods suppress our creativity and access to our imaginations, manifesting in separation from ourselves, from each other and from animals, from the land - all of which we depend upon to live.
But to accept separation as a given is hubris and harmful to all. Separation is not the only option for living.
Which takes me back to my original point: individually and collectively, a first step is to acknowledge and (re)connect with where we are.
A reckoning with our individual and collective situation is required, along with a gentle (re)connection with our soul - for which art as a process has a role.
Perhaps you wonder what I mean by art as a process. When creating art, it is tempting to attach to creating something predetermined, something that others recognize as art. Attachment to art as an outcome is seductive and I certainly am not immune to it.
The problem with striving for art as an outcome is that it requires judgment in place of creativity. Rather than the experimentality and playfulness of art as a process, art as an outcome necessitates evaluation of each step to control for a desired outcome. When intentionally creating art as an outcome, we risk exploiting human expression ⁴.
I’m particularly taken by Raphael Montañez Ortiz’s emphasis upon art as a residue of a transformative process:
"I tell you I see a time when art will acquire a direction, so human, healing and revolutionary, a time when all art museums and galleries will be turned into studios where the public will come to actively participate in a ritual which is visceral and revelatory. A time when if anything is to be considered valuable, if anything is to be marketable, it will be the art process itself. The art product will simply be a residue, a sign of the struggle toward humanization. If it is to be displayed it is because the struggle deserves dignity.” (italics mine).
Indeed, artists have been articulating public health and social crises for eons. Art and arts-based approaches enable us to “recognize ourselves”, to heal and repair, to connect with the experiences of others, to make meaning, to amplify voices and to promote health and wellbeing.
So, I hope you see that I’m not talking about mastering art techniques but rather, about reconnecting and nurturing creativity and imagination.
Try it: Check out my free guide to ‘paint with nature’.
The guide offers three steps to follow in 30 minutes (or more or less time, if it suits you better), incorporating what exists in your local context.
2. Cultivate radical imagination.
"If you can’t imagine it, you can’t have it” (Toni Morrison, 1992 lecture in Portland, Oregan)
I began above by outlining some of today’s challenges not to provoke surrender, but as a point of departure towards something different. We can and must imagine what else is possible, to create a beautiful world - one where all are liberated, including people, animal kin and land.
As the Joy Report asks, “What would our world look like if we actually got this right?” Such a question is premised on cherishing what we have too: what of today would you want to carry into this beautiful future?
If you find the idea of imagining new possibilities difficult, there’s more good news: imagination is a muscle that can be strengthened. How, you might ask?
We can strengthen our imagination by cultivating joy.
By joy, I’m not talking about a self-interested joy or ungrounded positivity but a joy that springs from relationality and standing for collective liberation, love and insistence. This kind of joy is medicine for our souls. What’s more, joy inspires creative action, making joy far more effective for change than shame or blame.
Cultivating joy is imperative for our collective wellbeing and in a hyper-productive corporatized culture like the USA’s, can be a radical act that honors the voice within.
If you’re still learning what brings you joy, don’t worry, you’re not alone. What’s more, as we evolve and grow, what brings us joy changes. One tool to uncover and connect with what brings joy and delight is art and arts-based approaches.
Art as a process can be an entirely joyful experience. Finding our way through art is all about being present and tuning into feeling: regardless of how familiar we are with art making, noticing what we like reveals where to go next.
Art enables us to explore what the future could look like.
Back to the earlier question, “what would our world look like if we got this right?”. To imagine a different reality is a creative act. As Walidah Imarisha reminds us,
“Every time we imagine a world without poverty, a world without wars, without borders, without prisons - that is science fiction. Because we have not seen a world like that… And so I believe we absolutely need imaginative spaces like science fiction and as many others as possible - that allow us to dream beyond the boundaries of the real and to root in what we actually want for the future.”
Art and arts-based approaches create these imaginative spaces, where for a moment, anything is possible. In this regard, mistakes are a non-issue because the path is not set. Instead, prose, poetry, paint, dance - whatever your medium of choice - become a tool to explore the future that our heart longs for.
In art, we can play with questions about new realities, such as: Who do we see and how are they/we relating? What are the colors, smells, tastes, textures, sounds, feelings? What is in place for the land to be vibrant, healthy and productive?
We get to create this world through imagination and by doing so, a path to build such a future becomes more tangible.
Try it: Check out my free activity guide to dream up a world where every person is healthy.
Following the prompt for this activity, you can let your imagination run wild for 10 minutes (you can adjust the time, if you prefer).
I hope I have made plain why I believe arts should be available for all. Art and arts-based approaches are a tool to (re)connect, articulate our reality, and enhance our future. Stroke by stroke, line by line, note by note, we get to create that which does not yet exist.
I’ve really only scratched the surface in this post, so please comment below or contact me if you have questions, or would like me to assist you and your team on trying out arts-based approaches in your context.
Footnotes
¹ See Charlene Nijmeh, President of the Muwekma Ohlone tribe, explain how this came to be, approximately 9mins 35secs on this video. You can also read more here. Support the Muwekma Ohlone tribe by signing the ‘restore the homeland’ letter here.
² I draw your attention to native American rapper Supaman who opens his song, “Let it go”, with this quote.
³ What is art? I take a broad view of art as representing a wide umbrella category containing many art forms, genres and practices, such as visual, audio-visual, multimedia, literary and performative - and can include multimethod forms combining these.
⁴ The original version of this blog post used the term ‘commodifying’ rather than ‘exploiting. With thanks to conversations with Sam Friedman (below) and Colm Keegan, I realised the issue to which I was referring was actually one of exploitation. Please also note here that I’m not critiquing the sales of art or the creation of art to sell - artists need to make a living. Rather, I’m speaking to ways we can make space in our lives to acknowledge and reconnect with our current state and soul. I also believe there is much to learn from artists who are navigating the commercial art space, regarding how to balance the process vs outcome emphasis in art (and life).
⁵ Deadly Poets Society is a collective space within CRE-STRIDE for researchers to engage in poetics and deeper discussions about the aesthetic and ethical tensions faced as researchers, particularly at the cross cultural interface.
Acknowledgements: My gratitude to my mum and artist Jennie Bell, Michelle Redman-Maclaren, and the Deadly Poets Society⁵ within CRE-STRIDE: for your influence on my creative process and for providing space to grow and imagine new possibilities through art. Thank you also to Jennie Bell, Vicki Saunders, Sophie Hickey, Naomi Smith and Anne Marie Snider for conversations about a draft of this post.
