The Art of Social Justice
December 11, 2010
Today my conversations and thoughts seem to keep re-centering around the concept that the purpose of art is to push people to think in new and often challenging ways. That art can and should be used to help us re-think how we view the world and how we can re-new the world. The day started off with my husband talking about his belief that art should make people aware of social justice issues that they might ignore on t.v. or on the internet. With art once they have become aware it seems to hook them in a way that isn’t as easy to ignore. We discussed the house arrest of Ai Wei Wei, the artist that designed the amazing bird’s nest stadium for the Olympics, and more recently did an exhibit at the Tate Modern involving thousands of hand painted sunflower seeds. When people are challenged by art it changes the world and occasionally steps on toes.
Other thoughts along this line were spurred on by an online comment by a friend concerned about the people in El Salvador that have recently hit by floods that have destroyed their crops. In digging deeper I found that the women in the area he is concerned about are using art as a way to better their lives through a program called ArtCorps: http://www.artcorps.org/ This is an example of art being used to not just point out a social justice issue, but to help solve it.
Art transforms thoughts, actions, lives. Today I am thankful for this.
