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One of the great challenges today is that we often feel untouched by the problems of others and by global issues. People often feel overwhelmed and disconnected from these issues, not empowered and poised for action. This is where art can make a difference; by being a tool for social change. Engaging with a good work of art can connect you to your senses, body, and mind. It can spur thinking, engagement, and even action. We become aware of issues that may not be unfamiliar to us but which we did not actively focus on before. Art has the power to raise awareness for issues by pushing the limits of people’s thinking and sparking debates to make a positive social change.
Most of us know the feeling of being moved by a work of art, whether it is a song, a film, a photograph, a novel, or a painting. But the thing about art is that it’s so diverse that there are as many ways to understand it. Leo Tolstoy, a famous Russian novelist, gives his definition of what art is, which goes: “Art is the activity by which a person, having experienced an emotion, intentionally transmits it to others.” Art in this sense is communication; it allows people from different cultures and different times to communicate with each other. Art creates empathy and is one of the strongest ways to make society see injustices and, consequently, to make a change. In the words of Leo Tolstoy: “The activity of art is based on the capacity of people to infect others with their own emotions and to be infected by the emotions of others. Strong emotions, weak emotions, important emotions or irrelevant emotions, good emotions or bad emotions – if they contaminate the reader, the spectator, or the listener – it attains the function of art.”
So, what makes art so powerful? It has the power to educate people about almost anything and access higher orders of thinking. It can create awareness and present information in a way that could be absorbed by nearly all people easily, breaking cultural, social, and economic barriers. The reason why everyone can relate to art is that everyone has emotions and personal experiences. Therefore, art is uniquely positioned to move people and inspire; inciting new questions and provoking curiosity, excitement, and outrage. People connect through art, no matter their backgrounds, political ideologies, or religious beliefs. In this coming together, there are opportunities for communing and mobilizing for change.
By bringing us together to share and discuss, a work of art can make us more tolerant of differences and of one another. Art can help us identify with one another and show us that individual engagement can create significant cultural and political contributions. Art invites people to take part in discussions of social, political, and ecological issues and consider solutions to the challenges that we face in the world. The New York Times details one such individual who serves as a model here. He was not an artist but understood how to use art to change the hearts of society. Frederick Douglass made himself the most photographed American of the 19th century. He sat for 160 separate photographs and also wrote four lectures on photography. Douglass used his portraits to change the way viewers saw black people. Douglass wrote, “You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.” And that’s what Douglass did with his portraits. He took contemporary stereotypes of African Americans and turned them upside down. Douglass posed for his portraits very carefully and in ways that evolved over the years. In almost all the photographs, Douglass is formally dressed, in a black coat, vest, stiff formal collar, and bow tie. He portrayed himself as a dignified and highly cultured member of a respectable society. Douglass once wrote, “A man without force is without the essential dignity of humanity.” Douglass’s strong features project relentless determination and lionlike pride. Douglass was combating a set of generalized stereotypes by showing the specific humanity of one black man. Most of all, he was using art to reteach people how to see. With these portraits, Douglass was redrawing people’s mental maps. He was erasing old associations of black people and replacing them with new ones. He took an institution like slavery, which had seemed to many so inevitable, and led people to perceive it as arbitrary. He was creating a new ideal of a just society and a fully alive black citizen, and therefore making current reality look different in the light of that ideal. “Poets, prophets, and reformers are all picture makers — and this ability is the secret of their power and their achievements,” Douglass wrote. This is where artists make their mark, Art influences society by changing opinions, instilling values, and translating experiences across space and time.
Art also encourages us to cherish intuition, uncertainty, and creativity and to search constantly for new ideas. Artists aim to break rules and find unorthodox ways of approaching contemporary issues; deeply committing to creating work that addresses pressing social issues and change the way we perceive the world. While some artists use traditional forms of art to make work that comments on, responds to, or advocates for the need for change, others are exploring new forms of “social practice” that engage communities in an interactive exchange. Cuban artist Tania Bruguera creates her installations and performances using an unusual medium; other people. Through her work, a single passerby or an entire local community can become an active participant in an artistic creation. This type of art can go by many names: socially engaged practice, community art, new genre public art, and activist art, among others. What unites these approaches is a new take on who holds the power, shifting agency away from institutions and even artists, and giving ordinary people the ability to create meaningful change in unprecedented ways. The art lies in the people who take part in it, the actions they take, and the change they create. Instead of just portraying or reflecting the power structures around us, activist or socially engaged art addresses those structures directly. This socially engaged form of art can ignite outrage and demands for change, and provide a platform for reflection, collaboration, and building community. Artistic expressions like this can focus on the residents of a single city block or reach out to a global audience. This is one way that art can engage with the world to make change.
It can rouse emotions in those who encounter it, inspiring them to rally for change.
Works Cited
- Brooks, David. “How Artists Change the World.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 2 Aug. 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/08/02/opinion/how-artists-change-the-world.html.
- “Does Art Have the Ability to Change Society?” Edited by Daiga Rudzate, Arterritory.com – Baltic, Russian and Scandinavian Art Territory, 1 Apr. 2018, www.arterritory.com/en/texts/commentary/7189-does_art_have_the_ability_to_change_society/.
- Eliasson, Olafur. “Why Art Has the Power to Change the World.” World Economic Forum, 18 Jan. 2016, www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/why-art-has-the-power-to-change-the-world/.
- Ibrahim, Afzal. “What Is Art? Why Is Art Important?: The Art Journal.” Art and Culture Journal, Kyle Design Ventures, 8 Jan. 2019, www.theartist.me/art/what-is-art/.
- Zukowski, Ashley. “The World Changes Through Art, But Can Art Change Opinions?” Medium, hecua_offcampus, 15 May 2018, medium.com/hecua-offcampus/the-world-changes-through-art-but-can-art-change-opinions-582acc3e7697.
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