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Yaasmeen B. Systematic poisoning of minorities Systemic poisoning of minorities is a vital issue for me because of the personal connection I have to this piece. My grandmother grew up on Chauncey Street and Ralph Avenue in Brooklyn, Ny in the 50's and experienced all types of racial oppressions such as segregated school systems, lack of resources in public housing, police brutality, and high incarceration rates in the Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood. Growing up as a child I remember listening to my grandmother share stories about her own childhood and how at night she would lay in bed and pick the paint chips off the wall and consume them. My grandmother was the daughter of a woman that went to clean apartments for white people in white neighborhoods and wasn't informed about the dangers of eating paint chips let alone paint chips that were filled with Lead. When my grandmother consumed the lead nothing was done she was poor and she was black and that alone met that she
Yaasmeen Brown
ReplyDeleteThree key ideas discussed in the text:
political representation vs. symbolic representation
An analysis of community-based public art must begin with the vexing question of just how one defines "community" itself.
Community can be defined in relation to spatial or institutional boundaries (e.g. urban neighborhoods, trade unions, prison populations, etc.); in relation to specific issues (e.g. free speech, environmentalism, health-care reform, etc.); or in connection to specific identities (racial, national, ethnic, gender or class-based etc.).
Three questions sparked by the content and/or vocabulary of the text:
How to better build up communities without gentrification?
How does one define community itself ?
differences between political and symbolic representation in community based art projects?
Katharine Means
ReplyDeleteThree key ideas discussed in the text:
- The public artists must be examined "in relation to changes in the systems of arts patronage, the current 'moral economy' of capitalism, and the historical development of progressive urban reform in the U.S.".
- The pedagogical relationship between artist and community can perpetuate Victorian, Evangelical, and conservative models.
- Artists working with "the highly contested and complex symbolize fields that surround 'dangerous populations'... need to prepare themselves with something more than good intentions and 'intuitive wisdom'". They must actively engage with the socio-historical issues surrounding community work.
Three questions sparked by the content and/or vocabulary of the text:
- How can community artists incorporate critical distance and self-reflection when creating work?
- How can community artists break the pedagogical relationship between artist and community?
- How to dismantle the "persuasive cultural mythology, grounded in romanticism, in which the artist is imagined as a kind of trans-historical shaman who had ostensibly sundered themselves from all other social and cultural identities, privileges, and commitments"?
Three key ideas discussed in the text...
ReplyDelete1) Helping lower-class communities has been something upper middle-class white people have been doing for decades just to feel good about their selves. Kester points out that many years ago, helping out poor people out of pity (with not much more than spare change) "...became the necessary vehicles for the bourgeois subject's own spiritual evolution". (Kester, 24) This resonated with me because so many people go to third world countries just for the photo ops. So many people give a begger a quarter and ride that high for a week. This is not enough! Poor people are not for our warm and fuzzy feelings. They are living, breathing humans and we HAVE to do more for them.
2) Community-based public art projects are one part of a large whole. It is not enough for the artist to make something sympathetic--it must speak to the bigger, more all-encompassing problems the at-risk community is facing. The artist that works will a highly marginalized group of people, "...will need to prepare themselves with something more than good intentions and 'intuitive wisdom'. (Kester, 34) This was such a good point. Artists must learn to look beyond themselves!
3) It is our job as community-based artist to deter the conservative idea that being poor and at-risk is "the moral inferiority of the individual subject" (Kester, 13). There are so many external factors to being poor. NO-ONE chooses this life. It is incredibly hard to get out of a ghetto when you are born into one. The government keeps ghettos alive and dangerous by constantly ignoring them and dismissing poor POC issues. The government is constantly dehumanizing poor POC. No-one chooses to go to a school with a low-literacy rate, or to be discriminated against because of how they look or the way they talk.
Three key questions sparked by the content and/or vocab in the text...
1) How can an artist serve a community without gentrifying it?
2) How can undeserved communities continue to prosper independent of the fleeting spotlight given to them by white, upper-class art patrons?
3) How can we, as artists re-possess the image of minorities from the right-wing conservatives (who seek to keep said minorities struggling)?
Three key ideas discussed in the text that resonated with you and your interests or wonderings about community engaged arts
ReplyDelete1) I am interested in the term public arts, the ownership that implies, and the following description that it is interactive. I wonder about what ways that interaction can manifest between a public and their art.
2)I found the distinction of community art from public art clarifying; that the first is more likely to work with social workers while the latter is more likely to work with city planners. I resonated with the concept that these defining words denote very different relationships between "the artist and the administrative apparatus of the city." A term that I think specifies authority in an interesting way.
3) "Mapping the mental and emotional landscape" stood out to me. In the context it was used, it played a negative role of privilege and power over poor. My curiosity was sparked as an actor, whose work is in line with mental and emotional maps for characters. I want to think more on this and how to create characters without judgement or underestimation.
Three questions sparked by the content and/or vocabulary of the text
1) I do not know much about progressive urban reform, which the text says that this new public art is building upon and using as a foundation. I am curious about the history of urban reform and what makes the leap between urban reform and progressive urban form.
2) I found the term "priori community" a bit convoluted and would appreciate further distinction of the timeline of actions that create a community under this term.
3) As a "white, upper-middle class" member, how do I make work that isn't about a group I cannot speak for, but that is also not a repetition of the white, privileged rhetoric that has no place in, in my opinion, being spoken again and again.
Key Concepts
ReplyDelete1) There is a large proportion of community based arts that uses delegates at the forefront to gain recognition. Having an artist create for a community has in some cases allowed misrepresentation to spill out into collections of work that don’t accurately depict or represent the community or issues that were supposed to be the focus to begin with.
2) The victorian Ideal of the bad subject gaining salvation under good guidance through moral oversight as a rule of public representation is the core reason why we use delegates in community arts. It is the practice of the idea that a “positive individual” can teach a group of people who wont be heard, are not the desired class and cannot effectively represent themselves or have no medium to connect to an audience.
3) The artist/moral individual can be exempt from the ideology that they are not connected to the issues that they are attempting to represent. Specifically in regard to Jaar, they didn’t actually have an open line of communication with the community of Bangladeshi factory women, and in the end, they had to remove portions of the project. They don’t provide a foolproof publicity because the most they can do is to attempt to identify with the specific group and connect it in relation to their own experiences but that is altogether subjective.
Questions:
1) Why upper-class communities require the “do-gooder” to listen. Why is it at all relevant and appealing to the elite to engage with communities whilst also looking down on them, requiring this delegate in order to keep comfort. Is this where private funding comes into play?
2) Why does is there a use of delegates in community based arts? Isn’t the entire point of “community based art” to be that the community engages with it and created that representation? If that is the case then isn’t it more that they are shining light on other communities issues?
3) How, as a member of the majority can one interact with community based art projects that still sheds light on the focus issue but also to make sure that it is all an accurate representation? Does this always require a delegate or can it become a frontrunner in all art, to have a member of the community as lead speaker and a supplemental artist guide?
Three key ideas discussed in the text:
ReplyDelete-Aesthetic public art vs. community engaged public art: Art that is placed into a community for purely aesthetic purposes vs. ongoing projects that engage and involve active members of the community; art that is meant to create a look vs. art that is meant to spark or promote social change.
-The relationship between the “delegate” and the community they choose or are chosen to represent; the delegate as a “passive reflection of a prior political entity”; “The ‘community’ itself comes into existence (politically and symbolically) through the expressive medium of the delegate”
-The assumption that the artist is “‘empowered,’ creatively, intellectually, symbolically, expressively, financially, institutionally, or otherwise” and the community subjects are “defined a priori as ‘in need of’ empowerment, access to creative/expressive skills, etc.”
Questions sparked by the text:
-How does the relationship between the delegate and the community change when the delegate is a member of the community?
-How does the artist (especially if they are an outsider to the community) create community engaged work without a hierarchical savior narrative? Or without gentrification?
-Does the “delegate” need to be a singular individual? Can the community self-delegate and create work collectively from within?
Three Key Concepts:
ReplyDelete-I would say the most prevalent concept that I gathered from this reading is this concept of the contemporary artist acting as a social worker and how that relates to the artists relationship with the community and those involved in the collaborative discussion. By interacting with urban planners, architects and several agents associated with regulation of public spaces and community, the artist steps into the role of creative social worker, and it is something current artists should keep in mind.
-Kester successfully brings to light an important quality common among many public art pieces. She argues that often, because of the structures that pre-exist combined with an unaware artist, it is community members whose voice is never heard, but rather the voice of the artist. Because of the "institutional aurthorit of the artist," there is inherently a power dynamic in play that disrupts the focus of community-based public art, being the community at hand.
-Another major point in Kester's writing is the importance of community involvement when it comes to the creation of a piece. Having community participation through the whole art making process is vital to the success of the intend of community art. Therefor the community can have some degree of ownership over the work. This will also inspire motivation for maintenance and the further establishment of more community-public art.
Questions:
-What do you say to a "conservative" who picks up this piece of writing? How can a piece of writing like this inspire "conservatives" and what can we do to include them in the conversation? Even though we may not want to.
-What does building trust with a community look like for an artist? Especially if you are not part of their community.
-How can contemporary artists make space for young artists who are in these communities?
“[The growing influence of this new public art] can also be observed in the changing funding mandates of major private foundations, for whom "community" has become the buzzword of the moment” (1).
ReplyDeleteI'm curious about how much of the community-based arts that are emerging as our generation comes of age have pure intent--furthermore, I'm interested in ways that I and my peers can ensure pure intent for our art. Social justice and arts engagement have been adopted by corporations and private entities and sold to consumers as a product, or at least as a reason to buy one product over another.
“Too often community artists imagine that the very real differences that exist between themselves and a given community can be transcended by a well meaning rhetoric of aesthetic ‘empowerment’" (9).
Kester made me think about the difference between community-engaged art and the community-engaged artist. One can certainly exist without the other, and this is where aesthetic seems to be prioritized over the real needs of any given community.
“The artist is no longer a particular individual, located at the intersection of a set of historically specific class, racial, sexual, and other identities, but rather, a universal and nomadic empath” (25).
I am interested in the relationship between the many and the one, how they can empower each other, and how they can transcend each other. So often I attempt to arrive at the destination of “universal and nomadic empath” in my work, and I’d like to further explore how this can be accomplished through a community and while empowering a community that is simultaneously empowering me.
Questions:
What are my best entry points to engage in a community I’m unfamiliar with? Do I have the right to engage with those communities through my art?
How to allow community-engaged aesthetic art to emerge from its own identity without its predominance over the community itself?
How does anyone become an enlightened reformer? It seems that anyone who labels themself as such could never adequately speak for a community.
-Noah Cott
Kester, while outlining some similar structures and ideologies common among new forms of public art , quotes Suzi Gabilk who addresses public art as, “taking the form of interactive, community-based projects inspired by social issues.” Another ideology among community based art is that it is, “less concerned with producing objects per se than with a process of collaboration, community-based public artist more commonly interacts with social service agencies and social workers” These quotes were new information to me and what I find very prominent is the fact that this art focuses more on collaboration and in immersive environment rather than making an object or product.
ReplyDeleteOne main idea Kester addresses is that community engaged art often is a response to the “dominant culture”. Community engagements are often collaborating with organizations dedicated to resolving problems, such as homeless shelters, women’s centers, factory workers, mothers in a public housing development, AIDS volunteers, gang youth, and many other groups. It is also noted that the communities themselves are often comprised of minority groups dealing with issues involving race, sex, gender, etc.
The last main point Kester includes pertains to the state of the relationship between artist and the community with which they are working. Kester gives a detailed history of public involvement with communities and depicts how very often the incoming artist had been someone who is there to fulfill their own desires and tends to speak on behalf of the community. Kester claims, “the artists' role is to resuscitate their sense of "self-esteem" and to provide them (communities) with a meaningful creative experience that will allow them to become "participants in their own reclamation.” Kester also makes sure to stress the importance of focusing on the larger picture rather than trying to focus on the individual so much so that the issues could be connected to their personal faults.
A couple questions this article raised for me were, What does a “transcendent artist” look like? What can be done to ensure a collaborative environment? How do you combat the argument of “individual responsibility’ to disguise a polluted culture?
The difference between the subjects that make up a “community” engaged in some form of art, and the audience; in this case observers of the change while its occurring who are still a part of the community.
ReplyDeleteArt that addresses a community and how that is different from art that engages a community.
The “delegate” carries the responsibility of representing the community fairly and truthfully just as the artist’s responsibility in “representation” is to the community their engaging with and to their culture, needs, or desires that will seek representation.
Isn’t art that engages a community inherently political by nature, as its involvement of a community creates a division within a greater community?
With the introduction of new art comes greater attention from an “audience”, how can the artist ensure the community identifies with the work and this remains beneficial for them?
If the “subjects” or members of a community seek reformation is some way, how can the public’s observation of that change be made harmless or even assisting?
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ReplyDeleteThree Topics, in which resonate with me are
ReplyDelete1.) Community Art
- Community art is typically centered around an exchange between an "artist"
(who is understood to be "empowered," creatively, intellectually, symbolically,
expressively, financially, institutionally, or otherwise), and a given subject who is
defined a priori as "in need of" empowerment, access to creative/expressive skills,
etc. Thus, the "community" in "community art" often, although clearly not always,
refers to individuals marked as culturally, economically, or socially different either
from the artist him or her self, or from the audience for the particular project.
2.) Cultural Mingling
- As Lewis writes:
The trouble with a lot of politically motivated art is a failure of nerve. Artists
who produce work that they know is not favored by our established regime
are not necessarily taking risks, since they can forecast the results. Truly
taking a risk means not knowing what's going to happen in the end. . . .
3.) The transforming not groups of people but systems that have kept these people in place.
-it presumes
that the "cause" of poverty and disenfranchisement is primarily individual rather than
systematic. Within this dynamic the reform subject (the "poor," the "homeless", etc.),
are understood as a kind of raw material to be transformed.
Questions:
1.) How can my art be more solution based rather than problem magnifying. I often think that putting issues on a public platform, while may sometimes be a solution, often doesn't help the people who are directly effected. Awareness is an effective tool but at what point do we, as artist, make the transition from awaking people to activating them?
2.) In communities that I don't Identify with personally, how can my art encompass them and how can i be an ally to everyone and anyone who needs it.
3.) How am i creating and choosing work that is inclusive and diverse. How am I am I being an advocate of change in my own creative practice. How am I provoking systematic healing and wholeness in my field of influence, what are systems i'm apart of, who is apart of those systems, who is not...so on and so forth.
Three Key Ideas:
ReplyDelete1. Communities themselves are often lost in the whirlwind of people (those who claim to understand the community they're engaging with artistically, but who actually end up doing them a disservice in terms of representation; think Jarr's "One Or Two Things I Know About Them" ), politics (the "passive political delegates" concept), & egos (referring to delegate "embezzlement" which leaves the group-at-large destitute in terms of having lost their community spokesperson to the amplification of his/her/their own ideas & morals). Thus, true community-based art becomes almost mud-covered in the sense that it's being overshadowed by a benevolent, yet maladaptive id.
2. A well-protected "community consciousness" can make or break the positive & fruitful impact of community based art, on said community. Due to the fact that most of this type of creative collaboration is displayed in a public setting, it's easy to confuse the stringing together or serializing (derived from the term "serially", used in description of this on
pg. 10 of the text) of multiple individuals with similar characteristics, with a true collaboration process which celebrates this uniqueness while actively educating & creating space for successful, cultural exchange.
3. Privilege is crucial to consider in the after-effects of creating and displaying a community based art installation. (This one really struck me.) Harkening back to Dedeaux's "Soul Shadows: Urban Warrior Myths" project, the potential for the piece to be inaccessible to the community is easily overshadowed by the themes & subjects of the work because of their nature. They're important topics that need an exponentially growing amount of visibility, & are clearly amplified by Dedeaux. However, in analyzing her means of collecting information, it's discovered that the ways in which she's done so & the opportunities she's had at her disposal aren't accessible themselves, thereby rooting the work in an unavailable place. The result twists the well-intentioned into the distant.
Three Questions:
1. How do I, as a black activist, moderate my desire to singularly take up for my community in a solutionary, catalytic way in the face of daily injustices? Every time a new Sandra Bland or Trayvon Martin's life is wasted like milk on the kitchen floor, I'm filled with the fire of productive retaliation & to push for change anew. This can very quickly cloud my vision & lead me astray from the core goal of my activism: safety, longevity, equality, recognition, & quality of life for the black community.
2. I wonder how best to remain in check with MY privilege as a community based artist...? Because I identify with so many marginalized groups (black, queer, & female) it often seems to me that the concept of having privilege is as far away from me as it can possibly be. However, in thinking about even my own relationships & accessible resources here at CalArts as a student advocate & activist, I'm drawing a blank on how to use them wisely & consciously in order to assure that I'm working with those around me & not for or above them.
3. How do things like protests, lock-ins, sit-ins, die-ins, live field reporting in community areas that present the potential to be involved in danger, etc. present themselves as art? They're obviously woven deeply into the desire to protect, serve, amplify, & bring extreme visibility to the community they're endangering their lives for, but how can that be viewed as art & creativity in and of itself?
Topics that resonate:
ReplyDelete1. A public artist, as it is defined in modern terms, has different identities both ideologically and institutionally. The identity of the public artist changes as the public around the artist changes. The public artist may be in response to or an outcome of the public.
2. Collaboration must occur between the public artist and the community. The community can be defined by a myriad of connecting factors. There must be some form of dialogue between the artist and the community, this can even extend to the community playing a decision making or authoritative role in the art itself.
3. Political representation and symbolic representation can have confusion as they relate they are interpreted from the outcome of an art piece. Part of this is linked to the place of privilege one would have to have in order to have institutional representation. Authority also plays a role.
Questions that came up:
1. Can authority/leadership form from inside the community itself and how would that change the ensuing conversation between public artist and community, would this still be considered a public artist?
2. Can public art comment on the structures it is predisposition to partake in. For example, could public art work with the community of public artist to deconstruct the need for outsider authority privilege?
3. How can an artist ensure that they are not delegating a community, to make sure that the community they are working with is priori community? What is the most conscious and responsible way to identify a community you may want to work with?
Three key ideas discussed in the text that resonated with you and your interests or wonderings about community-engaged arts
ReplyDelete1) The use of "delegates" to get the media's attention. Bringing an artist, an individual that is not from the community gives the possibility of bringing misrepresentation of the communities' voice and issues that the community wants to indicate.
2) Stepping into making "Art" for a community is a lot more complicated and daring action to do than just making your art; you can't just decide based on your interpretation of the communities' thoughts and needs but need to see the bigger picture. Look to see the forest instead of the tree.
3) In conjunction with 2, the most crucial thing is the involvement of the community. The word community means its a gathering of individuals; to make community art, you can't be "The artist" but one of the artists that made the community art.
Three questions sparked by the content and/or vocabulary of the text.
- Is there no way for an outsider to be apart and participate as an artist?
- With social media developing so much, what is the limitation and boundary of a "Community"?
- If a particular community does not have the power and realization of community art, are we supposed to step aside and be a bystander?